Everyone Is Welcome
Challenge
Shortly after President Trump first proposed his travel ban in 2017, America was beginning to seem like a most unwelcome place. During this culturally-relevant moment, Discover Los Angeles and The Many (formerly Mistress) aimed to tackle Washington’s misrepresentation with a powerful message of inclusion: in LA, “Everyone is Welcome.”
Solution
With the help of hundreds of Angeleno volunteers, The Many created a human-powered billboard visible to incoming international flights touching down at LAX. Volunteers held up cards that, when put together, spelled out “welcome” in four different languages—Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, and English. Using real-time flight tracking data and months of advance preparation, each of the giant welcome signs was coordinated to greet incoming flights based on their origin.
Results
On Facebook alone, the film generated over 2.6 million views, was shared over 1,400 times, and drove over 4,000 engagements. The activation also reached 644,000 fans and earned 13,000 engagements on Instagram. In the traditional media space, #EveryoneIsWelcome was picked up by 54 news outlets, with press coverage in 11 countries. In just 48 hours, Discover LA garnered 673,000 media impressions, worth an earned ad value of over $1 million. Most importantly, Discover LA and The Many achieved the goal of letting millions of people, across the country and around the world, know that #EveryoneIsWelcome in the City of Angels. Real-Time Cultural Movement United by the hashtag #EveryoneIsWelcome, the activation sparked a real-time cultural movement. People used the hashtag as a launching pad to tell their own stories and their sense of belonging in LA. There was so much social chatter on the day of the live activation that #EveryoneIsWelcome started trending on Twitter.
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