When the W.H.O. declared COVID-19 a pandemic, much of what was being said about the virus was misinformed, politicized and inaccurate.
What people weren’t hearing was science, data and facts, nor were they hearing a global perspective.
As an NGO with no paid media budget, ONE relies on its celebrity supporters to get its message out. But as the lockdowns intensified, celebrities were the last people anyone wanted to hear from. So we asked them to step away from their social platforms and let someone else take over: experts on COVID-19. Scientists, doctors, economists and global health experts suddenly had an audience of 779 million.
The takeovers kicked off with Julia Roberts handing over her Instagram account to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Over the course of six weeks, 43 celebrities handed over their Instagram accounts, Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts to experts on COVID-19, who would then use them to blast out facts, data and science that explained why a coordinated global response was critical for ending the pandemic.
The engagement was powerful, and equally important, global. There were over 4.3 billion media impressions, over 91 million social actions, over 87 million video views and more than 3.8 million likes, comments and shares. #PassTheMic was featured on major news outlets around the world and quickly surpassed 2,300 media hits. And with hundreds of thousands of people demanding a coordinated global response, ONE’s awareness and supporter base grew dramatically.
