Coming off the heels of President Trump's proposed travel ban, the travel industry was at a standstill. With Los Angeles being a popular destination amongst tourists with 47.3 million travelers visiting our diverse and inclusive city, we had to ensure the world knew Los Angeles was the welcoming place it's always been. Mistress and our partner Discover Los Angeles wanted to address Trump's travel ban and spark a cultural movement. We had a simple and clear message that we wanted to share with the world, and that was "Everyone is Welcome."
To ensure the world knew Los Angeles was the welcoming place it's always been, Mistress, with the help of hundreds of Angelenos, created a human powered billboard visible to incoming planes touching down at LAX.
The signs were created by volunteers, each holding up a place card that came together to spell out the universal greeting "welcome" in four different languages – Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and English. Each of the giant welcome signs were timed to incoming flights based on their origin, using real-time flight tracking data and many months of preparation.
We filmed our live activation and the emotional stories behind the people that volunteered. The film was pushed out on Discover LA's social channels and was supported with a digital media buy in the social space.
The activation sparked a cultural movement united by the hashtag, #EveryoneIsWelcome. People even used the hashtag to tell their own stories and their sense of belonging. In fact, there was so much chatter that #EveryoneIsWelcome became a trending topic on Twitter the day of our live activation.
On Facebook, our film generated an impressive 2.6 million views, was shared over 1.4k times, and had over 4k engagements. Our activation was also shared on Instagram, reaching 643.7k fans and 12.8k engagements. The comments section was filled with support and a sense of belonging. It even made some Angelenos cry with pride for what Los Angeles stands for.
And it didn't stop on our channels, our human powered "welcome sign" was heard around the world. Our activation received press coverage and 54 news stories from publications such as LA Times, Billboard, and Forbes in just a short 48 hours after the event and garnered 673K media impressions worth an earned ad value of over $1MM.
