Today’s post comes courtesy of Adam Benjamin, Vitrue’s chief strategy officer, from our New York office.
Good day all! The other night my wife and I were watching the news about US Airways flight 1549 and the most incredible job Capt. Sully and the crew did to bring home all passengers safely to their families. Once again, New York was front and center, but this time, a positive story. During these trying times, with troubling news in international affairs, the economy, and other domestic issues, we are presented with a story that gives us hope and reasons to “believe”. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others. That is hope.
I am a native New Yorker and work for a company named Vitrue where we help major brands like Pepsi and Ben and Jerry’s reach their passionate following using social media tools like Facebook. I don’t mean to preach, but my personal take on marketing is this – a “brand” has no definitive rules, guidelines or boundaries. Whether you are a Fortune 500 brand, a university, a musical artist, or in this particular case, Captain C.B Sully Sullenberger, “brands” are made everyday and can be practically anything or anyone.
That night, while the news was on, I loaded up Facebook and told my wife that I would create a tribute “Fan” page for someone who deserves to be called a hero. What started out as a simple tribute to Captain Sully has grown into a phenomenon. A man who was “just doing his job” now has 300,000 fans thanking him for his heroic efforts and contributing over 14,000 pieces of content to the page in photos, videos, and web site links, or just simple, but powerful, praise. When this page was created, I sent it only to two people. From those two people and those actively searching for Captain Sully on Facebook, the page was discovered. The outpouring of good will, support and praise for Sully has been truly amazing. At its peak (yesterday afternoon), the rate of growth topped 200 fans/minute!
To be very clear, this Facebook Page was created because this man, and this event, struck a very personal chord with me and my family here in New York. He and his crew deserve to be honored. For those interested, I would like to share a professional observation that we all probably rarely consider in our daily lives. Individual and group social interactions are truly the most powerful means of creating and maintaining brand identities. We are all interconnected, influenced, and inspired by each other’s thoughts and actions, which are represented as stand-out benefits of social media and the proper use of it. If you are interested, we have put together some statistical views of Captain Sully’s “brand” and how it has soared across the web:
Facebook Fan Rate for Captain Sully
Fundamentally, I believe that people are looking for positive news in such bleak times of recession and strife – myself included. Captain Sully’s heroism has provided a beacon of hope, character and true leadership and I personally thank him and his crew for “doing their job.”
Thanks Adam for sharing this story with us. Captain Sully is truly a remarkable hero. Have a question or just want to sound off, please leave a comment and join the conversation.
Update: MediaPost recently covered Captain Sully’s well deserved Facebook fame in the article titled “Incident Sends Airline’s Social Media Index Soaring.”
Update: MarketingVOX coverage “Twitter Breaks News of US Airways Crash, Pilot Gets Facebook Fame.”
Update: Fan Rate graph was updated (1/21/2009)
Update: 11 Alive coverage “Hero Pilot a Huge Hit on Facebook“
Captain “Sully:
A true true miracle; God was sitting with you in that seat as you saved all those people and your crew.You’re a marvelous human being!!
God Bless You Captain Sulenberger
Mike Kiley
Rochester,NY
Captain “Sully” A true true miracle; God was sitting with you(and maybe an angel or 2) in that seat, as you saved all those people and your crew. You’re a marvelous human being!! I pray I am able to meet you someday and shake your hand.
God Bless You Captain Sulenberger
Mike Kiley
Hi Adam. I couldn’t agree with you more. Coincidentally, I referenced the Captain’s exponentially growing fan base in the latest post to my blog http://open.salon.com/user_blog.php?uid=8815.
I was fascinated by how fast he was gaining fans. As a branding professional trying to sell a social media strategy to my company’s internal stakeholders, I was happy to see that I was not alone in my observation or my conviction that social media is here to stay and an integral part of the way we communicate. Thanks for starting the page. He is a true hero.
Kim Selby
Westmont, NJ
I have to say, although I really appreciate this work, I resist saying the Captian performed a miracle or that he is a brand, or whatever. He’s a human being, a highly-trained, highly-competent former member of our Air Force and an example of what we should all aspire to be like: Our personal best! I think this more gets to the heart of our new “Yes we can” ideal; Captain Sully looked at the river and probably said to himself, “Yes, we can,” and landed that plane on that river.
Just saying because I think it might be helpful to consider not idealizing him, but realizing that we too can perform “miraculous” feats. And it is time for all of us to shut off the TV, put down the video game, and do just that.
[...] posts a link to a blog entry to his comapny blog where you can follow the “brand of Captain Sully.” Not much more to [...]
Every now and then something happens and a single pilot earns all the pay for all of us for at least 10 years. You are the one. You did your job. You did it well and you made all of us proud. You have brought honor to our profession Captain Sully, thank you!!!!
[...] s’essaie à une anatomie de la propagation sur Facebook d’un héros moderne, le Capitaine Sully Sullenberger qui a amerri un A320 dans l’Hudson. Et Twitter continue de faire réfléchir aux nouvelles [...]
Hi Adam. Nice job!
Hey,
I was wondering if the raw data you created those graphs from are available. I teach a college algebra class, and I’m looking for real-world exponential data, and there is certainly some exponential growth going on as people first became fans. I’d love to use it!
Howard
@Howard,
Normally we do not share data (either client or proprietary). But in the case of the Captain Sully fan rate date we can. I’ll send an email to the address you used when you commented. Thanks for reading.
-mike
[...] notable in our overall list of biggest movers is US Airways and must be due the heroic landing by Captain Sully and his crew to create the incredible Miracle on the Hudson which captured the hearts and minds of [...]
I noticed Captain Sully was getting a lot of fan mail in the 60 minutes interview. Does anyone know the address which we can send a letter that will reach his family?
Dear Captain Sulley, You look like a humble, distinguished man. But, yet, you performed a feat that was anything but humble. I am 71 yrs. young, & so happy that I lived long enough to see a phenomenal feat performed by a human being. I wish I had been on that plane with you, to be so honored, would complete my life. God bless you and your family Captain Sulley, Charmaine Helms, Kuna, Idaho Someday a movie will be made of your experience-who would you like to play YOU- It should be YOU!!!!
Adam I found your article thru a friend on facebook. Thank you so much for writing something positive about a person. So many people would like to find something in this man’s background that would throw him out of the hero category. And a true hero he is. Just doing his job. He wants no medals. But he has all of our blessings. I only hope and pray that I am never in a plane that has to go down. But if I do I sure hope and pray that My Captain would have the same instincts that Sully had.
Dear Adam Benjamin
Thank you for making all this possible. Captain Sullenbergers and his crews heroics were just as big news here in Sweden as in the US.
This world really needs heroes and along came this competent and humble man and saved so much more than just the day.
I guess that we all secretly envy him, but in a positive and constructive way, knowing he’s well worth this.
He won’t be forgotten. Coming generations will learn about the great that he and his crew performed on that cold January afternoon, on the Hudson.