Impressed with the cause brands David Clark had created for Muhammad Ali and President Nelson Mandela, Motown Legend Smokey Robinson reached out to Clark in 2012 with a request to meet him in Los Angeles in a couple days to explore ideas on how best to leverage his iconic status to promote social justice.
Clark sensed an opportunity to utilize the charitable goodwill associated with such a renowned celebrity to create social impact on a massive scale, but the major challenge was to come up with an authentic idea in such a short timeframe.
Clark realized that one of the things that was so special about Smokey was not only his iconic status but how revered and beloved he is by people within the music industry. With that in mind, he came up with an idea that he felt would fully tap into the immense reservoir of goodwill most artists and their managers had for Smokey.
The idea, which Clark presented to Smokey when they met, was to hire the top talent producers to approach celebrities consisting of musicians, actors and athletes, to Tweet and post on behalf of a cause Smokey felt was important.
To illustrate his idea, Clark showed Smokey a list of the top ten celebrities on social media. “How many of these people do you know?” Clark asked. “All of them,” Smokey said after scanning the list. “If you asked someone like Beyoncé to Tweet and post about a charity that you felt was important, would she do it?” Smokey immediately said, “Not only would she do it, but she would also be grateful I’m not asking her to take time out of her busy schedule to do a benefit concert - which is what we get asked to do all the time.”
Clark went on describe the potential impact on a cause when millions of fans see celebrities they admire post messages containing links to project pages where they could get involved, donate funds and be educated about an issue, they could also increase the reach of the message by sharing the post with their own followers. In short, Clark figured out how to create viral campaigns with a massive reach that could be created at will – for a cause.