We challenged famous sports stars to take part in our campaign and created a reverse fan club and asked them to donate, at least a fan, to show their support for our team to the Special Olympics World Summer Games.

Our Special Olympics stars needed fans more than money, in order to feel like regular athletes.

Thus we created a reverse fan club: instead of gathering fans, the sports stars influencers were asked to donate their fans to the ones who needed them most.

STEP 1 – INFLUENCERS VIDEOS: The sport player would post a video on his/ her Facebook page announcing the cause and nominating two other fellow athletes to do the same.

STEP 2 – FACEBOOK APP: The fans were invited to like the Special Olympics page and enter a Facebook tab with the mechanics of collecting fans, from each athlete involved in our cause.

STEP 3 - FACEBOOK PAGE: once they became fans of the page, the supporters could send their encouraging messages to the team, watch new videos from the sports stars or updates on the Special Olympics team performance in LA. Moreover, the fans were invited to welcome the team upon their arrival from the Games.

Over 40 sports stars joined the campaign: 7 Olympic champions, 12 Olympic medalists, 13 world champions and 2 Champions League winners.

In just three weeks of campaign, their community of fans grew by 150% vs. before.

And the supporters were more involved than ever: the engagement rate, measuring comments, likes and shares on the page, reached 720% during the campaign – 72 more times than the category average.

A total of 194.000 comments, likes and shares encouraged the Special Olympics athletes throughout the Games.

Moreover, the Special Olympics athletes were not invisible anymore: the campaign reached 1 in 8 Romanians on Facebook.

The story spread organically also in other publications, generating over 600 mentions in Social Media for a total of 3.142.000 organic impressions.

And, most important, the impact of the campaign was experienced directly by the Special Olympics team, who received a warm welcome from their fans in the airport, upon their return from the LA Games.