Star Wars Force for Change - The Walt Disney Company and U.S. Fund for UNICEF
The Star Wars fan base has been supporting causes for over a decade. With Star Wars: The Force Awakens slated to release in December 2015, Disney and Lucasfilm saw a tremendous opportunity to engage the Star Wars fan base in an initiative to create a significant social impact, demonstrating what can be accomplished when many people come together to take small actions that add up to big change. This idea is the driving “force” behind Force for Change.
Star Wars: Force for Change was a brand new Star Wars initiative from Disney and Lucasfilm in collaboration with Bad Robot. The inaugural campaign benefitted UNICEF Innovation, a program dedicated to finding creative solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems facing children today.
Fans of UNICEF and Star Wars entered on celebrity auction site Omaze for a chance to win a walk-on role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The campaign included a range of elements including videos by director J.J. Abrams, a Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert spoof video, exclusive experiences, limited edition merchandise and widespread media and social media coverage including support from 17 additional UNICEF countries. Partners leveraged their massive fan bases to drive awareness and also offered additional unique experiences including Reddit AMAs with several Star Wars heroes.
Over a 9 week period, over 125 countries participated and over $4.2 million were raised for UNICEF Innovation with Disney committing $1 million to launch the initiative. The effort received widespread coverage in traditional media outlets from TIME to Upworthy. Video content views total over 20 million in aggregate.
The $4.2 million raised by this initiative will support UNICEF Innovation’s work, which has a network of 14 Innovation Labs that are creating sustainable solutions to critical issues facing children around the world in the areas of nutrition, water, health, and education. Campaign funds will enable UNICEF to launch at least 2 new Innovation Labs, and scale successful programs.
