AT&T | Eclipse Impossible

Winner of 6 Telly Awards for Branded Content
North American Excellence Award in Consumer Electronics

The first time that James Boehm experienced a solar eclipse, he was 13, and he could see. But by 2017 – when the next solar eclipse came to North America – James was blind. Would he ever be able to experience an eclipse again? The odds were stacked against him. And James was not alone – there are 285 million blind and low-vision people in the world.

Our outreach strategy focused on telling James’ story, as well as AT&T’s network preparations leading up to the eclipse. We targeted national and local print and broadcast media to generate widespread awareness about AT&T’s efforts before, during and after the eclipse. In the social space, we created the #EclipseImpossible hashtag and encouraged its use. We also targeted influencers who either had a disability of their own or knew someone with a disability to help spread the word about James’ story. The centerpiece of the campaign was a moving documentary-style video about James’ experience.

The campaign resulted in 1,058 traditional media placements earning 1.43 billion impressions. Several large mainstream media outlets featured AT&T in their coverage of the solar eclipse, including CNBC, Forbes, USA Today, Washington Post, FOX News, Digital Trends, Science Daily, 3BL, ZDNet, The Atlantic and Mic.

Social media campaigns around AT&T’s eclipse-related activities generated additional interest and excitement. In total, we tracked 935 social media posts that collectively generated 5.4 million impressions.