Elmo Checks In

About This Project

Summary

On January 29th, Elmo posted a simple tweet checking in with his fans. The candid question struck a chord with adults, who began sharing their feelings, fears, and anxieties with their furry friend. The tweet quickly went viral, making Elmo the ?#1 trending topic on Twitter/X.? In response, we seized the moment and harnessed our full suite of brand and character accounts to continue the conversation around mental health, and drive awareness for our library of free Emotional Well-Being resources.

Goals & Objectives

To build awareness for the free resources on Sesame.org, we created posts that could serve as candid, casual starting points for a conversation about mental health. Once a post went viral, we were prepared with supporting content that continued the conversation and drove traffic to resources.

Results & Impact

Elmo's original tweet reached nearly 220M people, with reactions from dozens of brands and celebrities, including President Joe Biden. The entire campaign reached a total of 320M people, brought in 295k new social followers and 30k new email sign-ups, and inspired over 850 earned media pieces.