About #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia and #LoveArmyForSomalia
|
So Turkish Airlines listened when a humanitarian aid campaign that began completely organically on social media and called on our company – as the only airline that flies to Somalia – to use our global network and reputation for hospitality to help the people of Somalia. Jerome Jarre, a French social media star with 1.3 million followers on Twitter, drew attention to the hunger and drought in Somalia with his video, viewed 2.5 million times, calling for our help with the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia, on Wednesday, March 15. Following this call for action, high-profile Twitter accounts including Hollywood star Ben Stiller added their voices to the call for Turkish Airlines to support this campaign. The #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia campaign was immediately noticed and followed closely by our Directorate, and within the hour we had contacted Jerome by telephone. Turkish Airlines has worked with the popular French YouTuber in previous years on past digital projects. After responding that Turkish Airlines would like to answer their call quickly, Jerome and 5 friends from New York created content with the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia, and then #LoveArmyforSomalia. The team of 6 had a network of more than 10 million followers and a primary purpose to raise social awareness globally, with their supporters snowballing in a few days to generate 1.3 billion potential views around the world. Following these developments, Turkish Airlines got involved in the project with its post “We love Somalia. We got the call for this meaningful flight” on Thursday, March 16 on its local and global Twitter accounts. On Friday, March 17 – within two days of the start of the #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia hashtag – we granted official consent for carriage of 200-tonns of aid throughout 6 months, and transportation of the first 60-ton aid by a cargo flight dedicated to this campaign, which we announced via video captioned “Ready for take-off to help Somalia” on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Following Turkish Airlines’ commitment to fly aid to Somalia, the social media stars launched a financial support campaign on “gofundme.com” to raise funds for the basic needs. With the goal of $2 million USD, the campaign has raised $1.8 million USD from 66,000 donors in just three days. Reaching millions of people in just a few days, this humanitarian aid campaign will undoubtedly provide contributions to Somalia. |
As a global carrier and Turkish brand, Turkish Airlines takes pride in being the airline that flies to the most countries in the world, and that delivers an experience deeply-rooted in the legendary hospitality for which our nation is known.