President Barack Obama visited Seattle on Augst 17, 2010. At approximately 1:38pm two F15 fighter jets were scrambled out of Portland to intercept a seaplane that inadvertently violated the secured airspace over downtown as it landed on Lake Washington. These F15s caused sonic booms that were heard not just in downtown Seattle, but all over Western Washington. This is the story of what happened next.
As soon as the sonic booms occured, the Seattle Twittersphere was abuzz with questions. Tweeps in downtown Seattle and the Capitol Hill neighborhood felt their homes and offices shake from the force of the boom. No one knew what had happened.
In minutes, news sources confirmed that the sound had been caused by the F15s scrambled in response to what amounted to a pilot’s innocent mistake and that no emergency had occurred.
Once the Nology Media team confirmed there was no emergency, we began to have a little fun with the situation…
“It was an Obooma!” our developer said.
“It needs a tee shirt!” our marketing director said.
And the “Obooma: I Felt It” tee shirt was born.
Using California-based Zazzle, Nology Media submitted a tee shirt design. It was approved and ready for purchase within an hour of submission. Less than an hour after the shirt was available for sale, Nology Media CEO Leigh Fatzinger was interviewing live on KOMO Radio discussing the shirt.
With the help of Seattle media and other local Tweeters, the Obooma tee shirt was sweeping the Seattle Twitter scene. When we learned the tee shirt idea was being met with some viral success and they actually began selling at a brisk pace, we decided to donate all of the proceeds to locally-based nonprofit The Moyer Foundation.
Since then:
If this isn’t a testament to the sheer viral power of Twitter, we don’t know what is.
By Emily Gibian
Enjoy this post? Like Nology Media on Facebook!
Leave a Reply