From June 11-13, 2024, the George & Barbara Bush Foundation hosted 41@100: A Celebration of George H.W. Bush for Bush 41 alumni, Bush Foundation supporters and thousands of community members at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Center on the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas. Through a series of events, they commemorated President George H.W. Bush’s extraordinary life, achievements and legacy of service during what would have been his 100th birthday week.
Elmore’s goals were to use media relations and social media to:
- Raise awareness of the events
- Drive attendance to the events
- Demonstrate how the President’s legacy of public service can be an inspiration to us all
For months leading up to the June celebration, Elmore also supported several 41@100 microevents with strategic media outreach and, beginning in March through June 13, took over the Bush Foundation’s social media strategy and execution.
To connect with reporters, present 41@100 details in a compelling manner, and drive awareness of the events, Elmore developed a media presentation that explained the importance of 41@100, along with an events overview, interview opportunities and visuals. Our approach earned interest from media across Texas. During those three days of historic events, Elmore:
- Credentialed 54 members of the media from 11 outlets
- Coordinated and staffed 28 on-site media interviews with the Bush Foundation, Bush School, Bush grandkids, Jon Meacham, Jean Becker, Bush Library & Museum, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett, all of whom spoke about the events and their importance.
- Facilitated a live 6 p.m. news broadcast with KBTX, the only full-power, fully staffed television station in the Brazos Valley, from the new Marine One/4141 Locomotive Pavilion, where the entire news hour focused on President Bush and the 41@100 events.
For our social media campaign, we collaborated with key partners such as Texas A&M and Destination Bryan, the region’s tourism organization, to reach new and younger audiences. We created a regular posting schedule that balanced 41@100 content with historical and evergreen content to keep followers engaged. We additionally ran boosted campaigns on Meta and LinkedIn to widen our reach and engage new followers about 41@100.
These strategies proved successful. Much of the media coverage incorporated President Bush’s legacy into their storytelling around the events. Several of the public events sold out. In total, Elmore earned 347 media mentions and 794,000,000+ impressions. During the time of our campaign, engagement on social media increased by 170% across all platforms as compared to the prior time period (the same length of time preceding the campaign).
