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What did the Fearless Girl do for her client?
What exactly did the statue of a girl facing the charging bull of Wall Street do for the company that installed it?
Among the other things that McCann New York’s Fearless Girl’s statue did was quickly going viral online, garnering over 1 billion Twitter impressions in the first 12 hours, and eventually reaching 4.6 billion Twitter impressions and more than 215,000 Instagram posts over 12 weeks. A petition signed by more than 40,000 people demanded that Fearless Girl stay put, opposite the Charging Bull, through 2018.
Created for financial advising company State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) had no paid media backing it. That makes it all the more remarkable. The installation itself was to promote the first anniversary of SSGA’s SHE Fund, which invests only in companies that have women in top leadership functions.
McCann teamed up with sculptor Kristen Visbal to bring the Girl to life. The team scrutinized every single detail - from where her hands should rest to what her stance should be, making sure that the statue’s appearance would support what SSGA stood for. There is no doubt that the Fearless Girl was indeed a viral sensation, but how did a statue of a young girl help SSGA’s business, if at all?