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Last Lift
Can’t Stop the Feeling:
The Sunday River Selfie

Seen ‘Round the World

BY COLIN BANE

AS JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE sprinted up the stairs of the US
Bank Stadium to join his fans in the stands during his Super
Bowl halftime performance of his hit song “Can’t Stop
The Feeling,” 13-year-old New England Patriots fan Ryan
The social media team at Sunday River sprang into action for a perfect
McKenna knew just what to do.
storm around Justin Timberlake, Selfie Kid, and a ski area sweatshirt.
He’d already been filming the show on his iPhone, briefly
fumbled to change over to the forward-facing camera, then really the key with something like this.”
snapped a selfie with the superstar—a fortuitous moment In addition to the thousands of social media impressions
that made McKenna instantly famous as “Selfie Kid.” When across all channels and the thousands of new followers to
the marketing team at Maine’s Sunday River Resort noticed Sunday River’s accounts, Lambert estimates that as many as
McKenna was sporting a Sunday River hoodie for his brief 100 million people may have seen McKenna’s hoodie on TV.
turn in the spotlight, they too were inspired to whip out their That’s pretty close to the Nielsen Media Research group’s
smartphones—for a different reason. number: 103.4 million viewers, tens of millions more than any
“I was at home watching it and within seconds my other television event in the last year.
phone started to blow up with ‘Did you see that!?’ messages,” “That’s pretty good return on a sweatshirt from our gift
said Nick Lambert, Sunday River’s vice president of mar- shop,” laughed Lambert. “It’s always a win when a guest has a
keting and sales. Lambert hit rewind on his remote to get great time and wants to represent and tell their friends—you
some quick screen grabs, then immediately got to work with know . . . been there, done that, bought the sweatshirt. This
Shelley Bowen, the resort’s digital marketing manager, to get time it ended up being the biggest billboard we’ve ever had.”
posts on the Sunday River social media accounts. Twitter: Lambert and Bowen contacted Ryan McKenna and his
“Represented.” Instagram: “Super Bowl already won. Selfie dad, John, via direct messages on Instagram later that night
Kid, we have a pass for you. @justintimberlake, you too.” to make sure they knew the season pass offer was real. As it
By the time they got to Facebook, Selfie Kid was already turns out, McKenna’s school—Derby Academy in Hingham,
a meme, so Bowen started making some memes of her own. Mass., 180 miles south of Sunday River—makes annual field
Boston Globe reporter Martha Schick had a Selfie Kid trips to the resort, so he’s something of a regular. According to
story online before the game was even over, highlighting the Lambert, Ryan says he’s looking forward to putting his season
season pass offer and a short-but-sweet tweet from Sunday pass to use with his family in between school trips.
River’s Twitter account. The day after the Super Bowl, McKenna was featured on
“An editor we work with at the Boston Globe caught our Good Morning America and Ellen, among other appearances,
tweets right away and reached out to Darcy Lambert, our and his Sunday River season pass isn’t the only Selfie Kid perk
communications director,” Nick Lambert said. “The Globe he’s been presented with. Ellen Degeneres hooked him up
story was online pretty quick, maybe 20 minutes later, and with an NFL VIP Experience package and tickets to a New
Shelley and I were coordinating the social media responses England Patriots home game for next season. She also put him
once everything started taking off.” on the phone with her friend Justin Timberlake, who person-
The team later found that the two screenshots that were ally invited McKenna to join him for second selfie in April at
posted on Instagram are now among the top 10 most-liked his TD Garden show in Boston.
posts the resort has ever had. One of them is number 1, with Timberlake, a snowboarder, had not yet responded to
more than 8,000 likes. Sunday River’s season pass offer at the time of printing.
“We’re always trying to plan out our social media strat- “Sadly we have not heard from Justin yet, but we’re having
egy, but in the end it’s always the stuff you don’t see coming,” a good season, with good snow in December and February,”
Lambert said. “If you’re in the right place at the right time, or said Lambert. “Maybe if we get even more snow we’ll hear
lucky, you can jump on it. Fluidity and quick response are back from him. The offer stands!”

76 | NSAA JOURNAL | SPRING 2018