Cancer. 

The very word sends a chill down our spines, and with good reason. Almost 40% of the US population will get cancer at some point. Over 1.8 million new cases occur annually, and it kills over 1,600 Americans every single day. In other words, it’s one horrendous disease.   

Luckily the fight against cancer never stops, and neither does Bristol-Myers Squibb’s commitment to fund it. Its annual Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer event brings together employees from all over the world to take part in a cross-country cycling event and raise money. And in 2019 the riders raised over $1.4 million, and for the first time documented the whole event with User Generated Content (UGC) captured on Cinebody instead of a traditional production crew. It was a huge success, which you can read about right here. 

The plan for 2020 was to repeat that success and the same way, but you already know what’s coming next. A little thing called the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees, and while training had been started (and documented) BMS felt it was safer to put the event on hold. A new plan was set in motion. 

Doubling down to raise money in 2021

Twice the riders. Twice the miles. Twice the potential to raise serious funds for the fight against cancer. 

That, in a nutshell, was the solution to the 2020 postponement. Bring back the nine 2020 teams who didn’t get a chance to ride, and add nine new teams to the 2021 lineup. That meant 18 teams, and over 230 riders raising money for charity. And at that kind of scale, Bristol-Myers Squibb knew the best way to pull off filming this event was through Cinebody and UGC. 

As always, it started by onboarding every employee taking part; a simple process that’s just a link to download the app, plus a shot list to follow. “Giving these riders the ability to easily film their own personal, authentic stories was crucial,” said Hannah Pike, a producer at Lumenati. “They could document everything from buying and fixing up their bikes, to training, traveling, and making the ride.” And as each team completed a leg of the 3,000-mile journey, from Oregon to New Jersey they could film their participation in the event. 

Now, one of the huge advantages of Cinebody is that it automatically uploads footage to the cloud right after it’s been filmed. So as each team completed their stretch, editors could grab that content, regardless of where they were or what time it was, and begin creating content such as recap videos. So it took just four days to create a showcase video documenting the team’s entire involvement from March through to the end of the ride in September. That kind of lightning-fast turnaround is impossible with traditional filming methods.  

24 days of outstanding content. One amazing result.

At the end of the 24-day event, Bristol-Myers Squibb had 18 high-quality recap videos featuring footage from all 18 teams across their cumulative 6,000-mile journey. “We produced 19 amazing videos in less than a month, all done with UGC,” said Pike. “That was double the content of 2019 in the same timeframe, and we were very proud to be involved in such a great cause.”

So, did the Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer 2021 fundraiser hit the target? Well, it raised over $2.6 million dollars which are to be donated to the V Foundation for cancer research initiatives, and simultaneously documented the entire ride from start to finish. What’s more, twice the content was created compared to the 2019 event, but in the exact same timeframe. And that proves a major point; cloud-based UGC platforms like Cinedboy are almost infinitely scalable. 

Tell any traditional production team that you want twice the work of last year in the exact same timeframe, and they might call you crazy. But by turning participants into filmmakers, and having everything instantly uploaded, the task becomes not only possible but an achievable template for other charities and organizations to do the same.   

The future is most definitely in the hands of the content creators. It’s time to embrace it.