‘Benny the Bull’s Day Off’
Mascot’s adventure plays out on Snapchat, Twitter
CHICAGO — Dancing on the roof, microphone in hand as he lip-synched to “Twist and Shout,” Benny the Bull was putting on quite a performance as his tricked-out black van rolled through downtown Chicago.
It was not quite “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and it won’t be coming to a theater near you. But as spoofs go, “Benny’s Day Off” is quite a production.
The story starring the Chicago Bulls’ mascot played out almost in real time on social media on a recent Monday, with scenes posted on Snapchat right after they are recorded throughout the day. The team also tweeted the effort while the crew headed to the next location, fans tuning in to see what Benny would do next.
“You’re only limited by your imagination,” Bulls digital content manager Luka Dukich says. “You can do a lot of damage with a phone these days.”
The NBA, including team and player accounts, has about 1.3 billion likes and followers over various social media platforms. The Bulls, by their own count, rank second to the Los Angeles Lakers among major North American sports franchises with nearly 25 million followers across Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram.
Snapchat has emerged as a major player in recent years, particularly when it comes to reaching younger fans. NBA associate vice president of social media Sam Farber said a “vast majority” who follow the league’s account are younger than 24.
“It’s really important for us to use that platform to reach that audience in an authentic way and we found that to be quite successful over the last couple of years,” he said.
The NBA’s relationship with Snapchat started in 2014 and expanded this season with more in-game content and behind-the-scenes coverage. The league can also post features that show the evolution of the crossover or players talking about the first time they dunked, for example, on the Snapchat Discover channel. It can produce live stories that capture the atmosphere at the arena.
It allows the dozens of players to show themselves in a different light. The same goes for the teams, whether they take a more serious and basketball-centric approach or try to have fun with it, like the Bulls.
“Benny’s Day Off” comes on the heels of a Clue-themed feature in late January that also starred their mascot. It had more than 60,000 views on Snapchat, another 55,000 on YouTube and Facebook in little more than two days after a marathon production that went from the United Center to a shop in Chinatown to a movie theater on the city’s North Side to the famed Second City comedy club before heading to Daley Plaza downtown.
In Chinatown, Benny visits a gift shop. The bull in the China shop drops a large glass egg — which actually lands on a team employee lying on the floor off camera — before getting kicked out of the store.
There’s Benny, to the tune of “Danke Schoen,” standing outside a North Side movie theater and two “fans” freaking out as he passes them on an escalator. He buys two buckets of popcorn and spills them when he bumps into another “fan,” played by Second City’s Martin Morrow, trying to take a selfie with him.
Not long after, he’s shown leaning against the side of his van with a large image of him and the Bulls’ logo, before climbing onto the roof and sitting on top as it rolls through the Old Town neighborhood toward downtown.
There are no seatbelts up there, just some bars to hang onto. There are also speakers and a hatch that allows him to climb from his windowless compartment in the back to the roof.
Benny’s actual identity is kept secret from the public. He rarely utters a word when he’s in uniform, and if he does, it’s usually out of earshot from anyone but a Bulls staffer. Yet, the reactions speak volumes. There were smiles and laughs and people snapping pictures particularly as the van made its way along Wells Street toward downtown. And there were glowing reviews on Twitter as the story unfolded.
“It’s awesome to have this platform and be able to do what we do here,” Dukich says.