Entertainers need to entertain, and thankfully for a country where the majority are cooped up at home, the diversion is welcome. This weekend introduced a bevy of new normals for traditionally-live programming like professional basketball and the comedic skits of Saturday Night Live. Even early-aughts rap mogul, Diddy, hosted a dance party online to raise money for charity.
The creators had to get innovative, but you could tell most were happy to be in their wheelhouse, doing what they are best at for the public.
ESPN is hosting a virtual H-O-R-S-E challenge, which is even earning sports section coverage for starved fans. Players from the NBA and WNBA are recording positional shots, and sending that shot to a rival player, challenging them to make it, much like the traditional game of H-O-R-S-E. The players are slotted in a common bracket tournament format.
SNL returned with a new episode, albeit not live, through a series of home recordings, many utilizing (and poking fun at) the Zoom app. Tom Hanks even showed up, recovered from COVID, to host the show from his kitchen. While the show probably will never go all-digital, as it missed the nuances of live sketch-comedy, such as studio audience reaction and cracking up of actors, they did a good job to take an inward look at what the new normal of our everyday lives is like, even for celebrities stuck at home with their cats.
And finally, Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Sean Combs used his celebrity and Instagram skills to host a dance party marathon with his children to raise money for frontline COVID-19 workers. Diddy's Team Love Dance-A-Thon, hosted a variety of celebrities including ex-rival Drake, ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James and more. The marathon brought in more than $3.7 million for Direct Relief and they are still accepting donations.
It just goes to show that with a little creativity, any brand can still reach out to fans and followers in unique and beneficial ways.
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