NEW YORK, March 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --Today, Pharrell Williams and the United Nations Foundation joined forces to celebrate International Day of Happiness around the globe in an effort to raise money and support for the United Nation's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). It's not too late to donate; visit http://bit.ly/HappyDayCERF to support humanitarian efforts worldwide.
"Today showed the power of what happens when people come together around something they believe in," said Aaron Sherinian, Vice President for Public Relations of the UN Foundation. "It raises awareness and funds, and has raised the level of volume of humanity in support of the UN. Pharrell Williams has created a pop-up community for global good that can help change lives and change the conversation everywhere."
Throughout the day, Pharrell has spotlighted videos of people demonstrating their happiness to his chart-topping, worldwide hit "Happy" at www.24hoursofhappiness.com. With an unbelievable and overwhelming amount of participation from people literally everywhere, Pharrell has just announced an encore play of the roughly 200 chosen videos from nearly every single time zone starting this evening at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Visit www.24hoursofhappiness.com to watch.
- HappyDay and related hashtags have been used in over 70,000 tweets in the last 36 hours, by more than 20,000 contributors, for a total of over 211 million impressions.
- HappyDay tweets continue to roll in around the world, from UNICEF and WHO to Victoria Beckham, Forest Whitaker, Good Morning America, Brazilian TV presenter Marcos Mion, CNN, PEOPLE and Glee.
- Over 1,300 videos from 20 time zones in more than 70 countries have been submitted to www.24hoursofhappiness.com.
- More than 1.6 million photos have been tagged on Instagram with the hashtag HappyDay.
- A 12-minute Supercut of selected shots (guaranteed to make you laugh and cry) led Hour 20 (12pm PT). Watch here: http://smarturl.it/HAPPYDAYvideo.
- Pharrell surprised a roomful of students in Miami who had created a "Happy" video, which kicked off Hour 17 (12pm ET). Watch here: http://bit.ly/teachHAPPY.
- While the overwhelming majority of videos were created by fans, noted YouTube sensations, Walk Off The Earth, Pentatonix, Eric Hutchinson and Kina Grannis also contributed cover versions.
- Participation sparked a Twitter frenzy, with related hashtags trending worldwide in English and Spanish, and in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere.
- Watch additional "Happy" videos from fans in Paris (http://bit.ly/HAPPYParis), The Philippines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TizA_jTCSS8), and even a Star Wars-themed clip from Tunisia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HvaFhUcm-4).
For more information on International Day of Happiness, please see tool kit:
https://sm01.box.com/s/io62fzicfpevkd0wo357
http://www.pharrellwilliams.com
https://www.facebook.com/Pharrell
http://www.youtube.com/iamother
https://twitter.com/pharrell
http://instagram.com/pharrell
SOURCE Columbia Records
