Benedict Cumberbatch has placed seventh in the public
vote of the 2012 Time Magazine 100 Poll, beating world statesmen
including Barack Obama and David Cameron, and becoming the highest
ranked actor on the list, above Hollywood royalty including
Angelina Jolie and George Clooney. The poll was won by the
counter-culture group Anonymous.
Time magazine launched the public vote with the aim
of allowing it's readership to choose the final member of the
annual poll, alongside 99 others chosen by the magazine's staff and
contributors. Benedict's high placement can be attributed to an
explosion of support across Social Media. The poll was launched on
Time's website on Thursday March 29, and the online community
across Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook became fully aware of his
inclusion on the list of candidates the following day.
On Saturday March 31, Sherlockology instigated a
poster creation campaign on their social sites in support of
Benedict, and with the aid of the #VoteBenedictToWin hashtag an
incredible fan led awareness drive began. The first round of poster
submissions on March 31 saw Benedict's votes climb to over 28,300
votes and move him into fourth place on the poll. By the time
voting had closed on Friday April 6, the campaign had generated
over one hundred unique poster designs and pushed Benedict
Cumberbatch into seventh place in the poll with a total of 91,480
Yes votes, and the second smallest number of No votes of any of
those in the top ten.
While Benedict may not find himself placed amongst
the final members of the 2012 Time 100, his high placement in the
public vote, effectively coming out of nowhere to emerge ahead of
so many others, is an able demonstration of the growing strength of
Social Media to influence online polls in a way standard print and
media campaigns cannot hope to match going forward. We would like
to extend a huge well done to all the fans who got behind the
#VoteBenedictToWin campaign.
