Last October, Pepper Advertising and Arthur Lok Jack GSB co-hosted a Creative Workshop called “The Rules Behind Breaking Creativity Rules”, where we learned out of the box strategies to create more effective advertising campaigns for our clients. The strategy that stood out to me the most was one called “Fight for a Cause”. It involves identifying a public issue that your target audience will champion, and building a campaign surrounding that issue. With shrewd media placement, the most successful examples take on a life of their own as enthusiastic fans spread a brand’s message without much effort from client or agency!
Perhaps you’ve heard of a little video called “Kony 2012”?
Invisible Children is the advocacy group behind the massively viral video. Clocking over 27 million views on Youtube after first surfacing earlier this week, it’s safe to say this is the first half hour long video to go viral this quickly. As a social media marketer, consider my mind blown.
Kony 2012 first came to my attention when I noticed it posted on a popular local Facebook page. A few minutes after that, a friend reposted it. Three more pages reposted it. Four other friends reposted it. It trended on Twitter. When I got home on Wednesday, I heard it blasting from my roommates’ computer.
The seemingly inescapable nature of the video reminded me of that creative workshop and got me thinking. Upon first viewing, the moneyed production values, slick editing and emotionally gripping score came together to gut punch my social conscience. Caught up in the hype, if I had a credit card I would have donated in a heartbeat. But looking at it through a marketer’s lens, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t simply the best fundraising campaign in the history of advertising.
It’s food for thought, but there are no losers here. At best, donations inspired by this video will go towards improving the lives of suffering people. At worst, it’s certainly fodder for interesting conversation in Pepper’s art department, and a new awareness of a world outside our borders.
