Perfect in both execution and articulation; ripe for social
media proliferation – it drew rapid promises of activism from millions of
people. Our nation, spoiled by comparison, gobbled up the do-good message; committing
to get involved in local grass-root activities for Invisible Children’s “make Kony famous” campaign.
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| I mean, it even played up the two-party stagnation plaguing this country! |
The date was set – Friday, April 20th.
The assignment was
clear – blanket your city with Kony
posters, murals and stickers, wear self-devised Kony tshirts and face paint.
GET THE WORD OUT at any cost.
While over 3.5 million people had pledged to “cover the
night,” the actual turnout—almost everywhere—proved lackluster at best and in
some cases non-existent.
Traveling on business, I was afforded the opportunity of
seeing fruit of the campaign’s labors in both Chicago and Denver. I use the
term “seeing” loosely, as one had to really look hard to notice anything; the
occasional poster taped to a bus station or fence post, a spattering of sidewalk
chalking, and a few poorly concepted red Anvil t-shirts.
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| 4/21 Denver - Millennium Bridge |
So much hype. So much
hope.
And yet, the “make
Kony famous” campaign lost steam.
What went wrong?
Even the most passive social media user could not escape the
viral propagation of “KONY 2012” – it was everywhere. What the same audience
might have missed however was founder Jason Russell’s public nudity and incoherent
rants, caught on video. But don’t worry - what was finally determined to be a brief reactive psychosis, an acute state
brought on by extreme exhaustion, stress, and dehydration – is NOT to blame for
the derailing of the “make KONY famous” campaign.
What the Social Media
Gods giveth, the Social Media Gods taketh away.
KONY 2012 fell victim to, what we’re coining as, the Triple
A’s (AAA) of Social Media Marketing – (yup,
you heard it here first, it’s ours) – The
Triple A’s (AAA) of Social Media
Marketing.
Awareness and Amplification – A 1 and 2, (the upward
climb).
KONY 2012 rose to fame on the backs of social media –
Facebook, Twitter, even Instagram feeds were clogged with solid, powerful
messaging.
You found yourself re-sharing it just to fit in – who cares
about requesting a kit or making a donation – you’ll do that later, right? Hop
on that bandwagon!
Attention Span (short) – 3, the quick decline into irrelevancy.
Released in early March, KONY 2012’s 4/20 call to action was
nearly eight weeks out. MAJOR MISTEP. Social Media trends come and go – faster than
news headlines! What’s curious and new one day, becomes annoying and overplayed
the next, blocked the third and forgotten history by week’s end.
The KONY 2012 message was great – it invoked action from the
darkest of cynics. But you can’t get people all rallied and riled up and ask
them to sit and wait 2 months.
What could have helped?
- Establish a network of instant-gratification providers first: The KONY campaign should have started by assembling a network of globally dispersed consumer businesses. By arming them with t-shirts, bracelets and other collateral, they would have had a way to provide instant gratification to supporters at the height of their awareness.
- A more tangible countdown to 4/20: Everyone loves a larger-than life clock counting down the weeks, days, hours and seconds before a major event – instant hype. An equally iconic thermometer could have been incorporated – rising with the number of pledges and engaged parties. The KONY 2012 campaign could have augmented these with the release of new video snippets, interviews and statistics to keep feeding the masses net-new information leading up to “cover the night.”
Getting a campaign to go viral is hard. It’s about chance;
stumbling on what resonates. Assuming your lucky enough to strike a nerve and
invoke action, don’t blow it all by with a maligned CTA!
Keep the window tight; the pace of technology has made us
impatient. Heck, at this point, instant gratification isn’t fast enough.
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