You’re a cynical bunch you Australian media and general Australian people.
I’m talking about your response to the campaign that has driven this blog out of a two year hiatus. I’m talking about Invisible Childrens “Stop Kony” campaign which every bugger seems to be bleating about at the moment. So why not join the chorus? I want to tackle some stuff up front so you know where I stand on it;
- “He’s just one Warlord and there’s heaps of them just as bad” – yes, he is just one Warlord, and there are loads and loads of evil people. But you can’t tell me that 30,000 kids freed from his demonic control and influence is not a good result.
And of course it’s one warlord. This is a central, key and genius aspect of the campaign. Being just one, the worst one, makes the objective achievable. If the message was ‘overthrow capitalism’, ‘bring world peace’ or ‘end poverty and starvation’… these are abstract problems that have no face, no clear, simple and quick end. Everyone feels they are just too big to be tackled and beaten. An appeal to an individual on any of these levels will fail because we cannot have hope of achieving such grand outcomes. But one guy? Surely we can help the Ugandan army catch and bring to justice one guy…?
And the truly sad truth is that many of us are too apathetic to act on a problem that we can’t see a clear and simple end to.
- “The kids are poor and are probably better looked after than they would be away from him” – I can’t stomach this one. Seriously? If I was dirt poor I would still rather stay dirt poor and on the brink of death than sign on to kill my parents, kill my countrymen, mutilate, rape, destroy and violate. I would rather stay dirt poor and on the brink of death than sign on to possibly be forcibly addicted to heroin and amphetamines so that I was better able to be controlled and directed to carry out inhuman acts. Oh, and that’s assuming (wrongly) that I have some choice in the matter, which in reality, I don’t.
- “Military intervention is not the answer” - What else can you answer this kind of behaviour with? PLEASE tell me. Please tell me how else you are meant to face off with a madman with 30,000 crack addicted children wielding automatic weapons. Avoid collateral damage where possible, but this inhumanity is of a scale that is deserving, demanding actually, of a powerful response.
- “But what happens after he’s gone? There is no plan to fix things, etc” - erm. Firstly, when has that bothered us before? And secondly, once he’s gone, at least the world will be in a position to be able to assist the ex-child soldiers. Until he’s gone, those 30,000 kids are still child soldiers and sex slaves. At least we know how to deal with that sort of problem, a bit.
- “Invisible Children is a lobby group, they have an agenda!” - Yes, and yes. But it’s a good agenda, or appears to be. And maybe it’s a bit Machiavellian, but if there is an ulterior motive, it can’t be any worse than leaving 30,000 children in the situation they are currently in.
- “One does not simply overthrow a Ugandan Warlord with a status update” - no. One does not. But if you think this is the guts of the campaign, you’ve barely scratched the surface and you need to open your eyes a little but. More on this follows.
With that out of the way I can get to the guts of this post.
I’m in love with this campaign.
I love it. I want to smooch it, and hold it and hug it and squeeze it. It is quite simply the most exquisitely perfect campaign I have ever seen. And that’s not just because it’s for a good cause. It’s because it leverages and manipulates (in a good way) to a perfect ends all that we envisage and hold dear as marketers and advertisers (and it’s about time that these dark arts were seriously put towards some good use, but that’s another topic).
First up, let’s talk about the sales funnel (STOP SNORING). This basic idea is at the heart of all marketing and advertising. And it goes like this, numbers are examples only to makes the maths easier.
Goal; sell something to your audience.
Target audience; This is the people you want to sell stuff too. Say 5,000 people in this example.
- You make an ad, banner, email, social campaign target it at/to them. You reach 1,000.
- Of those 1,000 perhaps 100 click the link and visit the website. This is your response rate.
- Of those 100 people, let’s say 5 carry out some form of pre-buying action. Fill out a form, leave their details, like the status update, etc.
- And of those 5, one (1) goes on to buy your product or service directly as a result of, and in a straight line from the ad.
Got it? Also, the leads are considered warmer as you get lower down. There’s variations on this, and more complex campaigns and ways of looking at it, but basically that’s it. The key is to maximise the engagement and influence of you or your brand on the leads at every step of the process. The idea of that is that at some point you will move them further down the funnel.
Right. Next up we have online advocacy.
From a marketing perspective, an online advocate is someone who spruiks your brand or product for you. That’s nice, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about social causes and activating people online, mainly through social networks.
I do not love this concept. In fact I have, until this week, hated it. I have joked about its ineffectiveness and ridiculousness. Because it used to be true, and kind of still is, you really can’t overthrow a Ugandan Warlord by liking a Facebook status. Not on it’s own. And not even with 500,000 other status updates.
BUT, within the structure of a well defined and executed campaign, attached to a broader mechanism of connected personalities, organisations, politicians and lobbyists, you totally can.
So let’s first look at the “sales funnel” for this campaign, and how it makes the most of, well, everything.
Goal; Make this Kony guy (in)famous enough that support for the US troops currently advising the Ugandan military does not dry up and finish.
The ultimate goal is awareness, and any kind of declaration of support for the campaign to catch this guy.
Target audience; Predominantly young people, but ultimately, everyone, everywhere.
Before we even enter the ‘funnel’… have you heard about Kony? Yeah? Invisible Children have just reached one of their goals. Awareness. Yours. On that note, have you discussed it with anyone at all? Yeah? That too? Right, you’ve helped disseminate their message. Welcome to the campaign. You’re now helping them meet their awareness objective. Yaysies!
OK, once more unto the funnel, dear friends.
- They have an ad. It’s 29 minutes long and currently has over 42 million views on YouTube alone (the official video alone, it’s been reposted and is also on other video sharing platforms). Have you watched it? You’re now a stat that Invisible Children can add to their dossier to be presented to policy makers in Washington. Hell, it was even played in full on Channel 10 here last night, so there’s another 45 viewers right there.
- Have you been to their website and had a click around? Yeah, me too. Congratulations, you’re another stat in that dossier. One more person aware and active.
- So let’s say you saw the ad, cried at your desk, wanted to do something. You signed up for their Action Kit. You’re a sale! Not only are you another stat in the dossier, but you’ve given them cash to fund their activities and push their agenda.
- And finally, you take part in the night of action. Or if you’re in the US, you write and call your local member of state to express support for the military advisers currently in Uganda.
And that’s their ‘sales’ made and objectives met. And they maximised and benefited from your engagement at every step of the process.
Invisible Children have derived value from your every interaction with this campaign at every level.
But wait, there’s more. They have leveraged the social and connected nature of people and technology these days to use you and your networks to increase the reach of their message and pour more people into the top of this funnel, and hence, more activism and sales come out the other end. BAM! During your journey through the funnel, did any of the below happen?
-Did you care about it enough, in any way shape or form, positive or negative, to comment, share or email this around? Mmhmmm? Welcome back to the campaign and congrats on raising more awareness. You’re also another stat in the dossier.
- Now, you may actually follow through with their night of action and take part in the penultimate activation event. You’re well and truly part of the campaign now, reaching even the non-connected, anti-social punters who still only look to walls for their news and current affairs.
And with the advent of this campaign I eat my metaphorical hat…
… in relation to attempts at effecting political and social change through Facebook ‘likes’. Invisible Children gone and went and done something that could work.
Your standard run of the mill Facebook “Stop Puppy Farms” campaign is flat. A single person sets up the group and thinks that if they get 100,000 ‘likes’ that the government will act. They won’t.
Stop Kony is different. The structure within which their audience are being encouraged to act is not flat. If you like the statuses, or even become aware and interact with the campaign at all, you form the base. You are the grassroots. You are the slacktivist.
If you take it a step further, share with your friends, buy the action kit, use the action kit, hassle a politician, etc. you’re the next level up, you’re an activist!
And above that is the lobby group itself. A formidably powerful group (they’ve already influenced foreign policy enough to get the military there in the first place). A lobby group which has just been armed with; 42 million YouTube views of their ad (and associated shares, likes, comments), 2.26 million Facebook ‘likes’, website visits in the millions of hits per day and money. Sweet, sweet money to keep their machine rolling and their quest to rope in celebrities and politicians to further the cause and increase their influence.
And the ultimate objective is truly simple and very achievable. Keep the audience engaged and inspired enough, for long enough to keep the US advisers to the Ugandan military in Uganda long enough to bring Kony to justice.
And once they catch the Number 1 International War Criminal… well, there’s always number two.
On a personal note, I’m married and a father now. I wasn’t the last time I updated this blog. A lot has happened between posts. The Social Web, and the new connected universe we now live out our lives in is actually an immensely powerful tool. Stop Kony is by no means the only way it can be used to good ends. Heck, in the last week alone I’ve personally connected people who can help each other in some way to make either, or both lives better. Amplify that, target it, direct it… and we can invert the pyramid of influence and right the wrong of money driving political power and get it back to people driving political power. Given I know more about these technologies and platforms than most, should I live in a world, and ask my daughter to live in a world, where I have the power to do good, to make things better, to improve the lives of those so desperately in need… and not do something?
I thank, and love, this campaign for opening eyes, mine and others. For empowering slacktivists and activists. And for having it’s head and heart aligned and in a good place. We see far too much of the opposite these days.
