Annie Lui's Blog

It seems as of late there have been quite a few big media sensations. For instance, last month’s “Linsanity” fad had been constantly tweeted and posted on every sports fanatic’s pages, earning the phenom Jeremy Lin a whopping 1.4 million subscribers to his personal Facebook page and over 2.07 million followers on Weibo. This month started with a different vibe, a more solemn one. If you don’t know what this may be, here is the video:

KONY 2012

This 30-minute documentary film is produced by Invisible Children, the advocacy organization leading the movement to bring down one man, Joseph Kony. As I type this, the video has over 71 million views.

Although there have been many bashing and skepticism to this campaign, as with other similar campaigns, there are many things to learn from it as a marketer.

Referring to Eric Vachon and Mary Manzo‘s posts on socialmediatoday.com, they’ve pointed out 3 key strategic marketing lessons from KONY 2012.

1. Make preparations so that it is easy for the audience to act
   • Invisible Children prepared their website with forms and contact information so that once you decide to take action, you can easily find and contact them
2. Target influential audiencewhom have reach
   • They went about targeting celebrities whom could amplify their message and politicians whom could actually act on it
3. Put the audience in state, and then move them to action
   • Very wisely, they didn’t ask you to take action until the end of an intense 30-minute message. They put you in state by starting with something we can all relate to – family and friends, and the desire to connect.

No matter what people’s opinions are regarding the integrity of the organization, I definitely commend their marketing strategy of gaining awareness through effective use of viral marketing.

“This is now becoming more than a trend – viral is, in large part, the future of marketing.” – Kenneth C. Wisnefski.