It starts off like this #stopkony or watch this video now or make him famous. According to YouTube, the video produced by the charity Invisible Children has been watched a total of 72,433,716 times around the world – so far. Some don’t know what to believe, others are for it other against.

Its exhilarating to see how powerful marketing can be so raise such a controversial issue, bring it to public light and have the world see it and change their opinion all within 30 minute video. Sometimes I don’t know what to believe is true anymore. Although its meant to be a great cause it could turn into a disastrous situation. What inspired me to write this blog was when I was flipping through the blog roll and came across my classmate Simrat Tatla’s Blog; Unethical Marketing towards Children in the sense that we always use kids to portray unethical issues and put them in the middle of the spotlight to gain emotional appeal from our viewers. In KONY 2012, the producer of the video used his own son to immediately gain the viewer’s interest, through emotional appeal just as the kids in Simrat’s blog are used either unethically or ethically (depending on your views) through emotional appeal.

So this has to be real right? Supporters of the campaign include Barack Obama and Bill Gates, yet I’m still not convinced. The fact that support packages cost $30, and a bracelet with KONY’s face on it costs $10 on their website makes me believe that all this is just a fad driven by consumer enthusiasm and immediate product or brand popularity. An article from the Daily Mail UK stated that essentially by focusing all our attention on the fading warlord the KONY 2012 movement were diverting millions of dollars away from charities to cut out AIDS, starvation and other corruption which are issues that affect African’s far more than a single warlord.

What to believe or not to believe yourself, that I will leave up to you.