I decided to write this post to comment on Celine’s blog and also to comment on the discussion from class. This topic is actually really important to me because I have been involved in the Free the Children group at my high school for several years. However, for this post, I am going to try to comment only on the marketing implications of the campaign.
Although the two seem rather unrelated, the state of this campaign actually reminds me a lot of the life cycle of a product.
The time that the campaign was first launched is equivalent to the introduction stage for a product. A considerable amount of effort is spent on promoting the campaign in hopes of garnering interest and raising as much awareness as possible, just as promotional spending for a product in its introductory stage is high.
In its growth stage, the campaign is viewed by social activists (early adopters), and passed onto the general population (early and late majority). The organization continues to put an effort into promoting the campaign, but the bulk of promotion is done by people who view and pass on the video and the message.
The campaign has yet to hit the maturity stage, but when it does, it means that most people will have already become educated about the campaign. This is when the organization should try to increase the “usage among present customers” (the actions among people who have decided to support the campaign).
In its final stage, the campaign will experience decline, when people are no longer interested in taking actions to find and arrest Kony. (Hopefully, this stage occurs after Kony’s arrest!) At this stage, the organization would have to invest heavily in promotions to re-gain the interest of the public.
Although this comparison of the product life cycle and Invisible Children‘s campaign is not perfect, I find it really interesting that the concept can be applied even here. I think this proves that marketing principles can be applied in much of what we see in our daily lives. Other than products and services, marketing is used EVERYWHERE, in the most obvious or subtle ways, whether we realize it or not.
Please watch the KONY 2012 video if you have not already and visit the website for more information.
