As most of you guys have probably seen the trend these days blowing up all over our facebook walls reading something about “Neknomination.”

Neknominations are short videos where essentially university kids drinking copious amounts of alcohol in ridiculous ways and then publicly nominating 3 others to join along in the drinking game. I have seen people beer bonging vodka– to drinking out of a shoe, to even shot gunning several beer upside down.

I have even been nominated 3 times myself publicly over facebook, but have turned the requests down. In my opinion, this is such a RIDICULOUSLY stupid competition and is just fostering terrible behaviour amongst our youth. However, I am intrigued at how this trend has spread like wild-fire from it’s origin in Australia.

The public video nominations continued to change and be altered, with the first version of this being a New Zealand “neknomination.”  In the video first Kiwi nomination that went viral, the gentleman gave away food supplies to a homeless man, and publicly nominated 3 others to do the same. This was a brilliant use of taking advantage of the social media trend for a great cause! Thousands of videos followed, copying the trend of doing something good for the less fortunate.

 

Another public nomination I’ve been witnessing lately, has been amongst girls raising awareness for breast cancer. Girl’s have been taking “Selfie’s” for cancer awareness, but with a twist– they aren’t WEARING MAKEUP! Lots of celebrities have joined in on this, and joined along supporting the trend. The nice thing about this photo sharing is there is a distinct call for action as participants are supposed to hashtag #nomakeupselfie and are prompted to text 70099 BEAT to donate approx 3 euros to the Cancer Research Society.

This was an amazing shift in what used social media to spread something harmful and disgraceful to society, to actually prompting people to share photos/videos for the greater cause. And unlike slacktivism actually issuing a DIRECT CALL FOR ACTION, if it be donating a meal to the homeless, or donating directly to the cancer research society through a quick text message, it makes a huge difference.

I love this change in using the power of social media and virility to do something good. What are your guys’ thoughts on the viral spread of nominating people publicly to do something good over the internet?

 

Souces:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588831/Women-taking-no-make-selfies-breast-cancer-accidentally-adopt-Polar-Bears.html

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/how-no-makeup-selfie-trend-suddenly-became-cancer-awareness-effort-156480

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/online-drinking-game-neknomination-raises-concerns/article16761879/

 

 

Does anyone remember the good old KONY 2012 social movement— or is it a long and distant memory that i’m sure a lot of us have forgotten by now.

Let me refresh your memory, Kony is an african warlord who was responsible for massacres, mass rapes, and creating a legion of child soldiers. He has evaded capture for nearly three decades.

There was a 30 minute film released on Kony, urging to make him famous and fight to find Kony and bring awareness. The video went viral and had over 100 million views.

As I got curious as to what impact the campaign made, I did more research and found out that there is a LOT of controversy towards Invisible Children organization, as out of almost all of the revenue they raised– SO LITTLE ACTUALLY WENT TO THE CAUSE. In 2013,  the organization made approx 32 million in received revenue , and you know what?… a whopping 82% of that went into “media, mobilisation, protection and recovery”, according to the report.

The biggest increase in expenses was for mobilisation, which includes film tours and music tours, international events and advocacy.

Kony 2012 brings up two strong problems I have with social causes:

1. How non-transparent these organizations tend to be, not being completely clear to consumers on how their donations will actually impact or reach the cause they are fighting for. Did consumers donate to the cause knowing the money is going back into advertising — or think it was going to the invisible children like Kony promotes?

2. These social movement crazes inherently create a lot of  Slacktivism in the system, where consumers all think that by “liking, or sharing,” the post is enough to change and actually feel less obliged to donate to the cause as they already feel as though they’ve played their part.

In fact, research shows that a large majority of an online community contributes nothing, fewer then 0.24 percent of consumers who show support to a cause online actually contributed in form of donations. Compared to traditional forms of mobilizing this is a very poor conversion rate!!

This resonates well with me, I mean I liked and shared the Kony Video and was an activist in the movement and in my head that was me doing enough (which turns out I’m happy I did as the organization did not seem to be so transparent or truthful then we all had hoped.)

That is my opinion on the whole Kony movement, would love to hear your guys’ thoughts on the subject!

 

Comment below!

 

sources:

http://www.news.com.au/world/remember-kony-2012-well-its-2013-what-happened/story-fndir2ev-1226550575923

http://governancexborders.com/2014/03/04/online-slacktivism-is-there-a-trade-off-between-virality-and-sustainability/

http://invisiblechildren.com/kony/

For those of you who don’t know what cause-related marketing is, it’s where an organization donates a portion of their product/service revenue to a charitable cause or nonprofit organization. This is often seen as an attractive option for larger organizations as they can improve their brand perception, boost sales and lastly receive a tax credit receipt from doing so.

Many articles say that cause-related marketing is a great thing, because essentially “everybody wins”-– the company, consumer and the nonprofit organization! The company receives the benefits mentioned above, the consumer receives intrinsic gratification and emotion benefits as they can now feel as though they’ve contributed to a greater cause, and the charity organization receives a ton of awareness and also receives some of the donations from the product/service.

“A Crucial Catch,” is a month-long breast cancer awareness campaign support by the NFL. Despite how great this cause may seem, there has been a lot of critics– questioning how much good the NFL is actually doing… or are they just “pinkwashing,” for their own personal gain and to just increase their own bottom line?

There has been a lot of criticism on how only 8 percent of all pink products is actually donated to the cause. Since 2009 when launching this campaign, the NFL have donated over 4. 5 million while the league has made over 9 BILLION in revenue just last year alone. If the point of the entire campaign was to ACTUALLY fight cancer, fans would have a much bigger impact just skipping the NFL gear and donating the $100 directly to the organization working to fight cancer.

One of the largest benefits for nonprofit organizations in cause-related marketing is the exposure they get from working with these large organizations. But one issue I want to bring to the table is— HOW MUCH IS AWARENESS WORTH? I mean we all know that Breast Cancer is a huge problem and affects thousands of women every year, we are not blind — we see the yearly campaigns and I think almost all of us can associate Breast Cancer with the colour PINK. But is awareness really worth that much if majority of people already know about the issue and if no/little money  is ACTUALLY going to the cause? 

Lastly, typically consumers who buy into the cause helps them feel good about “supporting” the quest against breast cancer with minimal time and effort. This could actually have a reverse effect, as they will feel less obliged to donate otherwise as they feel as though they’ve already “contributed.”

In my opinion,  I think cause-related marketing is somewhat beneficial for nonprofit organizations ONLY if the cause they are supporting is uncommon. As common causes such as Breast Cancer, already has HIGH awareness, and in turn they just receive less donations as consumers already feel like buying a product is contributing enough (when the cause receives very little from each product.)

What do you guys think? Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Is the NFL using this strictly for their gain? or do you think they are trying to make a difference to the cause?

Sources:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2013/10/27/is-the-nfls-pink-breast-cancer-campaign-doing-more-harm-than-good

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/oct/17/nfl-breast-cancer-pink-merchandise-profits

 

 

This title fits perfectly with my blog post, because when it comes down to it, being “Green,” has no universal meaning, and the definition depends and varies from person to person. To some, being green means that the product/service is healthy for them, it might mean to others that it’s recyclable and to some it may mean that it was ethically produced— green has many definitions, in which I hope one day a standardized definition can be created and universally understood.

It can even be argued that there is no such thing as a truly “green” product at all, as several green products on the market, actually take a lot more resources and energy to create them and in turn creates a lot of waste. Or often they may be green in one circumstances and not in another, like with Hybrid cars whom have batteries that are hazardous to expose of and bad for the environment. Additionally, often creating greener packages even requires more materials–so again cancelling out the cost and environmental savings.

In the industry there is a tool that combats this problem called the life-cycle assessment (LCA.) This tool essentially does a cradle to grave analysis on different products that companies have. This is very helpful as companies can use it to identify opportunities or areas where they can improve within their product’s product life cycle– from the manufacturing stage, raw materials or even to waste. It’s very valuable in particular for addressing energy usage and assessing where it can be improved.

The government is also trying to legitimize LCA and create a standardized system of analysis.  Then it could be used as a marketing tool for the industry, which in my opinion would be VERY useful for consumers like myself who would want FULL transparency.

What would you guys think  a LCA rating or badge that can be branded into product packages as an indicator of TRUE GREEN RATING? Do you think this would be a good idea?

Comment below your thoughts!