Erika
Gallagher
How do we save the world in only seven minutes? How
far will we go to break the rules? What can we do in our first 48 hours?
Marek
Dorobisz seems to think not. Eight groups of three have been working tirelessly
to create something clever, meaningful, and impactful. After two weeks of
intensive training and education sessions, we were all eager to learn about
marketing strategies from Dorobisz, and ended up getting much more! At this
point, our social campaigns should be fleshed out and ready to air in the
coming week—but are we really ready?
Dorobisz’s
presentation was short and simple, chock-full of good videos and memorable
advice. Additionally, he was arguably the most controversial speaker throughout
the program, fulfilling our need for new voices and viewpoints in what quickly
became a bubble of full support in Humanity in Action. But, as Dorobisz argues,
political correctness kills all campaigns.
With
that aside, it was time to begin the analysis. We watched some of the most
outrageous, unrelated, and genius marketing campaigns across the world, from
Super Bowl ads to Skittles commercials. And what did we learn? Social campaigns
are a booming industry, and we can either play into it, or reject it. Either
way, there’s no telling if our campaigns will go viral. Viral videos require a
budget, some stars, and a good camera; as a group of recently-graduated or
current college students from across the globe, it is safe to say that we do
not have much money to spare. So what’s next? Where do we go from there? Well,
there are a few things: keep making ideas, keep brainstorming, and keep
failing.
(This was the first commercial we
analyzed—what do puppies and horses have to do with beer? Apparently a lot!)
Media
is time-sensitive—news cycles change rapidly, bringing in new content every few
days to overshadow a previous controversy, to bring in a cuter puppy, to talk
about a new book. Luckily for us, Dorobisz reminds us that “ideas are always
new,” and therefore, we have the capabilities to make something amazing happen
at least once…right?
In
short: maybe. As I mentioned before, success is no guarantee regardless of the
work or effort you and a group put into a project. Marek did not hesitate to
remind us that we are bound to fail at some point. With his no-nonsense,
call-out-BS attitude in the forefront, a few brave souls exposed their ideas to
the criticisms that we have been skirting around throughout the entire
fellowship.
Dorobisz,
as you might imagine, did not hold back. Groups spoke up, impassioned about
women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, discrimination toward Jews, and more. Arms
folded, each group member listened as Dorobisz ripped their babies to shreds,
their closest ideas and passions lay in tatters around the room, unspoken and
rejected in the following hour. The problems were all the same: too complex,
too boring, and/or way too big. My group did not share, but hopefully we stray
far from these categories of imminent doom.
Dorobisz
showed us that it is time to get serious. With just two weeks left, we must
work on our campaigns as well as start our post-fellowship action projects
(yikes)! With such short time, it is important to remember these two key tenets
of advertisement: the first 48 hours determine the success of a viral, the
first 5 seconds grab the most attention, and people are only willing to pay
attention to you for 7 minutes of their day. Thus, we have 7 minutes to save
the world (and our focus groups).
Although
Marek may have felt a bit harsh, he provided much-needed criticism and negative
feedback—even if groups do not heed his warning, they will at least be slightly
prepared for potential backlash from their social campaigns. It’s time to get
simple, fun, and motivated.
And
so maybe we will not have the most viral campaigns, but we sure do have a lot
of ideas. The upcoming week will be time to allow our centered, focused
campaigns to thrive. As Dorobisz says, we will have to to “kill our babies” to
succeed—and even then, there are no guarantees.
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