Warning: You may ignite the largest global Atheist advertising campaign. Ever.
Be careful what what you wish for when you advertise. Your campaign may have unintended consequences. And from little things big things grow.
Adriene Sherine was catching the bus one morning when she saw what she considered an offensive ad from this organisation.
She was so incensed that through a British national newspaper she organised a response. And raised over 153,000 pounds. The Church of England even threw in some money.
From there she ran her own advertising campaign in response to the original one. Here is the first bus ad (The original concept is here)
From this small beginning the Atheist campaign has spread around the world with similar campaigns being run in the USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, Australia, Finland, Germany and New Zealand.
It has had widespead media coverage. It's communications is extremely well organised. There are many websites It is also using social media, such as Twitter, Facebook.
It has even given birth to a billboard campaign to promote Atheism in schools throughout England.
Do you plan around unintended consequences and maybe more media coverage about your ad campaign than you expected? How do you leverage the halo media effect?
Postscript: If you check out the Atheism NZ twitter feed you can catch up on the conversation I've been having with them.
It’s not quite that simple… Ariane did not actually organise an advertising campaign, and indeed when she wrote the first article had no intention whatsoever to do so. It’s only via my blog, and the involvement of the British Humanist Association, and indeed a series of ‘failures’ (being attacked by the Daily Telegraph for example) that things started. The original article was in June 2008, and the campaign as such only started months later.
Hey Jon,
Thanks for comment and filling in the blanks.
Do you think she was a catalyst? From a first read it seems that way. I read a brief potted history on the NZ Atheist bus website.