What Kony 2012 Can Teach Non-Profits About Marketing

There is no doubt that Kony 2012 and Invisible Children video is going viral all over the world. It certainly grabbed my attention when I saw it. It’s a great lesson of how to market your non-profit well, and how a small non-profit can literally become global over night.

Now I’m not going to dive into any of the controversy around the video. This post isn’t about that. This post is about marketing and communications. Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head.

1. Discover what is at the heart of your cause that is so compelling to you

Kids. Soldiers. Murder. Injustice. These are just a few of the themes that resonate throughout the video to me. I know that kids somewhere are being forced into being soldiers and that they then have to kill their parents. Then attack others. Awful. Horrible. Completely avoidable. If we have the will to change it.

2. Tell your story authentically

One of the qualities I love about the video is the personal journey that it takes me on. I feel like I’m on the inside discovering this injustice along side at the same time as the storyteller learns about it. I don’t feel like I’m being preached to.

It is a story well told.

3. Identify the problem

At the heart of this story is a man. A man who has created immeasurable harm to a whole generation in a nation. And now beyond his country. In this case the problem has a face. It has a name. In your causes case it may be a perception of something, a disease, a physical or mental issue or an attitude.

4. Tell them how to solve the problem

Solving this problem is easy. It’s just about government’s having the willpower to do it. At the heart of this cause is providing the viewer with clear picture of the inaction and ambivalence to the problem by those in a position to do something about it. But choose not to because according to the storytellers it’s not in the national interest or a national security issue. It also tells people how they can play their part in solving the problem.

5. Be Talkable

One of the reasons why this campaign has literally exploded over the last few days is because it is a compelling story that told so well and easy to share with others. Especially online. Only today I had a guy in my office asking if we should do something as an organisation about this. He said that a colleague from another city had called him and had said that if we started something they would join with us. That is talkable. That is how good ideas spread.  Word of mouth really is the most powerful form of marketing.

There really is nothing like a good idea that has come, and is talkable.

6. Have a clear call to action

Tell your viewer, reader what it is exactly what you want them to do. Sign up, buy something, donate. Make it clear and have the tools ready and in place to respond. It could be a sign up form or a donate button. Make it easy for them to take the next step.

Your turn

These are just a few of the marketing and communications lessons I think Kony 2012 has taught me. How about you. How have you reacted to this campaign? Love it or hate it? What lessons do you draw out of it? Comment below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 comments

  1. Some Ugandans seem less than impressed by Invisible Children’s efforts.

    On April 13, 2012, during an official Invisible Children-organized screening of KONY 2012 part 2 in the Northern Ugandan city of Gulu, the audience became so enraged by the video that they started to pelt the screen, and IC organizers, with rocks.

    Ugandan police, in turn shot tear gas at the crowd and fired their rifles into the air, causing panic. One death and “dozens” of injuries were reported.

    http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1387926/-/aw2cd3z/-/index.html

    It was the second riot, or near-riot, that Invisible Children’s videos have provoked in Uganda.

    From the linked Uganda Monitor story:

    “Ms Margaret Aciro, whose picture appears in the Kony 2012 video showing her lips, nose and ears mutilated, has criticised the documentary, saying it is aimed at making money using victims of the northern insurgency.

    Ms Aciro, 35, abducted by rebels of the LRA in 2003 from Paicho Sub-county in Gulu Municipality, was among thousands of people who flocked Pece War Memorial Stadium on Friday to watch the filming of Kony 2012 by Invisible Children.

    “I watched the Kony 2012 video but I decided to return home before the second one (Kony 2012 Par II) because I was dissatisfied with its content. I became sad when I saw my photo in the video. I knew they were using it to profit.”

    The Catholic Archbishop of Gulu and member of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, Rt. Rev John Baptist Odama, whose daughter committed suicide as a result of her treatment while kidnapped by Kony’s LRA, also had harsh words for the Invisible Children video screening:

    “This is catastrophic, it’s causing chaos. It is igniting more, actually, a situation of starting afresh the war. But now it is against the population. This film could have been prepared with a consultation. For example, the stakeholders could be consulted – “We would like to project a film like this, what do you think?” People should have been asked before, instead of having the film shown now.”

    IN addition, Invisible Children denies being an evangelical organization, or having official ties to any evangelical organizations, but it is listed as an official dues-paying evangelical Christian ministry in the Barnabas Group.

    http://www.barnabasgroup.org/invisible-children-mi-51-li-5.html

    The IC nonprofit has extensive, demonstrated social and institutional ties to the hard, politicized evangelical right:

    http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/4/16/223727/559

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