Today I logged on to Facebook to find a vast amount of my friends had changed their display photos to cartoon and different animated character from their childhood. The reason for this was a campaign by the NSPCC who produced this statement that was virally spread around the social network site:
'Change your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same for the NSPCC. Until Monday (December 6th) there should be no human faces on Facebook but an invasion of memories. This is campaign to stop violence against ......children.'
Of the fifteen contacts displayed on this screen-shot from my Facebook homepage, fourteen of them have taken part in the campaign; indicating it is influential.
Whether or not the campaign is legitimate or not I personally think it was successful as more of my contacts had changed their profile photos as the campaign created more awareness. Also, it did not only successfully serve the purpose but it was also enjoyable to see the different characters as a reminder of our childhood memories, as this relates directly to the charity being one set up for children.
Thinking back to other examples of how social network sites, Facebook in paticular, have had a major effect or made a difference, here are a few...
The successful campaign for Cadbury's Wispa bars to return to the shelves after 14,000 people signed an on-line petition.
The page that made Rage Against The Machine the 2009 Christmas number 1 opposed to the usual X factor winner.
The IKEA campaign, a cheap way to advertise the opening of a new store by creating a profile for the store manager, photos of items from the store would be uploaded on a daily basis, the first person to tag their name in the photo would win the item pictured. The store gained global recognition quickly through viral advertising.
A more recent successful campaign resulted in Brain Blessed being added to the list of voice overs available for TomTom's satnavs.
IKEA campaign, screen-shot from an album in the profile.
No comments:
Post a Comment