Joe Panepinto
February 19, 2016
What makes a great cause campaign? How do you get people to stop bad habits,
adopt good ones, or do something about a societal or health issue that may not
even be on their radar?
In developing the strategy for a recent cause campaign, we took a three-step
approach to considering our options for tone, appeal/approach, and the most
effective elements. The results told us that while there is no magic formula
for guaranteeing an impactful cause campaign, there are five ingredients.
The first step was to analyze what has worked. Every year the Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity recognizes the best in advertising and
marketing as practiced around the world. One category is cause campaigns that
the organization calls The Grand Prix for Good. Last year, it included
everything from the lighthearted but effective rail-crossing safety campaign
Dumb Ways to Die to campaigns that called attention to domestic violence (Look
at Me), lack of potable water in Africa (The Marathon Walker), rising fascist
movements (Nazis Against Nazis), and iodine deficiency in Indian women (Life
Saving Dot).
In order to get a sense of the tone and appeal or argument each campaign used,
we plotted the 49 finalists across a number of relevant dimensions on a simple
two-dimensional grid. The x-axis represented tone and ran from whimsical to
threatening ; the y-axis represented appeal or argument and ran from rational
to emotional. We were hoping to see if the campaigns clustered in any of the
four areas of the grid.
Our initial analysis showed that while the campaigns tended to cluster toward
the emotional end, there were a healthy number of campaigns spread across every
area of the grid. Our conclusion? Maybe it s not the appeal/argument of a cause
campaign alone that makes it successful. If they didn t share tone or appeal/
argument, what did they share?
So we looked beyond what the campaigns said to what they did, and we landed on
five elements:
1. Simple and inspiring messaging. What you call your campaign matters. Each of
the campaigns had a compelling, simple handle: Not a Bug Splat for combatting
drone strikes on civilians; The Unforgotten for gun safety; #
ITouchMyselfProject for breast cancer awareness.
2. Strong visual storytelling. Studies show people read only about 20% of today
s web pages and are driven more by an image or short video than they are by a
text-based, fully rational appeal.
UNICEF Chile s One Shot on Cyber Bullying campaign took a dramatic approach to
traditional images of fear and subjugation and added a modern twist. A set of
dramatic black-and-white photos titled Fatty, Nerd, and Weak that
appeared on billboards and in magazines showed groups of teenage students
aiming their smartphones at their peers as if in a firing squad. In one, the
victim is on her knees with her hands behind her head, her back to a firing
squad of her peers.
3. A physical element or exhibit. Despite the importance of digital media,
there s a definite place for including an element that people can experience in
the real world. While those elements of the campaign may be experienced by few,
they can be witnessed by many through earned and social media.
The idea behind The Unforgotten was simple but visually disturbing: Place
faceless mannequins, dressed in the clothes of victims of gun violence, around
the city of Chicago in the exact places where the victims were shot. Curious
people could walk up to each and, once close enough, read the story of the
victim s tragic death.
4. Strong emphasis on social sharing and earned media. The award-winning
campaigns didn t rely on one type of storytelling; they provided multiple media
types designed specifically for what s effective in each social channel.
Dumb Ways to Die was a watershed for cause campaigns in the impact it was able
to make using an infectiously lighthearted animated song. But more than that,
it also invaded every area of social media with digital games, social campaigns
featuring short outtakes from the music video, and even physical items, such
as dolls and stickers of the main characters. Perhaps most powerfully, it drove
people to own the campaign, and express their own creativity, by creating
parody safety videos of the original.
5. Focus on a big issue coupled with a request for a small personal action.
While most campaigns are calling people s attention to a big issue, they need
to ask them to do something small as a next step and a sign of commitment. This
idea is totally consistent with behavior change work being done by BJ Fogg at
Stanford s Persuasive Tech Lab around the importance of tiny habits.
Among the best examples here is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which raised more
than $115 million for ALS research and dominated Facebook newsfeeds for months.
The now-widely-known goal was to get people to dump a bucket of ice water over
their heads, record it, and challenge up to three of their friends to do the
same to raise awareness. Raising funds was the next tiny step, made much more
likely once people were engaged in the cause. Most other campaigns called for a
digital pledge or commitment.
The second step was to get input from the audience. At the same time that we
were analyzing the tone and appeal/argument of the most successful cause
campaigns, we conducted a quick survey of 1,000 consumers to ask them about the
type of cause campaigns they tend to remember. Is it the ones that make them
laugh or that scare them? The ones that present the facts in a surprising way
or a straightforward way?
We found something we didn t entirely expect: sixty-nine percent of the
consumers surveyed told us they are most likely to remember a public service
announcement that presents the facts in either a surprising or a
straightforward way, while only 11% said they tend to remember those that make
them laugh, and 20% said those that scare them.
The lesson for us was that we needn t shy away from the facts just to be funny
or scary; fascinating facts should be the core of the campaign.
Our third step was to validate our findings from the first two steps with
research on the neuroscience of behavior change. Research published in the
Journal of Neuroscience found that anti-smoking ads with strong arguments, not
flashy editing, trigger part of the brain that changes behavior.
With the results of our three-step strategic process in, we felt confident in
recommending a creative approach to our client.
So what s the lesson here for teams dreaming up ways to create a cause campaign
that will have the impact they want? For us, it was simple: our strategy was to
set our sights on creating a public service engagement, not a public service
announcement. That means whether we choose to be whimsical or frightening,
rational or factual, we are going to make sure our campaigns include the five
elements described above, built around the core idea that facts can be
fascinating.
Joe Panepinto is a senior vice president and director of strategy at Genuine
Interactive, a full-service digital agency based in Boston.