What Makes a Campaign Effective?
Milk seduces UK citizens through dance and ‘staches
Scrolling through my Google Reader, I came across photoblog Fresh Eyes On London‘s recent headline: “Sexy Cows”…what?
On Monday, a herd of people decked out in cow costumes danced suggestively at King’s Cross station, kicking off the “Make Mine Milk” campaign. Funded by UK’s Milk Marketing Forum to promote the health benefits of low-fat milk, their website is both educational and sharing-focused. The best way to get a message out there is by using visitors’ own networks, and they make it incredibly easy. You can literally drag sections and information from the site “onto” Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! Updates, and e-mail. I’ve never seen that done before. You can even chat with your friends from different instant messaging clients located on a bottom sidebar.
Your 'stached blogger
Of course, in order for these functions to work, the site must provide visitors with something worthwhile to post. What better way than to engage the inner camerawhore? The milkstache has been used by the “got milk?” campaign for years, but it’s still super fun to do it yourself. After taking a photo with your webcam, you pick your milkstache style, and then you can adjust the size, swivel it around, or rotate it. They also have a personality quiz. Apparently, I’m chocolate milk, “the rarest of all personality types…It’s important to stay grounded.” I love it! It’s just all so silly and fun, but for a great cause. Obviously, with broken links and a bare-bones nutritional info page, the site still needs some work. Good start though. I still despise milk, but it certainly caught my attention. So my question for you is…
Do flash mob dances promote activism?
The one embedded above could’ve been more successful. From the looks of the video, it didn’t catch many people’s attention. They should’ve it done it during rush hour, whenever that is for the British. They also should’ve engaged the crowd more. I know they’re cows, but still…
Watching and performing flash mob dances excites me, but I’m not sure if they ever have an impact on the audience. Recently, Campus Change Coalition received some taunts from opposing slates about our dance during the primaries.
Kelsey Jarone, who ran for Programs Finance Committee (Senate seat 1), posted this letter to the Oregon Daily Emerald on her Facebook:
…Two recent LTEs have mentioned the dance as a silly way to attract attention to the votes and have cited it as evidence that ASUO elections are, in fact, a “joke”.
Friends, (I understand the way I begin this sentence makes me sound like a douche), I implore you. The 3C: Campus Change Coalition campaign was fueled by passionate, driven, and hardworking people that also enjoyed having a good time together. We believe in what we created together, as a family, and the dance was a way for us to have fun during elections and remember the reason we were running this mad dash in the first place: each other. Students, who care about students, fighting for an inclusive student government.
The 3C Dance will be remembered in my mind as a rad event that brought us closer together as a campaign and put smiles on students’ faces as they strolled to class. And every time I hear the dance mentioned, positively or negatively, I will smile and remember how much it meant to take a break from the stress, run outside with my friends, and dance.
What do you guys think? Sure, flash mob dances are entertaining, but can we measure their effectiveness? Also, feel free to post your milkstache photo and personality type. I want to see what you guys come up with!
P.S. If you haven’t seen the PowerShift Sydney dance, check it out NOW. I’s just…wow. Whatever your feelings about the environment, these guys get an A+ for enthusiasm and nailing their moves. Over 50,000 views too!
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: ad, ASUO, awareness, elections, make mine milk, social media, video, youtube
Oh the Brits. How much would I give to be in England sipping on some milk and eating some scones. Minus the cow suit.
Agreed! Who needs the United States?
It’s pretty incredible how much pull that some industries have on the government. Dairy products actually don’t really need to be consumed at the rate that they’re promoting. Pretty great marketing campaign though.
And I’ve seen sillier things done during election campaigns than the 3C Dance haha. I don’t think it takes away from the legitimacy of the group.
They don’t? Even so, isn’t our nation still obsessed with sugary drinks and not calcium-filled goodness? And perhaps the stats are even worse in the UK…except I highly doubt that haha.