360DigitalInfluence

On Friday, December 1 — World AIDS Day — Google, in what I believe was an unprecedented move, included a (logo’d) link to Product (Red) on its normally pristine white home page for at least a portion of the day (eventually, the link was, without explanation, replaced with a simple red ribbon).

Product (Red) has been incredibly successful at getting major brands to get involved in the campaign’s efforts to raise money to provide antiretroviral meds to people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa, but I still considered the link to be a coup.   I envisioned high-level conversations between Bono and Bobby Shriver, the campaign’s founders, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, with Bono’s smooth-talking ways winning Page and Brin over to his side.

Great, but here’s the problem.   When you clicked on the link, you landed on Product (Red)’s “News” page, which included — in addition to an unremarkable video from Bono — an unremarkable list of special events being held by Product (Red)’s corporate partners to commemorate the day.

I’ll admit it, I was astounded.   Maybe even annoyed.   “What a waste!” was the title of my post on my personal blog.   How could the folks at Product (Red) let such an amazing opportunity pass them by?

Perhaps the link on the Google home page was a last minute decision and they didn’t have time to create anything all that amazing in time?   Maybe?

I gave Product (Red) a hard time on my blog, but there’s nothing worse than someone who criticizes your efforts without giving you recommendations for what you could do better, right?   So here I am: three rules for any advocacy campaign that Product (Red) should have followed, so as to not allow the link from the Google home page to be nothing more than a wasted opportunity.

1. Give them something to do.   I am a stickler for this one, but I think it’s particularly important for campaigns like Product (Red) that are dealing with an issue that most people find overwhelming.   Encouraging people to join your fight against HIV/AIDS involves not only getting them to recognize the pandemic as a problem, but also getting them to believe that they can have an impact on a disease that 40 million people are living with worldwide.   After all, that has been the beauty of Product (Red), hasn’t it?   All you need to do is spend your money on a cool product and you are helping to save someone’s life.

There were a few things in the Product (Red) list, but the links for action steps were lost among the text and presented more for reporters to report on versus a potential supporter to act on.

In the post on my personal blog, I compared Product (Red) — unfavorably — to what is currently my FAVORITE digital advocacy campaign out there: Greenpeace’s Green My Apple.   Through the campaign, Greenpeace is appealing to Mac users to call on Apple to create products that are more environmentally-friendly.   What makes it so brilliant, as far as I am concerned, is that they are trying to mobilize the people that Apple is most likely to listen to, their extremely loyal customers.   And they are doing so by appealing to their pride, as opposed to shaming them into action.   But what makes it EXTRA brilliant — in sharp contrast to Product (Red) and the Google link — is that the campaign provides visitors to the site with an EXTENSIVE list of things to do (here and here AND here).

Giving users something to do not only enables your organization to leverage their interest to achieve your mission (think unpaid volunteers), it also communicates an empowering message that is key to any advocacy campaign — with your help, we can get this done.

It doesn’t have to be complicated and it should be in line with the objectives of the campaign.   So, in the case of Product (Red), it should have been about pointing them in the direction of product information (value added for their corporate partners), but the campaign should also have made an effort to . . .

2. Give them something to pass along.   The Bono video was posted to YouTube and so it could to be passed along.   While the YouTube screen always incorporates a “share” function, Product (Red) didn’t bother to ask visitors to contribute to spreading the message.   They just asked users to “watch” the video.   (Ugh.)

But there are even more ways to have asked users to act as ambassadors for the campaign.   An e-card.   An affiliate program (”add this badge to your blog/MySpace page to show your support for our campaign).   They could have asked visitors to write about the campaign or embed the Bono video on their blog.   They could have asked them to bookmark the site on del.icio.us to share it with others in their network.

Finally . . .

3. Capture their contact information.   If the link from the Google home page was indeed a last minute decision and nothing was in place, the least Product (Red) could have done was to set up a modified version of their “Get Registe(red)” page.   Even if you have nothing for your supporters to do or to share today, you’ll still want to be able to contact them in the future when you do.   Make it as easy as possible to let them know who you are.