Manufacturing a sense of urgency

By Michael Goldstein, Creative Digital Planner, CHI&Partners NYC.@mickeyg77

Insights to create infectious campaigns

MANUFACTURING A SENSE OF URGENCY

Wednesday, October 30, 13

Over the past 3 months, I have been working on creating a sense of urgency

to drive engagement with our ad campaigns


THREE CLIENTS

Thirteen/PBSLocal NY TV station that needed to let everyone know about the disaster that is modern television !tvgonewrong

Every Mother CountsMaternal Health charity that needed the public to !giveathought to the countless women suffering globally from health complications due to pregnancy

Bee RawArtisinal honey company that wanted to spread the word that bees are dying at an alarming rate!savethebees


Insight: Web for housing content. Social for amplification of content.


Spreading issues: The importance of context

VsDigital

Publishers (Web!

Twitter


We used Twitter influencers and celebrities to spread the issues of "giveathought and "savethebees on twitter.

Twitter


Despite their large twitter followings neither influencer created a huge, infectious impact online.


The problem was there was not enough context or content for people

to latch ontoWednesday, October 30, 13

For our PBS/Thirteen campaign we were featured on the pages of a few prominent digital publishers

Web

Readers had enough context to understand the issue and the campaign took off, with huge sharing over social media


Let’s look at how digital publishers helped our Thirteen campaign deliver content with enough context for people to dip into....

......And enough urgency to share Wednesday, October 30, 13

A look at 3 different digital publishers


All three publishers use different language and

positioning techniques to create engagement through

urgency


Buzzfeed - “Look at this!”


Jezabel/Gawker “Think about that!”


Upworthy - “Do something about this!”


Insight: Urgency is best created by an un-attached third party reporting on the

issue. This gives it authenticity as an issue not

an agenda.


How do they do it?

A closer look at the techniques used by digital publishers to manufacture urgency


Buzzfeed - Urgency through over the top language


Jezabel/Gawker - Urgency through disbelief


Upworthy - Urgency through emotion via image


Thanks to those and other third party publishers, we had people looking, thinking and sharing our content. They helped us manufacturing a sense of urgency that people felt compelled to amplify through social media. This drove over 14 million

web and 3 million twitter impressions with no media spend!


Insight: Relevant messaging for varied demographics

creates a wider and more layered sense of urgency leading to multi-faceted,

intense momentum


A wide range of audiences had content and context to appreciate the urgency we were

communicatingWednesday, October 30, 13

This happened because each publisher created relevant

urgency by packaging content for the audience they cater to

(Two Australian beers of similar content but packaged very differently!)


Buzzfeed - Fast Food of the internet

Easy to digest, OMG content perfectly packaged for over-excited internet novices to hype over through

social media.

Erhmegerd berzfeddis list, so tru

lowl cententWert the ferk


Upworthy - Clicktivism Kings

Content packaged in such a way that clicktivists feel the need to ‘solve’ the featured issue

FB reactions

Social issue with a call to action

Prominent social share icons


PS: Clicktivism =


Jezabel/Gawker - Black and white issuesGawker and Jezabel package issues for an audience looking to bring further

discussion to black and white issues where the only moral reaction is of outrage.

Headline prompts outrage

Extensive opportunities for discussion throughout article


Urgency is created when multiple 3rd party publishers all work to

raise attention to the same issue, in ways that are relevant and

distinctly packaged for their audiences.


So how can you best create urgency with a 3rd party digital outlet?


For PBS/Thirteen, we tried emailing all the major digital outlets to give them an inside scoop on the campaign. Despite the great

content, we had no interest.


It was only when EW.com started getting huge hits from their post on the campaign that others took notice. Soon dozens of major digital publishers were creating posts on the campaign, including many that we tried to contact 3 days before!


The tactic is to reach critical momentum with one site, once that

happens others take notice and want to jump on the UV bandwagon!


The formula: Great content x Relevancy over many demographics+ A popular platform= Momentum spark


A great example is the recent partnership with Uber and Cheezburger, where Uber cars delivered kittens to offices in NYC and San Fransisco for 15

minute play sessions.Wednesday, October 30, 13

Great content (Kitten delivery via Uber!

xWide relevancy (Who doesn’t like kittens?)

+ A popular platform (Cheezburger network!

= Momentum spark (They had their hashtag trending within 30 minutes on launch day!

#ICANHASUBERKITTENS


My theory is that to effectively mobilize an audience to action you need to create a sense of urgency


Marketers have known this for many years


But in a transparent, digital world, an unrelated 3rd party

with a loyal following is crucial to manufacturing the

urgency to create huge traction for your campaign.


If you liked it, tweet it!

"manufacturingurgency

@mickeyg77


Manufacturing a sense of urgency

Technology

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