Reflection #3:Ice, Ice, Baby

Ice, Ice, Baby

    The one of the most recent well known social media campaigns was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The idea was to have participants dump a bucket of ice cold water over their heads, either done by themselves or with the help of another person, to raise awareness for disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.  Participants would then nominate their friends or family by naming them in the short video. The nominated would have twenty four hours to decide if they want to accept the challenge and dump a bucket of water over their heads or donate money to the ALS Association. A simple and easy challenge that did not take much to complete. The Ice Bucket challenge was a successful campaign as it touched on the idea of competition, peer pressure, the desire for attention, and the fact that it was easy for many to do.

    The first idea that the ALS Association successfully capitalized on was the competitive nature of people and the close relationships social media allows users to have with their friends and families. Social media allows for the formation or strengthening of relationships whether they are weak or strong. Kietzmann, author of “Social media?  Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media” examines the extent to which relationships play a role in the way one uses social media accounts. Kietzmann defines relationships in terms of the honeycomb of social media,

“The relationships block represents the extent to which users can be related to other users. By ‘relate,’ we mean that two or more users have some form of association that leads them to converse, share objects of sociality, meet up, or simply just list each other as a friend or fan” (246).

As result, most people would tag their family members on the Facebook posts or mention their name in the video. Consequently, the list of people who could see the challenge greatly expanded from the simply just nominator’s friends. It now expanded to the friends list of the nominee, and even then friends of those friends! The number of people who could see the video now depended on the privacy settings, whether you are a private account or public account, or who you chose your information to be shared with.
       But, then the idea of competition and peer pressure also surfaced which stemmed from the relationships that came from social media. For example, Facebook allows one to be connected to friends, family, and co-workers. Therefore, there is a wide array of relationships and as a result the strength of those connections vary. Most people when they were nominated either felt the pressure to comply with the trend and do the video or they felt obligated to do the video because they did not want to pay or make a donation to the association. Josanne Griffin-Mason wrote an article, “What the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Revealed about Peer Pressure Marketing." that focused on peer pressure marketing in regards to its success in terms of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Griffin-Mason states, Most people consider themselves to be kind and charitable, so to not accept the ALS Association’s challenge would be to personally and publicly challenge that component of one’s identity, potentially tarnishing the perception people hold of them” (Griffin-Mason). People did not want their friends' perception of thier online persona to be changed, if they didn't partake in the challenge. The challenge appealed to their morality and selflessness, and to ignore the challenge was to say that one did not care about ALS. But because the trend took off on Facebook and the number of people being challenged or reached, grew exponentially; it meant that if one person did not donate that it was alright. Someone else would have donated, and because of the videos circulating on Facebook and users challenging their favorite superstars, actors and actress, the amount of money being donated also rose. It was a challenge that quickly became well known around the world, thanks to the idea of competition in addition to the expanse of relationships
 from small scale to well-known celebrities partaking and donating.

    The videos themselves were easy to make and circulate based on the medium used to film it and post it to Facebook. Most people used their smartphones to record the challenge and through a few clicks, they were able to easily upload it to Facebook. Therefore, the sheer ease of being able to record and upload content to social media was why the campaign was successful. Not to mention, the sheer ease of access to ice, water, and something to hold both in, made the challenge that much more successful. Not only that but since the videos were usually kept under one minute or even less, participants could also link the video to other social media platforms such as Instagram and use the hashtag #ALS or even #IceBucketChallenge. Those hashtags continued to allow the growth of the challenge as its spread to more and more people.

    As a social media marketing campaign, the ALS Association excelled in terms of generating buzz about the challenge itself. There was less awareness about the disease more about the trend. And in terms of it being a trend, a lot of the focus was ALS Ice Bucket Fails- in whic people would be made fun of for injuring themselves during the challenge. But they themselves assumed the risk when they accepted the challenge. But the issue that needed to be addressed was the fact that not many people could tell you what the challenge was for. But as a result, it also became a vehicle for others to highlight that what one considers to be easily accessible in the US is completely different around the world. As result many celebrities used their nomination to highlight other struggles that many people around the world face. The most famous one is Matt Damon, who completed the challenge with toilet water to highlight that many do not have access to drinking water or sanitized water. Altering the challenge took away attention that was originally focused on ALS and shifted it in another direction. Therefore, the true meaning of the challenge cold get easily lost. 

    Overall, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge while it may have faced some issues, on a whole it was one of the most successful campaigns. At the end of an 8 week period, the ALS Association raised over $115 million dollars to go toward finding a cure. And the best part is, the profits raised helped scientists reach a breakthrough in the search for a cure!

      

Works Cited:

Duffy, Jim. "An Answer to ALS?" An Answer to ALS? John, 2016. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

<http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/hopkins_medicine_magazine/features/winter-2016/an-answer-to-als>.

Griffin-Mason, Josanne. "What the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Revealed about Peer Pressure

Marketing." Plug and Play. Engage, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. <http://www.plugandplaydesign.co.uk/engage/als-ice-bucket-challenge-revealed-peer-pressure-marketing/>.    

Grossman, Samantha. "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Video: Matt Damon Uses Toilet Water." Time. Time,

26 Aug. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. <http://time.com/3181818/als-ice-bucket-challenge-matt-damon-uses-toilet-water/>.

Kietzmann J.H. et al., “Social media?  Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of

             Social Media,” Business Horizons (2011) 54, 241-251.