Member Article

Social media: Bare-faced selfies and subversive kisses

In public relations we’re always striving for engaging ideas and third party endorsement. The latter is arguably one of the original, core concepts that the industry and its ideals were founded on and it remains important to this day. Engagement, on the other hand, is a concept that has evolved and grown in prominence over recent years, thanks in no small part to the advent of Social Media.

Engaging the public and creating awareness is the Holy Grail for anybody planning a digitally focused campaign, with more and more brands looking to make a bigger impact.

We can only imagine how pleased the communications team and bosses at Cancer Research UK must be, as a social media campaign managed to raise over £1 million of new donations in a mere 24 hours.

The concept was simple enough, take a selfie without any make up on, text BEAT to 70099 to make a set donation of £3 and nominate some friends to do the same in a Facebook or Twitter post.

The idea has created a huge buzz, with social media feeds quickly swamped with girls going bare-faced in the name of charity, and some men doing the reverse and wearing make up in a sort of reverse solidarity. There was also a small backlash over people taking photos without donating but any detractors were soon quiet after the impressive donation figures were released.

What you may not know however, is that the #NoMakeUpSelfie was not actually started by Cancer Research UK, rather it was the brainchild of Laura Lippman, an author unaffiliated with the charity.

It’s a staggering piece of third party involvement on the sort of scale that most of us could only dream of and, naturally, Cancer Research UK was very quick to show its thanks and support, tweeting “We’re loving your #cancerawareness #nomakeupselfie pics! The campaign isn’t ours but every £ helps #beatcancersooner.”

The charity’s lack of involvement in such a successful campaign raises an interesting parallel with a recent viral video which turned out to be clever marketing. The video, showing strangers share a first kiss took the internet by storm with many hailing it as a powerful piece of work before it was discovered that all participants were actors and models decked out in clothes by fashion company, Wren Studio.

Both of these examples represent a brave new world of sorts, with more subversive marketing offering results that don’t come burdened with the immediate cynicism more traditional methods can garner, whilst a greater emphasis on encouraging awareness-building through fun, social interaction requiring a small amount of effort, is also something that charities are sure to try and replicate in the coming months.

Whether they can capture the moment as effectively as Laura Lippman’s ad hoc campaign however, is something that remains to be seen.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bradley O’Mahoney Public Relations .