By Pamela Rutledge and Bonnie Buckner In part 1 "Levi's: Go Forth and Exploit," we wrote about our problems with the Levi’s Go Forth Campaign, such as romanticizing and trivializing the Great Depression and exploiting the efforts of the town of Braddock, PA to fit their Steinbeckian narrative. Here, we will focus on the opportunities for what we call Karma Capital--economic profit combined with positive social impact--that got away. Brands and corporations have significant impact on individuals and culture. The Levi’s campaign shows a considerable deafness to the current social and technological environment and the shifting psychologies and cultural sensibilities of their market. In a globally networked world, every message from a company and organization will ripple through the system. They could have created some serious Karma Capital by aligning social goals with their bottom line. Levi’s missed an opportunities on two levels. Instead of a contrived narrative, they … [Read more...]
Levis: The Karma Capital That Got Away, Part 2
Hang in There Jack: A Case Study in Cross-Platform Digital Storytelling
Why would someone use television ads, billboards, and print to drive people to online and social media sites? 1) For the right audience, social media has lots of advantages, speed of dissemination, trust, interaction, expectations, collaboration, and emotional investment in user-generated content, engagement, curiosity, or 2) you are trying to look very hip and don’t care if it motivates action. The ‘Hang in there Jack’ campaign is one very effective example. It successfully crosses from traditional media to the Internet (Hangintherejack.com) and social media applications such as Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter and invites a relationship with the user by encouraging user-generated content via different avenues: comments, videos, text messages, and snail mail get well cards. By doing this, it shifts the focus of the advertising message from the company (Jack in the Box, Inc.) to the user. Jack is now the vehicle for dissemination not the primary message. The hand-off from … [Read more...]
