Raising Awareness via Potty Humor

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Digital Marketing

Raising Awareness via Potty Humor Water.org works to bring clean water to the developing world with a social media campaign using its co-founder’s star power and a healthy dose of humor

By Christine Birkner | Staff Writer

 cbirkner@ama.org Goal

An estimated 2.5 billion people in the developing world lack access to clean water and basic sanitation, according to Water.org, a Kansas City, Mo.-based nonprofit co-founded by actor Matt Damon and social entrepreneur Gary White. It’s a serious health issue and nonprofit organizations like Water.org have to work hard to generate the funds required to remedy it.

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Water.org is competing with seemingly innumerable other nonprofits supporting worthwhile causes when soliciting donations from the cash-strapped American public and it decided to launch a new campaign to generate awareness. “Our goals were to drive awareness of the water and sanitation crisis, and of Water.org as an organization, to build and expand our audience and support base … and to add depth and dimension to our

brand,” says Jennifer Tisdel Schorsch, CMO of Water.org. “We knew that celebrity and humor draw attention. … [We wanted] to connect in an innovative way with a broad audience.”

Action

In mid-2012, Water.org enlisted Josh Lieb, an Emmy Award-winning comedy writer and former executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, to convene a writer’s roundtable and brainstorm ideas for its new campaign. “We were trying to walk a fine line, and use humor in a tasteful and thoughtful way that also allowed us to convey some of the key messages about the sanitation crisis. Some ideas were just plain funny, but they didn’t tell the story behind the story and we wanted a campaign that allowed us to do both,” Tisdel Schorsch says.

The winning idea was a “Toilet Strike,” announced by Damon in a video on Feb. 12, 2013, on Water.org’s website and YouTube channel. The video includes a press conference parody in which Damon

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Digital Marketing

says, “More people have cell phones than have toilets and for $25, you can give someone clean water for life. In protest of this global tragedy, until this issue is resolved, until everyone has access to clean water and sanitation … I will not go to the bathroom.” A second video features Damon “breaking up” with his toilet.

YouTube “vloggers” also posted videos in response to Damon’s announcement, and subsequent videos feature actors Jessica Biel, Jason Bateman, Josh Gad and Olivia Wilde, and U2 front man Bono vowing to join the “strike.”

The videos call for people to support the campaign by going to StrikeWithMe. org, where visitors have three options: to donate funds, add their own videos to Water.org’s YouTube channel or become social media supporters. Water.org automatically posts content, including news and videos from the strike, and facts about the water crisis, to those volunteers’ Facebook or Twitter accounts twice a month until Nov. 19, World Toilet Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the global sanitation crisis. “We wanted to give people different ways to engage. Not everyone wants to donate their voice and open up their social community to the messaging, but others have watched the

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video or given of their financial resources, which has been great,” Tisdel Schorsch says.

Results

The campaign continues, but as of June 2013, the campaign’s videos have received 6.5 million views, with 297,100 of the viewers visiting StrikeWithMe.org and 109,500 of those visitors taking action, a 37% conversion rate, according to Tisdel Schorsch. Ten thousand people signed on to be social media supporters. “We were able, through their support, to send free messages to an [additional] listening audience of about 3.5 million people.

By having those folks donate their voice, that’s 10 million impressions we were able to achieve,” Tisdel Schorsch says.

The campaign has raised funds “in the six figures” through June, she adds.

The campaign has thus far received media coverage from 73 TV, print and online outlets, including the Today show, ABC News, CBS News, Extra TV, E!, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Salon, Huffington Post, the Hollywood Reporter and Slate.

“The breadth of the media coverage was phenomenal. There’s no question that

the traditional celebrity of these amazing actors garners media attention, but many media highlighted the story behind the story and not just a face,” Tisdel Schorsch says. “Jessica Biel, Jason Bateman, Josh Gad and Matt helped people take notice, but then they took a real interest in the ‘why’ behind it. They wanted to know that those celebrities are engaged in something that’s meaningful and authentic.”

Park Howell, president of Park&Co, a Phoenix-based marketing agency specializing in sustainability campaigns, which created the water conservation campaign “Water: Use It Wisely,” says the humor approach works well for many cause marketing efforts, including Water.org’s campaign. “People are so tired of being inundated with serious problems and you have to engage them in different ways,” he says. “Bono is the Jesus of social causes backed by celebrities and to have him poke fun at the celebrity endorsement/social cause movement turns the whole thing on its ear, and I think consumers appreciate it.

Matt Damon and his team do a terrific job of getting the points across, and that will get people to take action.” m

Company

Water.org Headquarters

Kansas City, Mo. Results

As of June 2013, videos have received 6.5 million views; 297,100 viewers visited StrikeWithMe.org; and 109,500 of those visitors took action. Press coverage in 73 print, TV and online media outlets.

•com For more on Water.org, visit MarketingPower.com/marketingnews.

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