Another campaign prominent at the moment whose idea transgresses all the online / offline / word of mouth / PR lines is the Movembermovement.   As the primary objective of the campaign is to raise awareness of Prostate Cancer to the end of getting more people checked more often the message is more important than the money raised.   First starting off with the moustache itself, a walking billboard (or facial media) becomes a talking point for everyone who sees it, then there is the sponsorship emails, facebook/twitter updates, celebrity involvement (brilliant shot of the Oz rugby team sporting tache’s singing the national anthem) and trending twitter topics all driving awareness for the cause naturally off the back of the idea.

One of the sponsorship emails doing the rounds:

Whilst I am aware that the physical exertion of running a marathon, climbing a mountain, boxing a fight and swimming great distances may be marginally greater than growing a moustache, these things take but a few hours, rather than a whole month.   And whilst the preparation for these events may have taken several months, I have been preparing for this my whole life.   These activities are also often seen as a pleasant pastime; but let me assure you there is nothing fun about growing a moustache.   You’d be forgiven for thinking its easy but its not, in fact only half of the world’s population are blessed with the ability to grow a moustache, then only a tiny fraction of that, the inclination.

You may be starting to realise the herculean magnitude of the upcoming task and be wondering what assistance you may be able to offer, the answer sadly is none.   It is a lonely road that I have chosen to take.   The only comfort I can take during the long month ahead is the knowledge that you will give generously and alongside my moustached brothers I will be not only raising money but also awareness for a worthy cause.

FACTS:

One man dies every hour or prostate cancer

35,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK

Only takes a couple of minutes to make a donation http://uk.movember.com/mospace/43737it’s a really good cause and as it’s the Friday after payday don’t even try to pretend you’re either too busy or too poor.  In return for your contribution you will receive complementary a stroke (of my tache).

Setup

• Have you registered domains on the various networks?
  • Do you hold inflammatory names? (i.e. ‘@MicrosoftSucks’)
• Is there one central point of contact or many? (Business, by area, by store, by product)
• Who is running the hub?
  • One person or several?
  • Brand voice or employee
  • Who owns the hub? (i.e. what happens if they leave?)
• Is the advertising being sent to the site or the hub?
  • Which is more effective?
• Are employees and suppliers involved in the strategy?
  • What is the policy regarding employee publication?
  • Is there an opportunity for employee Network (Ning?) or Wiki?
• Does site/blog/hub’s have appropriate social sharing tools? (bookmarking, tweeting, share to, email forward)

Content

• Are you engaging with members, involving them in the group?
• Is it content for contents sake or is it engaging, exclusive or valuable?
  • Is it sticky (keeps people coming back)?
  • Is it slippy (gets people to forward it on)?
• Is it updated regularly enough (or even too much)?
• Is external content being pushed?
• How are you encouraging UGC?
• How is the UGC on the hubs being monitored?
  • Is content approved before publishing?
  • Will negative posts be allowed?
  • Will off brand content be allowed?
• Is it purely brand building or is there a strategy in place to drive sales?
  • How intrusive is the sales strategy, does it amount to spam?

 Integration

• What Networks are you appearing on?
  • Are these official or unofficial presences?
  • Is there anyone Cyber Squatting?
• Are the different networks working together as part of a larger strategy?
  • Is the tone of voice the same
  • Do they interlink
• How are unofficial hubs being monitored and integrated?
• Is the social media marketing show cohesion with other marketing efforts?
  • Similar voice
  • Integration with PR, Media, Website, SEO and creative
• Could you micro social to promote smaller events, themes and competitions

 Promotion

• How easy is it to find the activity?
• Is there anything to encourage member get member?
• Are you encouraging Word Of Mouse?
• What ways are you encouraging membership?
  • Does the incentive encourage quality members or just stats?

 Research

• How is external social content being monitored?
  • How is this being relayed (to client)?
  • How is it being used?
• What are competitors doing, are they being monitored?
• Do the networks give an opportunity for crowd sourcing?

Tracking

• How is it Tracked?
• On what metrics is success being justified?
• How is the quantative and qualitive data being fed back and responded to?
• Is positive response being split from negative?
• Can the consumer pathway be seen through the social media all the way to sale?

Get up at a reasonable hour

But allow yourself a little lie in, let’s face it you are not going to have to do the commute so you can still start the job safari early with an extra half an hour in bed.

Stay positive

Negativity is a downward spiral, obviously it is difficult to 'stay positive' like turning on a switch, but doing constructive activities helps.

Don't turn on the TV

Not even at lunch, Turning on the TV signifies the death of the day, it is so easy to get sucked in burning a couple of hours watching Judge Judy, by which point won'thave time to do anything constructive which will be depressing (see Stay Positive). I waited till my flatmates were home before switching on.

Redundy Fun

Enjoy the benefits of not being at work when everyone else is, think shopping as the shops are deserted and there are some great deals on. Also sunbathing is a must, especially when combined with wireless job hunting.

Go to the gym (a lot)

They are nice and empty during the day, and not only will this give you buns of steel but which will ultimately clinch the deal in an interview, but the endorphins released will help you stay energised and happy.

If you are going to go travelling don't hang around, go

Once you get into the job safari you will find it difficult to find a point where you can just go, as you will feel that once you have invested a couple of weeks/months into the job hunting, to leave at that point would just be throwing the time spent searching. If you go now you can come back relaxed, fresh and having thought a lot about actually what you want to do.

There will be good weeks and bad weeks

Peaks and Troughs, unfortunately there is nothing really you can do about it.

Find inspiration at www.cardsofchange.com

Stories of people who have been made redundant and gone on to better things, written on old business cards.

Admin

Sort out admin that you were not able todo while workingthink, dentist, fix bike, paint flat, filing, you’d be amazed how much of this there is!

Meet friends for lunch

I didn’t for ages as I thought it would be a waste of time, but being stuck at home all day with no human contact is not cool and as well as being a nice break I felt much better after getting out and seeing people.

Benefits

Sign on, it makes you feel dirty, but £60.50 a week adds up really quick. Do this straight away.

Extracurricular projects

Doing something constructive if not necessarily work related means that when you do get a job you’ll be glad you haven’t completely wasted your time off.

Find a Redundy buddy

Great for enjoying the sun with, congratulating each other on not having to take crap from ‘the man’ anymore and complaining about the recession.

But for toys....?

For one the boy is alone, not playing with his mates and this combined with the seriously vacant 100 metre stare just screams war torn psycho at me, certainly not the fun, wholesome heritage ‘as long as my Johnson’ toys that I believed Matchbox to be.   The other thing is that the scenes seem to depict more the down time of army life, flying in formation, landing and hanging around on tanks.   Which (I’m assuming) is hardly the game that a parent has in mind when they are buying toys for their children.

Off The Wall was the first album I bought ever, I aspired to moonwalk and had tickets for the O2 next year.  Whatever he did or didn't do, whatever you think of him there will be a big crotch grabbing, falsetto screeching, white sock wearing hole in Pop from now on.

In an Auden style, please see our misfit tribute below:

Stop all the merchandise, cut off the ticket telephone,
Prevent Bubbles from gibbering with a juicy bone,
Silence the floor pianos and with muffled drum
Moonwalk out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let airborne hacks circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on Sky 24 the message He Is Dead,
Put sequined bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear a black cotton glove.
 
He was bad, dangerous, thriller and invincible,
A smooth criminal as a matter of principle,
My sunshine, my moonlight, my goodtime, my song;
I thought that motown would last for ever: I was wrong.

Luckily for you I have posted the finished effects of the ones I have picked up on below, they range from pretty dull to seriously impressive.

Papa Johns

Transformers

Rubber Duckzilla

Augmented Reality Phone

I love this idea of having a copywriter looking to recruit an agency, if only the same method could be used to find clients!   Be sure to have a look at the other snippets of ads around it.  

On a similar thread I found an article about Doug Winfield who targeted a Shift Communications with a 'self' recruitment campaign by running the Facebook ad below using keyword targeting to drive extremely highly targeted traffic to a fan page and blog.   A great idea that seems very much like the new trend of Spear Phishing that should probably be called Spearvertising.

Favorite bit:

'I don't think you want me to call my lawyer about this.'

Wrong.   I definitely want you to call your lawyer about this.