I suggest all detractors watch television commercials selling you useless destructive products sometime, maybe even Fox News if you can stomach it for a couple minutes. Maybe your energy is better spent criticizing those guys rather than a small (but hopefully growing) campaign to save woodland caribou and the forests of Canada from destructive logging companies such as AbitibiBowater.

Always fun to see us eating our own.

Naturally, we feel a little differently. Within hours of being tweeted, the tactics we used to cut through the noise and get this issue into peoples’ consciousness saw CBC News pick up the story. As one of the environmental groups promoting this campaign pointed out, they’ve been trying to get coverage for the plight of the caribou for ten years with little success. In this case, it happened in just hours.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding and we’re just getting started. Ultimately, this program will be judged by whether or not the legislation is enacted.

Speaking of which, have you had a chance to sign the petition?

Except I’m not here talking about how important it is to save the caribou in the wilderness, nor even how important it is to save the caribou from staying on the quarter; instead, I’m talking about how you went about raising awareness on an important issue by deceiving people. As well, you relied on the ease of spreading a “good cause” message via Twitter/Facebook since many people will retweet such a message without too much investigation. Just witness any of the many such memes that perpetuate on Twitter and have no factual basis.

Do you really think that people who have been duped into retweeting a deceptive message or signing up for petition with a manufactured issue are going to feel positively towards the actual campaign you’re trying to promote? It’s very easy to get people to join Facebook groups, sign online petitions, retweet links to supposed outrages; however, it’s very hard to get people to actually commit time and energy into supporting an issue beyond such superficial levels. Expecting that you can reach those people with your true message after you’ve lied to them — told them one thing and then revealed your true intention — well, good luck with that.

What’s next? A telemarketing campaign where you tell the person on the line that their mother has died, then reveal that they’re not dead but that X million of women die each year from breast cancer and oh, by the way, would you like to make a donation?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to send flowers to Jeff Goldblum’s funeral. It seems he fell off a cliff in New Zealand while filming a movie.

Ha! Just kidding. But you were worried that he’d died, weren’t you? Well worry no more…you can catch him in a new season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent this fall on NBC!

Speaking of which, have you taken the time to fill out the petition yet?

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/281/t/9735/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1427

And yea, I agree that I’m more tuned into this because of my background working for an org dedicated to boreal protection.

But I still think that simply getting people to talk isn’t a good enough objective. It’s too early to tell if the tactic will work, obviously, but the buzz I’ve seen so far (from an admittedly skewed group, it’s mostly social media / PR practitioners) is critical of the campaign. It risks overshadowing the underlying cause.

Time will tell, of course. And I hope you’ll post another entry on the blog when the overall campaign winds up. I will happily stand to be corrected if it works!

Again, I’ll reiterate that our objective here was to get people thinking about what would prompt them to act and to make the point that the caribou are in very real danger of disappearing, and not just from the quarter. I’ll ask you the question (though you’re probably the wrong person to ask, given your background in working on the Boreal!) would you have noticed this campaign if not for the approach? Would we even be having this discussion? Would you have even cared?

(As far as the petition goes, this was a planned campaign. It was introduced after the teaser phase was completed.)

@James that was the point – to get people’s attention by talking about the Mint removing the caribou from the quarter, and then point out that something much worse is actually possible – the animals themselves may become extinct if not protected.

@Tom we’re all about the animals – and using social media to make you aware of their plight.