War Child UK blog

#MakeCARfamous

weldonkennedy:

The massive flaws of Kony 2012 are many, but so are the successes. Plenty of people have written about its flaws from a policy outcome and messaging angles. Check out this one if you want a good run down on both fronts. Simply put, the objective is wrong and the messaging they use is so painfully neo-colonial it’s nauseating. And if you’re thinking about donating after watching the video, please follow Laura Seay’s advice and donate to War Child instead.

Rather than nail Invisible Children on their failures, I want to talk about what they’ve done really well - make a slick video that gets people really fired up. They’ve gotten million of people (mostly young white folk) to watch a 30 minute video and come away feeling empowered and part of a global community mobilising to address an injustice.

For that accomplishment, I think they earn some rights to criticise the established international campaigning community. Because while it might be damaging to advocate for the wrong policies and re-enforce bad messaging frames, I think it’s also damaging to fail to engage the public in your issues. Major organisations churn out tons of mediocre videos that leave the viewer feeling disempowered, confused, and that the issues are too big for them. 

When it comes to fighting for good foreign policy, we certainly need to fighting for the right things - read Bec Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur if you want a clear understanding of why. But it’s also crucially important that people who working out the right answers, are also doing the great mobilisation that Invisible Children are doing right now, because if people aren’t mobilised for good policy, they’ll certainly be mobilised for bad ones.

So while we may tear them down for their self-aggrandising and ill-advised video, let’s also take the time to learn some lessons about what they’re doing right:

1. Placing the campaign in a broader narrative arc of people power bringing bad men to justice. They lead off with this, and then repeatedly focus on dictators who have been toppled in 2011 when talking about the ICC target list and people’s ability to bring these people to justice. We all want to be part of that story line.
2. Subtile conditioning on the call to action. When you get to the end and are asked to share the video, you likely forget that the first minute and thirty seconds was a message that sharing videos changes the world, but that message will still be there in the back of your mind.
3. Laying out a clear theory of change. It’s not a great theory of change, but they paint a clear picture to the viewer about how their participation leads to the end result. Check it out at 21:40. Something that every good campaign video should emulate in some form.
4. Telling a story of self to humanise the content. While this comes across as self-aggrandising, it also gives a human face to the storyteller. He’s a man with a kid who wants to make sure kids everywhere are safe. You can understand his emotions.
5. Subtly challenging the viewer to engage. Early on you’re told, “this video is an experiment, but in order for it to work, you have to pay attention,” and when explaining the issue to his son the implicit challenge is “if this kid can understand this, you should too.” Essentially in both cases you’re told that your intelligence is being tested, and you certainly don’t want to fail.

As a final thought, I hope that everyone is seeing Invisible Children a team mate who can take set pieces like Beckham in his prime, but just hasn’t figured out passing or dribbling the ball. You wouldn’t call a talented teammate an idiot. You’d look to learn from what their great at, coach them on their weaknesses, and work to integrate them in the team in a way that makes the most of their strengths and minimises weak spots. 

So let’s assume the best of intentions from of the Invisibile Children team and assume that we’re all on the same team and see how we can make the most of each others talents.

We’re very lucky to have the support of phenomenal individuals who do extraordinary things for War Child UK.  Tom Nelson and Phil Saunders - the Daring Dynamos - are cycling around the world to raise money for War Child’s work.  They recently visited our project in the Central African Republic to get a first hand look at out work, and made us this awesome video so you could see too.

Tom and Phil leave London on March 17, 2012 - we’ll be posting updates on their progress, so be sure to check in to see where they are.

This TV spot was made for us by our friends at Ogilvy.  You could have heard a pin drop in the office when we first watched it - We were literally stunned into silence.  Go on, take a look. You probably haven’t seen anything quite like it before.