We copy when we feel

Ice bucket challenge behavioural truths

This summer might just be the coldest - and wettest – on record. By this point, you or a loved one have most likely participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. You’ve felt the crash of icy cold water upon your head and body  – whether in real life or through ‘digital exposure’ as a Facebook or YouTube witness – and in good humor and with good intentions, donated your time and energy to advancing a cure for ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  

For those yet unaware, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge involves dumping a bucket of ice water on your head to promote awareness of ALS and encourage donations to research, taking and posting videos of the stunt and then nominating others to do the same. A common stipulation is that nominated participants have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation, to ALS or another charity.

As we head into fall, the surge of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in the US may be finally cooling off, but analysts project that it’ll continue to live (UK and India dumping ice as of press time). The figures show, though, that no matter when this social media-powered video challenge eventually evaporates, the positive effects are undeniable. In late August, the ALS Association announced that the challenge had sparked over three million donations, topping $100 million in funds collected in the past month. 

To put this in perspective, that’s a 3,500% increase from the 2.8 million that the ALS Association raised during the same time period last year with a purely didactic rational message to encourage donations.

The power of social media is undeniable – but what exactly made people care so much about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? There are myriad worthy causes that vie for funding and awareness, but without a personal connection – i.e. knowing someone stricken with the disease – it’s often difficult to get people to feel connected, to feel anything other than being insulated or neutral.

This underscores a basic Behavioural Science tenet of how we operate and make decisions: when we feel nothing, we do nothing.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, in contrast, became such a success because it made the world’s largest network – the Internet and all its participants – feel something. Whatever your objective –especially in charity, but in marketing as well – it’s imperative to evoke strong emotion. Otherwise, your concept is dead on arrival.

So let’s delve into the forces at play that made the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge make people feel strongly and act in the name of charity.

The campaign was the optimal mix of Behavioural Science at play. Here’s how:    

1. Environmental
The challenge reached its height in July and August, affording participants the chance to cool down with a refreshing (some would say too refreshing!) bucket of ice cold water on a hot summer day. Sure, some people participated in their bath tubs, but for the most part, people took to their lawns, the beach, and the streets for a quick freeze and an imminent air dry.

2. Social
Facebook’s newsfeed quickly got taken over by an endless stream of Ice Bucket challenge videos. Everybody and their mother (literally) seemed to be participating, making it incredibly likely that if you hadn’t participated already, you would be challenged soon. And, ironically enough for a challenge that some could deem ‘torturous’, many secretly hoped that they would be called. That’s the power of social. We want to feel involved, we’re motivated by what we see others do rather than what messages tell us we should do. And we are copying machines. It is backed into our DNA that we do things we see other people doing.

Not just our friends, but celebrities in all sense of the name reached for their own bucket and bag(s) of ice (see the 50 best here). You had celebrities from the tech sphere (Bill Gates), the record industry (Jennifer Lopez), film (Benedict Cumberbatch), talk show and lifestyle (Oprah Winfrey), and politicians (George Bush). Ice is a great equalizer... we are all capable of the challenge.

3. Personal
We all love a good challenge, especially when there’s the ‘why not’ factor provided by the summer backdrop and the popularity among social groups, but what really drove the point home was the Personal factor – there was an end goal. And an important one at that. It was all being done in the name of charity. At the end of the day, those in need would benefit. And that feels good.

That’s not to say there weren’t some naysayers regarding the challenge. There were. Criticisms abounded that the campaign prompted narcissistic selfies. That it was all about “selfies”, and outdoing one another, and little by way of financial contribution. Some challenges that not enough of the proceeds are going to research. My personal favorite was that the stunts are wasting water, and that it’s frivolous and callous in the face of the growing crisis of drought and water shortage everywhere from California to developing nations. In reply to that one, Matt Damon, actor and clean water activist and co-founder of www.water.org used toilet water for the soaking, prompting grimaces but cleverly bringing attention to another worthy cause we all think about but do little change.

No matter how ‘polar-izing’ (pun intended), the point is that the campaign makes people feel something. We feel sadness that this disease affects so many, happiness at the humor of the act of the ice bucket plunging, surprise that so many have taken on the challenge, and, in some case, contempt or anger that something so serious is treated frivolously.

No matter where the feeling originates and in what form, the campaign that generated these feelings inspired change. It’s classic Behavioural Science. It tapped into who we are as human beings.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge stands up as a model for marketers – whether in the charitable sector or otherwise. By truly understanding the forces at play – environmental, social, and personal - and designing and testing  campaigns accordingly, marketers can enact true behavior change. They can make their consumers feel something and thus do something.

To learn more about this neurodegenerative disease, you can go to the ALS Association website at www.alsa.org.


Susan is Chief Marketing Officer at BrainJuicer. Read more from them in our Clubhouse.
 

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