The Problem With Awareness Campaigns

Tomorrow is the National Day of Silence to raise awareness about Abortion. My friend, Dan Segale, has been greatly impressed with the courage one of students in his high school ministry has had to take a stand.  She should be lauded for her courage to stand up for what she believes in.  No doubt, the purpose of the youth of America (because let’s face it, almost certainly it’s high schoolers and college kids carrying out the majority of this “silent protest”) is to get people to consider other options when it comes to unplanned pregnancy.  I do not wish to take anything away from the girl the Dan has lifted up, but it did raise some thoughts that I’ve had.  The problem with awareness campaigns is that rarely do they ever provide any actual benefit to those that are supposed to be a beneficiary of the campaign. 

Let’s set aside the National Day of Silence for a moment.  Recently on Facebook, women went around playing a game of sorts involved in posting their bra color one day, and their foot size the next.  It was meant to be provocative and get men (and women) in on guessing why a woman would post “mine’s 8” “  This was all designed to raise breast cancer awareness.  That’s all good spirited and all, but here’s the problem, what did it do to actually help in the fight against breast cancer?  Nothing. 

In business, the majority of people make the mistake of marketing their business in a way that only promotes brand awareness.  Brand awareness is important, but more important is that the business makes money.  What most marketing lacks is something very simple.  They forget to ASK for your money in a compelling way.  These awareness campaigns are generally suffering from the same problem.  First, they lack any educational component, because just going around and making people aware of breast cancer isn’t enough.  Second, they don’t ask for you to take action and do anything.  They don’t ask for you to do anything (like a self-examination of the breast for lumps) or donate (which is certainly a great need).  In the case of the national day of silence, the student in Dan’s high school ministry has presented more education and statistics to get people thinking than most.  Unfortunately, most of the time these types of things rarely do anything compelling to change people mind’s or get someone to take action.

So, what should you do if you want to raise awareness?

1) Provide some sort of compelling hook that encourages others to find out more. 

This could be a news article, or personal story. I was reading an article a few days ago about children starving in North Korea. The article outlined what the challenges the UN’s World Food Programme was having in getting vitally needed food to these orphanage where the kids were suffering from skin issues that were easily treatable with food. The article had a link to the WFP’s website. The article was so compelling that I was moved to click on the link and donated fifty dollars.

2) Provide a compelling argument that challenges conventional thought.

In the Bible, Jesus had this one down pretty good. He would start his teachings with “You have heard it said…” then follow up with some aspect of the Levitical law and then turn each statement on it’s head with “but I tell you the truth…” in which he’d present something completely counter culture to conventional thought while at the same exact time being true to the spirit of what the original law was expressing.

3) Provide an opportunity for your target to take action and then ask them to do it.

I have several friends online that walk in the 3-Day, 60-mile walk for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  It’s a worthy cause that raises millions and millions of dollars across the US for breast cancer research to find a cure.  The difference in their case from the ones that play clever on the internet, is that these men and women ask you to take action.  They even challenge you to get on their team and do something.

There truly is nothing worse than passion that has nowhere to go.  Let’s be smarter about what we’re doing and ask others to take action when we bring a cause to their attention.  Most won’t take action, but if you at least ask you’ll up the percentage that do.