Tag: call to action

The Facebook booby trap

Am I the only person (not just male surely) who is sick of the Facebook phenomena of females posting the colour of their underwear as their Facebook status.

Yes, for the slow people, that is why you have been seeing colours as statuses.

I hate breast cancer. Everybody does. Nobody is unaware of it. And seriously. Posting a colour to raise awareness does nothing for the cause.

Has anybody been compelled to make a donation to breast cancer research as a result of the colour “blue” or “chartreuse” (whatever that is).

I know many of you reading this have taken part in the exercise. And I understand your motivation. But either you’re responding to a friend telling you what is going on – or the originally circulated spam that read:

Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!

Fun? Posting colours and keeping secrets is fun? No. It’s childish.

Here’s a more scathing analysis from Jezebel

But what good has it really done for breast cancer awareness? Does anyone on Facebook really not know about breast cancer to the point where someone posting “purple lace!” and eight dudes responding, “Ooh, hot, lol” is really doing to anything to really help the cause in any possible way? If anything, the constant sexualization of and cutesy-poo approach to breast cancer pushes people to take it less seriously. As Tracy Clark-Flory of Broadsheet notes: “This bra color movement seems a similarly desperate attempt to get guys to simply give a crap about breast cancer by making it sexy and flirtatious, which I find not only embarrassing to women but insulting to men.”

And, you know, spreading awareness of an issue that statistically is much more predominant in women by keeping the men out of it… that’s a good idea.

Bollocks.

You don’t see guys running boxers or briefs social networking campaigns to raise awareness for prostate cancer. No. We grow moustaches and collect money.

It seems equally stupid. But there’s a difference. Movember raised awareness and almost $20 million (in Australia – and about the same world wide) for the cause.

A public awareness campaign with no call to action is just stupid. Having a strong call to action is the key to any marketing or public relations campaign. A call to action says: “if you care about this, do this”. Marketing that says “care about this” serves no purpose but to get people to care about an issue they probably already care about. A public awareness campaign where the call to action is “keep this a secret from the guys” is even dumber.

This “Bra Colour” Facebook campaign is stupid, juvenile, and almost completely pointless. Unless all the outcry about how pointless it is leads to some people actually donating.

And I’m proud to be a part of that.

If you really want to make a difference regarding Breast Cancer then do this:

Donate online

Help the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fund research into the prevention, treatment and cure of breast cancer. (If you would like to set up an ongoing donation, please call 02 9299 4090.)

Click here to donate online