Yes, a lot of us know that creating campaigns using social media tools is dirt cheap compared with the 30 second spot in television. And with the use of social networks, an idea or a certain media can go viral within minutes or hours. Depending on the level of controversy or value it brings.
Many had been successful in creating campaigns that spread like forest fire and of course there are those that keeps people in the dark. One of them is the AKO MISMO campaign we have in the Philippines. People started seeing it on television ads. A good move since they started promoting the campaign using main stream media and at present, the best way to tap the Philippine crowd’s attention. And the bad, it didn’t pass the connected citizens’ approval.
Maybe a coincidence
To give you an idea, if there’s a call for patriotism or an advocacy for change a year before the national elections, the first thing that will come into our minds is that “This is a political campaign”. It is hard to erase this kind of notion to us since we only see these types of shouts during campaign periods. Yes, you can call it seasonal like every 3 or 5 years.
Going back to the AKO MISMO campaign, bloggers from the Philippines have started looking into details and have shared their piece of mind about it. Though we wanted to stay aligned with our site’s topic, we can’t just turn our back to those who and who might jumped in without knowing what the campaign’s true purpose is.
Are they doing things wrong?
A Campaign Needs A Face – No, not the actors that you saw promoting the campaign. Though the domain’s registrant is Tribal DDB, there’s nothing in the website that tells their audience who started the campaign. I read in Carlo Ople’s post that Smart Communications denied the allegations that they own the campaign. So, who started it?
A Campaign Protects Its Audience – Funny, before you see the Privacy Page and Terms and Conditions, you need to sign up and complete an almost detailed page asking for your personal information. They could have just placed a link like “Please upload your birth certificate!”. Now, is this bad? After individuals provide their information then that’s the time they tell you about their privacy policy and terms. How cool is that?
A Campaign Has A Purpose – The theme of the campaign is good. AKO MISMO means I Myself or Me Personally. The campaign is asking every Filipino what we can do as individuals to bring change. So you see, it’s a good call. Then? After submitting what I want to do, what comes next? Oh, a surprise maybe?
A Campaign Needs To Be Transparent – As I’m writing this, there are now 53,473 registered users and have no idea where their idea or how the information they provided will be used. Yes, the idea of Privacy back home is not a big deal but there some who don’t like the idea of receiving emails or text messages about a campaign. This is like shouting in front of your audiences’ face. You can read Carlo’s post regarding the Privacy policy.
Did I register? I think the proper question is “Should I register?”. The next thing I’m expecting to see with this campaign is damage control. When I watched the campaign for the first time, I was a little bit impressed with the theme. Why? The idea was similar to the Obama CHANGE campaign. So let me ask you, is this campaign doing it wrong? Yes? No? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.
Update 05/06/2009:
I was able to find their blog with the post Blogs Talking About Ako Mismo which documents conversation in the blogosphere. And they published their FAQ page.
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