One of the Best Campaigns, One of the Worst

This Tuesday, the New York Police Department (@NYPDnews) encouraged its followers to tweet pictures of positive interactions between themselves and the public, using #myNYPD.

This was the kind of thing they were hoping for...

Instead, these are the kinds of images that were posted...

As someone who works in publicity, the thing that STUNNED me about this social media campaign was the lack of basic thought put into it. A couple of years ago, McDonalds did a similar campaign using #McDstories, asking customers to share their favorite McDonald's memories. Of course, thousands of horror stories about hairs and fingernails in food shortly came out and they had to shut it down. NYPD clearly didn't learn from McDonalds' mistake! 

One thing brands need to be aware of, is how you can't control the public's response to the campaigns you create so it's best to play it safe- especially if you are as controversial as, say, the police or a fast food company.

Now on to something more positive...

At the beginning of this year, Swiffer decided to release the commercial below featuring:

1) A multiracial family, including a white man, a black woman and their two children

2) The husband/father, an amputee after losing his arm to cancer

3) HIM doing the household cleaning (Yes, not the woman!)

Although this commercial could have come across as contrived or too sentimental, it presented a genuine story of a loving family who actually benefit from this boring product that would perhaps otherwise garner zero attention. 

One of the things I love about our current digital world is the creative, often awful, often fantastic ideas brands and companies come up with for their campaigns. Thought I'd share this as it's particularly relevant to my career and maybe some of yours out there!

- Posted by Olympia

#Rapecultureiswhen - A powerful Twitter discussion

Rape culture is a term used to describe the normalizing, condoning and excusing of rape and sexual violence in society. It describes a culture that does not teach people how NOT to rape, but instead teaches people how to NOT GET raped.

Zerlina Maxwell wrote this brilliant article for Ebony, entitled "5 Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape" which changes the conversation and calls for the rejection of violence rather than an acceptance of it.

Shortly after but not in response to Zerlina's article, TIME posted this article entitled "It’s Time to End ‘Rape Culture’ Hysteria", which totally rejected the idea of a "rape culture", claiming "Though rape is certainly a serious problem, there’s no evidence that it’s considered a cultural norm."

Then Twitter went crazy! Zerlina tweeted the following... and the #Rapecultureiswhen topic began.

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The hashtag #Rapecultureiswhen gained just under 50, 000 mentions within 48 hours on Twitter and was, in my opinion, an extremely powerful way for victims to connect with each other. I am sick and tired of women being told how to present themselves or how to act in situations to protect themselves. I am sick of people excusing sexual crimes with "she was asking for it by being drunk/dressing slutty/walking alone/hanging out with older men, etc etc." We have this narrative in our minds that women get raped by some stranger in the street and so we teach them ways to protect themselves, when more often than not, women are raped by people that they actually know or sometimes people that they are related to. I believe that rape culture is a real thing and this conversation further enhanced my want to make children and young people know that they should never feel burdened by "how not to get raped" or have to ever feel at blame if they happen to be a victim of sexual violence.
I am extremely happy that Zerlina and others are turning this conversation around and discussing why our culture condones sexual violence and attacks victims rather than perpetrators. Below are some of the highlights from Twitter, including a few of my own.

- Posted by Olympia