There were some debates on the Internet about the ALS ice bucket challenge in 2014 and 15,

which is now over and over with. People questioned whether or not it was truly helpful. This

is a question that people ask over and over whenever something goes viral on internet with

some kind of fundraising effort or awareness campaign. I think it's a fair question to ask how

much influence do individuals have when they update

Acti
on
their image of their facebook profile or launch a twitter
Desire to Solve
hashtag to help a campaign movement? Or what happens Problem

Interest in the Problem

when they like a post or a photo or a video and share it?

What about all those posts about social justice? In general, Awareness of the Issue

the question is, does hopping into the campaign for viral awareness have an effect?

Surprisingly, the answer is that it depends. It does not depend on what the issue is, or what

the campaign is intended to do, whether it is to raise awareness or inspire some kind of

action, but it depends on the kind of action that people can take on the issue.

Engagement and call to action become a catalyst for movement for people to do something

about this issue, apparently leading to generating donations.

There were people who argued that dumping a bucket of ice on your head doesn't make you a

philanthropist, and instead of doing the Ice bucket challenge, people should just donate. But

the point about the challenge of the ice bucket is that not only encourages you to take a

challenge; if you look at the expression, it's not so much about pouring water on your head,

the objective of the challenge was to heighten awareness and make more people do it. It's

been successful now because of the viral marketing behind the ice bucket challenge. Almost

all of them in the U.S. and many other countries know about it. More notably, if you look at
the contributions to the ALS organisation, their overall income over the last two years, with

the support of the ice bucket challenge, was far more than $20 million.

Why was the challenge of the ice bucket effective in really doing what we've been

challenged to do?

The challenged has a total impression of 28 million FB likes/comments, 1.2 million Facebook

posts, 6.2 million YouTube uploads, 15.9 million tweets, which promoted more interest and

donation in this, by the general public, and the recognized celebrities and politicians. This

trigger attracted and the following factors attributed to it:

1. A cause that captures hearts

2. A call-to-action with a call-to-action

3. Game-play elements

4. Easy to share content on the right platform

5. Celebrity endorsement

6. Entertainment and story telling

7. Feel good factor

8. Making a lasting difference

It did not just make people throw water on themselves to make them feel better, but they were

actually putting their money where their mouth is. If we take the ALS ice bucket challenge in

a marketing lens I'd say I learnt the form of message and media with transmedia story telling.