The Ice Bucket Challenge? By now everyone who's not living under a rock knows about the Ice Bucket Challenge. It's a brilliant viral stunt that combines coerced altruism, mild sadism, mischief, social media, and a good dose of revenge to get people to donate to the ALS Association.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is working spectacularly well. The explanation on the ALS website says, “As of Sunday, August 24, The ALS Association has received $70.2 million in donations compared to $2.5 million during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 24). These donations have come from existing donors and 1.3 million new donors…” And the ice bucket dumping craze shows no sign of abating. How much money the organization will ultimately raise remains to be seen.
Needless to say, the success of The Ice Bucket Challenge has marketing and development people at every charity in the country scrambling to figure out how they can create their own social media sensation and I'm sure we're going to see the fruits of their labors — successful or otherwise — cross our Facebook pages very soon. But there's at least one company that could jump on the Ice Bucket Challenge bandwagon immediatley and not only raise a lot more money for ALS but also build their tribal equity at the same time.
I'm talking to you, Coleman. There's a big empty space in The Ice Bucket Challenge that's screaming out your name.
Quite simply, there's no proper Ice Bucket Challenge vessel. People are dumping cold water on their heads with everything from buckets to aquariums to coolers to shot glasses. The Ice Bucket Challenge doesn't know it but they're searching for their holy grail. So what if Coleman announced that for every Ice Bucket Challenge video that was made with a Coleman cooler the company would donate an additional $10 to the cause??!! All of a sudden people everywhere would pull their old Colemans out of the garage, borrow a friend's Coleman or even go out and buy one. But more importantly, Coleman would not only be tying themselves to something altruistic and good, they'd be building their own brand equity because when you think ice and containers and fun, you'd think Coleman.
This alignment of purpose and meaning and authentic truth and marketing is what developing a true tribal signature is all about. And while it may seem obvious and easy, why hasn't Coleman latched on to The Ice Bucket Challenge already? Is it because they don't have a professional marketing staff or a contract with a creative advertising agency? Of course not. It's simply because most marketers are so busy thinking of traditional marketing and advertising ideas that they miss the concepts that are hidden in plain site.
But on Thursday, October ninth, we're going to change that. Because that day marks the debut of the first Tribal Signature Bootcamp in Miami, Florida. Toby LaVigne – a black belt founder of the concept – and I are going to take a select group through the exercises and experiences that will help you uncover your own authentic truth and build the brand value and tribal equity that will market your potential to the world. Understand that this is not a rehashing of the old and tired (or even tried and true) marketing concepts that you studied in ADV 101. Instead it will be two days of power packed learning on how to develop a brand that will force people to sit up and take notice.
If you've been reading my blog for sometime now, you've probably seen that I've been working on these concepts for a long time. That's because my hands-on experience with my advertising agency and clients has convinced me that the old ways simply don't work in the new world. For example, I'm sure that someone at the ALS Association was still clamoring for the 5Ks and other traditional fund raisers that brought in last year's $2.5 million while some forward-thinking genius was crafting the Ice Bucket Challenge that has already raised $70.2 million!
And if someone at Coleman is reading this, I hope they use our idea and sign up for our seminar.
I hope you do, too. We opened sign-ups a few days ago and will only keep the site open until our limited slots have been filled.
Click HERE to learn more.