Future:Media:Change

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It should be no surprise that a video of models dropping layers of clothes would be a YouTube hit. What is surprising is how the video came to life — through the creative energy of one of the models and a clever production company, but with no official connection to the campaign they were promoting.

Supermodels Take it Off for Climate Change was made to support the 350.org Day of Action calling for bold climate leadership to get Co2 levels down to 350 parts per million in our atmosphere. The video started slowly moving up the YouTubeYouTube food chain, but shot to the homepage yesterday and now has over 300,000 views. An impressive number made even more fascinating by the fact that the video has nearly the exact same (slightly more actually) views as “Beds are Burning“official video of Kofi Annan’s Time for Climate Justice campaign. The latter was months in the making and executed brilliantly by The:Hours production company. The models video was conceived by model and activist Cameron Russell and produced by Alex Vlack and Andrew Zuckerman in hours on a shoe-string budget.

This is not a head-to-head or either/or comparison. For one, the campaign video is being pushed on several platforms as a download, not just something to watch on YouTube, so the numbers are high on platforms like iTunes. It also has media impact and drove a whole press campaign using the celebrities and dignitaries to promote the entire campaign, along with the song. Also, the content of the models video is not suitable for many of the NGO partners supporting “Beds.”  While PETA has made a strategic decision that sex and controversy sell, a coalition will never produce such a risky and outright sexual video for awareness, which is exactly why creating an environment of support for user-generated content is so vital.

How do NGOs foster more participation? Well, the short answer is to ask. 350.org said simply, “Do something creative to raise awareness of 350ppm and climate change.”  The response was overwhelming and the models video was just one of many clever creations by supporters. The longer answers will be part of another post, but the key for NGOs looking to embrace user-generated-content is to focus their budget and time on content capture and distribution.

The capture aspect is mainly technical with a bit of strategy for grabbing content from regions without good web access. The distribution is the key that many NGOs are missing. More resources need to be put into infrastructures to promote content from supporters. In short, let the supporters do the creative while NGOs focus on pushing the content and message in a variety of networks.

As the supermodels and campaigns like Green My Apple show, supporters are eager to put their creative energies to use. Let them. Embrace it. Promote it.