October 23, 2008
What Makes a Charity's Online Video Stick?
How can a charity create an online video that gets noticed? For a few ideas, nonprofit officials might want to take note of The Girl Effect, created by the Nike and Novo Foundations.
As Alix Zwane, a program manager at Google.org, writes on the group’s blog, the video has “gone viral.” Blogs such as blogher and Made to Stick have written about it, and Ms. Zwane says she’s been “gleefully contributing to the spread of the video.”
Why is Ms. Zwane so excited? She says she admires how the video defines a complex issue — how empowering and educating young women is key to breaking the cycle of poverty — in simple terms. She also likes how the video was used to kick off an announcement by the Nike and Novo Foundations of their grant-making priorities.
Dan Heath, a blogger at Made to Stick, which bills itself as a blog about “why some ideas stick and others die,” deconstructs why the video is so compelling.
Mr. Heath writes that the video gets our attention by starting with “a schema violation (‘So what else is new?’). Then there’s a curiosity gap (‘What if there’s an unexpected solution … Would you even know it if you saw it?’) Then there’s the surprise: ‘A girl.’ The cumulative effect of these elements is critical: They’ve got our attention. We’re on the hook.”
And that’s just the beginning of Mr. Heath’s analysis.
Ms. Zwane, of Google.org, says she’s also wondering what comes next. She asks readers of her blog: “What has the video prompted you to do? Where will the conversation go from here?”
Do you think it works? Why? And how would you answer Ms. Zwane’s questions?
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Great post Caroline! I wrote a follow up on Change.org’s Social Entrepreneurship channel:
http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/awesome_design_watch_the_girl_effect
— Nathaniel Whittemore Oct 23, 10:05 AM #