Status of Africa: the Facebook app with a difference
10th May 10
Posted in creativity, social media
As we’ve said many times before, we like nothing more than a great idea put to good use and we’re very happy to say BBH London have just created exactly that for AMREF (African Medical Research Foundation).
Kim & Mareka, the creative team who dreamt up the idea, told us more about it.
What’s the idea in a nutshell?
The idea is that you simply lend your Facebook status to one of 7 Africans, thereby giving them the opportunity to let more people know about their lives. Your status is updated morning and afternoon for 5 days on your behalf, with the real stories of daily life in Africa. As part of the sign-up process, you can also lend your Twitter account, and even your Facebook profile picture to your choice of person – from a Nairobi streetkid or a Nomadic tribe member to a Flying Doctor or Traditional Birth Attendant.
What inspired the solution?
We were inspired by the fact that we are personally able to divulge the minutiae of our lives on a whim via Facebook, and that people in our social circle pay attention to these bitesize updates. We thought that if we could translate that platform to broadcast revealing and hard-hitting truths on the state of daily African life, it would be effective and create a buzz. We also had no money and no media, this being a charity project, so it changed the lines of our thinking, and Facebook seemed an ideal environment to try and spread a message.
What are you looking to achieve with this?
We are hoping that people take this very simple opportunity to do something charitable, and help spread awareness of the plight of Africa. We also hope that the harsh realities are brought home somewhat, and people also become aware that there is important work being done on the ground by AMREF, to improve African life for the future.
Is this a first for Facebook?
Using status updates to communicate automatically on behalf of a cause or topic you believe in is not new per se – it’s just been used more often to spread news and announcements, eg. Obama’s election campaign polling day call, or as a way for people to sign up under a unified message. We believe our campaign feels like a true and human use of the Facebook medium – an opportunity for the telling of a number of very personal stories, broadcast on a global scale.
Are there any plans to continue the campaign?
Whilst donations can be made to AMREF via their Facebook page and their website, we will be developing an engaging online method to donate directly to the charity in future (we’re not ready to give the idea away just yet, so please watch this space!)
Tell us the story behind how this idea came about – what’s BBH’s relationship with AMREF, what was the brief?
AMREF has a corporate sponsor in Diageo, a BBH client. The Johnnie Walker team came to us looking to raise awareness for the charity principally, and then hopefully drive donations. This piece of communication through Facebook is designed to fulfil the awareness part of the brief, and then there is a ‘Part II’ in the pipeline we’ve hinted at above – an exciting and innovative donation driver.
Anything else we should know?
We’d love everyone to sign up to the app on FB, spread the word amongst their friends, tweet about it. And, yes, if you know any celebrities in the Twitterverse or blogosphere that they think would lend some weight behind the campaign and talk about it, that would be a massive boost.
Here’s the link to the app again: http://apps.facebook.com/statusofafrica
And if you are interested in getting involved in AMREF beyond the app, take a look here: http://uk.amref.org/get-involved/
Credits:
Creative Team: Mareka Carter & Kimberley Gill
Creative Director: Johan Tesch/Rosie Arnold
Digital Producer: Tove Svensson
Account Director: Emma Brooker
Engagement Planner: Daniele Orner-Ginor
Junior Creative Technologist: Luis-Daniel Alegría
AMREF: Victoria Rugg, Tracey Carter & Tyler Stiem (Tyler originally bought into the idea but has now moved on from the charity).
Diageo: Peter Dee
PR: Romy Miller
Production Company: Chris Maltby and Matt Lynch at Feed Communications
Pius Omoding
Dr Asrat Mengister
14 comments on “Status of Africa: the Facebook app with a difference”
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Mel Exon
[...] twitter Taí uma idéia que o Ethan Zuckerman deve estar aplaudindo, de pé. É do pessoal do BBH Labs. The idea is that you simply lend your Facebook status to one of 7 Africans, thereby giving them [...]
[...] Status of Africa: the Facebook app with a difference - BBH Labs MTV Could Break the Live Online Music Deadlock – Wired [...]
I’ve donated my feed. Thanks Mel, for sharing and thanks BBH for doing this.
Edward, thanks so much for the support and kind words. Great to hear it.
[...] BBH Labs has just come up with a pretty cool idea. Donate your Facebook or Twitter feed to the African Medical Research Foundation. You simply go to an AMREF website, authorize the organize to post in your feed, choose one of seven needy Africans whose updates you want your followers to see, and just like that you raise awareness for the plight of Africans and for the good work being done by AMREF. Amos N’Dungo is now updating my Facebook status for five days [...]
I would be happy to lend my Facebook status to the Status of Africa app but what does it mean that it “needs to pull my friends’ info” ?
Hey Roger
Thanks so much for your interest in Status of Africa.
Please be assured that this is standard Facebook functionality – our app doesn’t do anything with your friends’ info other than to create a bank from which you can choose people to invite to join you in lending their status to Africa too.
Regards, Mareka
[...] Status of Africa: the Facebook app with a difference: “ [...]
Great idea; makes me stop and think about these individuals as neighbors. Puts things in perspective, in a very quick manner.
Thank you Molly. We’re very glad it’s had that effect. I also just read your tweet saying you’re curious to know whether this sort of activity will “bring awareness to Americans. We need bigger view.” I think we often take for granted the simplest task: create awareness, get noticed. That’s not enough in the longer term of course, but it’s a start. An interesting provocation and debate on the subject also going on at Edward Boches’ blog here, if you’re interested: http://bit.ly/aIiYYl
[...] Hinterlasse einen Kommentar Schlagwörter:AMREF, App, BBH London, facebook, Werbung BBH London kam in den vergangenen Tagen mit einer meiner Meinung nach überragenden Facebook Kampagne für die [...]
I see what you are trying to do here, but something about it just doesn’t fit, either with the medium of Facebook/Twitter or the mission of getting more voices from Africa into the international public sphere.
- The characters come from 4 East African countries but are headlined as the ‘Status of Africa’. Already too many people in the North think that Africa is a country, a single amorphous place marked ‘problem’, this doesn’t challenge that view.
- These may be ‘real people’, but they are not really tweeting. They remind me of the recorded voiceovers you get from ‘historical characters’ in museums. “I heard a rumour today that there are over 50,000 other poor people living in our slum” –… Imagine sending a tweet that said…. “I heard a rumour today that there were over 60,000 middle class people living in our mid-size suburban town” – just doesn’t ring true. Since Africans are not historical characters but real people (some of them even Facebook and Twitter users…)it begs the question of why they need to be ‘voiced’ like this.
- Its a bit po faced. A large portion of the status updates I read, and certainly more of the ones I forward are gently humorous to downright funny, even the serious ones are witty. The primary mode of discussion is banter. You can’t banter with these people because they are not real.
Hi Maya
Thanks very much for checking out the app and taking the time to give us feedback, we appreciate it.
We take your point about painting a blanket portrait. AMREF is dedicated to working across the continent of Africa and in this case the brief was necessarily about being representative of issues facing the whole, rather than to represent difference by country. We chose instead to represent a spread of individual stories of people AMREF has been working closely with, and to address the different situations they might face, such as health issues, maternity, education and sanitation for example.
Our challenge from AMREF was to raise awareness of their charity, which is relatively unknown in this country. We felt there was a trade off between raising maximum awareness & engagement as efficiently and least disruptively as possible to the people AMREF engage with, vs creating “live” status updates in keeping with Facebook functionality. We also believed that the latter would potentially lower sign-up (and hence reduce the spread of AMREF’s message), given that Facebookers wouldn’t know what to expect – at the moment it’s considered good etiquette to show what you’ll be publishing on their behalf, which we have provided as part of the functionality of the app when you choose who to lend your status to. In future, perhaps things will be different, right now it’s about experimenting with what’s possible in the space.
On your thoughts about witty banter, yes, that’s often the primary function of Facebook, but it’s not the only one – we feel that all of us regularly update our statuses with stuff we’ve found & think is interesting, not just chit chat. Likewise, if not more so, in respect of Twitter’s function. We hope this has been the reason behind people’s sharing and spreading of the campaign.
We are well aware that the work that AMREF do is far more complex and demanding than a Facebook app or ad campaign could ever hope to convey. We expect to use social media in new, more nuanced ways in future as we develop it. Your feedback has been invaluable in that respect, so once again thank you.
In the meantime, if this campaign has started to create awareness and discussion of the issues faced by those people AMREF works with, we hope you agree that is a positive step. We’ve been pretty humbled by the response so far.
Best wishes and thanks
Mareka & Kim
This is a lovely idea, but I share Maya’s unease. I would love to hear the real voices of these people — but I strongly suspect that what I’m getting are the voices of some first-world copywriters who’re trying to raise money for a good cause. All with the best of intentions, etc, but real voices? No. Did the copywriters actually spend a couple of days with the people they’re being ventriloquists for, or did the information all in an email or a teleconference? It would have been honest, and maybe more useful, to give these people decent mobile phones, and solar chargers, let them set up their *own* FB accounts and then promote those.