A campaign urging people to “stop worrying and enjoy life because there’s probably no God” has caused quite a stir.
The Marketer can’t even get onto its website Atheist Campaign because the sheer amount of traffic trying to get through. The slogan has been pasted onto the side of buses across up and down the country. It was triggered by an article written by journalist Ariane Sherine. Her short piece was a direct response to religious adverts on buses that included religious quotes and, in some, threatened that the non-believer would “burn in hell”. Sherine called for a counter campaign and asked people to donate £5 each if they believed in the cause. They have now exceeded their £5,500 target and current donations stand at £143,678.08.
What’s strange about this social marketing campaign is that it is backwards. People are donating money to get the adverts going not donating money because of the campaign. The campaign will run for as long as they are getting donations. It also has the knock-on effect of bringing publicity to the British Humanist Society.
So this hasn't had the typical effect of getting someone to do or not to do something but more the community that it has achieved. Changing minds about something so abstract as “not worrying” is difficult to quantify. But this is hardly the point. The initial intention was equilibrium and raising awareness. What they have achieved is bringing thousands like-minded people together in an organised fashion. The like of which would not have been possible before online communities existed. There is, of course, a website and Facebook group dedicated to the campaign where you can see the sheer volume of support in the form of messages and donations. This may be an exciting and rare form of collective campaigning. A marketing phenomenon for the Twitter generation?
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Comments
1. On 13/01/2009 at 17:00 Rob wrote:
Surely a marketing campaign for the Facebook generation. I do find it rather directionless as a campaign though. What is it trying to achieve, and how can this achievement be measured? Relying on social forums and networking sites as a measuring device is notoriously tricky and often highly unrepresentative.
2. On 14/01/2009 at 14:28 Mel wrote:
Many people fail to see these ads as merely "achieving equilibrium" with similar religious campaigns - it is seen instead as a challenge. I'm sure there must also be Facebook groups that are morally opposed to their existence!
3. On 15/01/2009 at 15:15 Neil wrote:
The use of the word "probably" in the slogan shows a distinct lack of atheist conviction. If anything, it's a sceptical bus, which runs between the atheist and agnostic services. In the interests of balance, let's have the 666 service for satanists.
4. On 15/01/2009 at 16:05 Gerald wrote:
Some MPs have called it "morally unhelpful". What campaigns are ever morally helpful? As a form of social marketing should it also be moral?
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