#CATmageddon - social media case study

#CATmageddon

a social media case study

by Hannah Hanlon

A tweet for a hook

Ahoy, matey! Did you know that cats are twice as likely to get cancer if their owner smokes? And if there are no more cats, there will be no more videos of cats?? Arrrrrr you going to be the generation that helps prevent #CATmageddon ???  #catvideos=saved #lives=saved 

Why?

This brand was trying to solve the problem of cats being put at risk due to secondhand smoke from their owners by making the target audience (particularly teens) aware of certain facts about this issue. The brand had specific goals set for this anti-tobacco campaign. 

Problem: “Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about tobacco or its consequences.”

Goal: “Connect smoking to something the audience cares about as much as themselves: their pets.”

This campaign was produced by Truth (a national campaign which produces television and digital content to encourage teens to reject tobacco and to unite against the tobacco industry) and paired with TMZ (a celebrity and entertainment tabloid news site). Keegan Allen was the celebrity spokesperson featured in several posts. Allen is an actor, author, photographer, and musician located in Los Angeles who is known for his work in the television show Pretty Little Liars. 

The collaboration of all the above parties makes sense, because the target audience was teens, and this group probably makes up a large part of Allen’s fanbase. Keegan has a large fan following —currently 2 million Twitter followers and just over 6 million Instagram followers—and on his Instagram page, there are several posts of dogs and cats, which indicates that Keegan is an animal lover, particularly of cats. He even has a short video story on his page labeled “cats and jazz.”

The campaign also featured partnerships with Petco, Adult Swim, and BuzzFeed.

Brand Context

The #CATmageddon (Truth) campaign was launched at the Grammy awards in 2016.

The primary agenda of this campaign was to find a way to make people (particularly teens) think more deeply into the use of tobacco and its consequences. It showed teens that smoking is bad for cats and therefore there would be a "CATmageddon," a "world devoid of furry kittens and the adorable, hilarious videos that come with them.”

Mission:  “Make a cultural impact and change teens' attitudes about smoking by using the fact that cats whose owners smoke are 2x as likely to get cancer.”

Ways this was accomplished:

• Simple slogan:  smoking=no cats=no cat videos
• Call to action:  Prevent #CATmageddon
• Media and platforms used:
• TV campaign launched at the 2016 Grammy awards
• Digital and social media platforms (Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Vimeo, Instagram, etc.)

Solution

What made this campaign so unique was that they spread the truth by finding a new way to tell an old story. The problem campaigns like Truth face is that people just don’t care enough about their own health to stop smoking or to not begin smoking in the first place. So instead of showing facts about how hazardous it is to human health (been there, tried that), they released cute memes and videos of cats —playing piano, dressed up as sharks—to drive home the point of how hazardous it is to cats’ health and what the world would be like without viral videos and pics of those silly, adorable furballs. By being aware of the risk to cats, people (starting with teens) will look at tobacco use differently and reduce the use, thereby protecting, not only the life of cats, but their own lives as well.

I saw several examples noted from the textbook Social Media Marketing by Tracy L. Tuten and Michael R. Solomon of tactics and strategies demonstrated that make for effective social media marketing campaigns. These include:

Market segmentation in which the brand targeted a distinct group based on common needs and characteristics and beyond this, demographic segmentation, which utilized common characteristics. This campaign was very similar to the the Secret’s Mean Stinks Campaign in that it targeted a younger audience by appealing to the 7 social currency dimensions:

• self-image and self-esteem
• sense of belonging or kinship
• being engaged by the brand
• social connections and relationships
• helped the audience to discover, evaluate, and make decisions about the brand
• engaged the audience by enhancing the value gained from the brand

As far as the motives and attitudes on the part of the consumers, a campaign like this would most likely trigger the altruistic impulse, which is how some participate in social media as a way to do something good or “make the world a better place.” In some cases, this could be deemed as virtue signaling (also known as “hashtag activism”) by others (p. 53).

The resources used to pull off such a campaign would likely include:

• Social media strategists
• Marketing professionals
• Graphic designers and artists
• Analysts
• Networking

Results Analysis

The #CATmageddon campaign is recognized as Truth’s “most successful campaign ever in terms of cultural impact and changing teen attitudes towards smoking.” In qualitative terms, the campaign received accolades such as Mashable releasing an article that declared #CATmageddon as “the best part about The Grammy’s” along with celebrities tweeting and sharing content. In terms of quantitative data, the campaign drove 3.18MM owned-channel social engagements, 110k mentions and 110 million views, along with 900 million PR impressions that received a boost from Upworthy, Fortune, Mashable and USA Today. The campaign’s 399,000 CATfluencer engagements reached an additional 7.3 million followers. The campaign saw a measurable change in attitudes and perceptions among teen audiences with a 21% increase in agreements with “Tobacco companies make me angry” among those aware of #CATmageddon and the facts that they were exposed to about the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Lessons Learned

• Keep it simple:  Smoking=no cats=no cat videos
• Find a new way to tell an old story:  Smoking is bad…for your cat!
• Mix facts with cuteness and humor—> logos and pathos
• Create a memorable hashtag (#CATmageddon) and shareable content
• Know your target audience and find sponsors and partners who share the same audience/fanbase.

Works Cited

http://shortyawards.com/9th/catmageddon

Tuten, Tracy L. and Michael R. Solomon. Social Media Marketing. Book. Sage Publications, 2018.

Style and Art: A Textual Analysis

A common theme that has come up as I have been observing and learning more about art history while in Siena is that of style. A style is something that an artist may use to convey an emotion, a particular allegory, the period of time a work was created, and even to portray their own perspective of a possible truth. And that is what has been interesting to me about some of these works of art: it is not so much the insistence of a particular truth but the possibilities of what truths could be.
In Perseus in the Wind, Freya Stark connects style and truth together when she observes that “style is fundamentally a truthful statement, if we take for truth something more careful than the not telling of a lie. There are layers and layers of truth; and style, whether in dress or life, art or literature is involved in their discovery” (81).

My personal discovery while studying this art, particularly the gothic art of the Medieval period which is almost entirely religious art, is that with the style of the artist, the iconography was made to represent and persuade the viewer of perceived (even imagined) truths...and the artist was powerful because of this, even held responsible by the Church depending on the style the artist used. As the views, understandings, and teachings of the Church changed over time, so did the style of the art.

For instance, there are multiple versions of The Annunciation - a depiction of the angel Gabriel informing the young virgin Mary that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ. There are three paintings from different time periods ranging from Middle Age to High Renaissance to Late Renaissance that I observed and compared. Perhaps three of the most famous paintings of this particular theme are the ones created by Simone Martini, an artist of the Medieval Era, and later the one painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, at the peak of the Renaissance Age - both of whose paintings can be seen at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy - and lastly the one painted by Giorgio Vasari of the Late Renaissance Age, whose painting can be seen at The Louvre in Paris, France.

The painting of The Annunciation by Simone Martini, created in 1333, depicts the virgin Mary as very closed off. She is leaning away from the visiting angel, her back towards him, and she is guarding herself with her right arm. Her face looks grim, and she appears scared. She is also wearing a dark blue robe with only a small bit of fabric from the red dress she is wearing underneath peeking out. This is in keeping with the Church discouraging, or outright forbidding, artists from depicting the Virgin Mary wearing crimson, which was considered the color of harlots. It is also evidence of a slight progression in how this theme was illustrated when compared to much earlier works of art of the same theme, in which the virgin was shown wearing all blue and no red at all (for instance, The Virgin and Child, currently on display in Saint Catherine’s Monastery, which was painted in the year 600.) She is also shown to be looking more regal with gold trimming around the hems of her robe and gown and a golden jewel-encrusted head adornment that appears to be a crown.

Moving further along in time by almost 150 years, the Annunciation by Leonardo Da Vinci was painted in 1472 at the height of the Renaissance Age. The mood and style of this painting is somewhat different from Martini’s. It shows Mary in an open receptive position; she is facing the angel, her hand is held upward and away from her body, and her face appears softer. She is also shown with more of her red dress appearing from under the blue outer robe she wears, and her clothing is less regal than that seen in Martini’s painting.

The final painting in this analysis of the Annunciation, created by Giorgio Vasari around 1565 during the Late Renaissance, shows an even more open and receptive depiction of the virgin and the visiting angel. He is closer to her than as seen in the two earlier aforementioned paintings, and she is wearing a red dress with no blue at all. She also appears to be very humble and simply dressed with no gold in her adornment.

I found it to be an interesting discovery and analysis of how the perception of truth can be influenced and even altered according to the style of an artist during a particular age. During the Medieval Age, when artists were influenced more by the Catholic Church, the style was to show the interaction of the virgin and angel as more stern, austere, and guarded with the virgin wearing little to no red. During the Renaissance, which was guided more by individualism than the Church, the theme is softer, more open, and she is wearing more red.

During a recent visit to the Santa Maria della Scala hospital in Siena, Italy, I saw an exhibit of what is considered to be a relic of the fabric that Mary wore, and it was red. Whether it’s true that this was actually a piece of her garment or whether it was sensationalized due to the “business” of relics and how important they were to a particular city in luring others to make a pilgrimage, I am not sure. However, I found this to be a notable observance informing my analysis which synthesizes with the statement Freya Stark made about style and truth perceived from art.

Simone Martini, 1333.

Leonardo da Vinci, 1472.

Giorgio Vasari, 1565.

Why 12 ANGRY MEN Is Such An Important Film

A superbly told story, while entertaining, can also stimulate us to examine ourselves closely. One of the best ways to get a person to reflect upon themselves in such a way is to be relatable. 12 Angry Men is a very relatable film (Dir. Sidney Lumet. Perf. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley. United Artists 1957).

No matter what your station in life - your gender, your nationality, your religion, your view on politics - you will find some aspect of yourself reflected back in one or more of the characters in this movie. You will see men who are fair, who search for facts, who rely on opinions, who are swayed easily by the crowd, who are prejudiced, who take things too personally. The film reveals how some of the men are moved to change their original viewpoints based on the facts and the realization that they have based their decision on personal feelings, while others’ apparent change seems based upon expectation by their peers.

One of the film’s most compelling scenes involves a man (performed superbly by Ed Begley) fervently imploring the other 11 to echo his opinion. One by one, the others rise from their seats and turn their backs on him. It is the first time we see the majority of the jurors unified for the same reason. The man’s race-based rantings, it is agreed, are not worth sharing and have no place in this room. Humiliated, perhaps ashamed, the lone man slumps into his chair. He utters not a single word again, save to give his last, and sincerely changed, vote of not guilty.

By the end of the movie, I was both satisfied and unsettled. I would like to think that I would be the kind of person to stand against something I feel is wrong, even if my viewpoint is not a popular one. As I watched the movie, however, I felt sympathetic to characters who were in conflict with the man who first stood up against the crowd (perf. Henry Fonda). I related to the few who seemed to want to do the right thing but who at first remained silent out of fear. I also questioned if I would stubbornly stick with the wrong sentiment, because it is influenced by my own personal feelings and experiences. One such example is the man who held onto his vote of “guilty” up until the very last, and we find out that the reason why is because the defendant reminded him of the heartbreak he had for his own estranged son (perf. Lee J. Cobb).

I feel that this movie is important for people to watch, because it compels us to reflect deep within and ask ourselves which man or woman would we be. Who would I be? Would I be the first person to stand up when I feel something is wrong, or would I be apathetic? Would I base my decision on what the facts are? Would I be moved primarily by others’ opinions? I believe these self-reflecting questions are important to ask ourselves and watching this movie is a good incentive to do that.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE: Examining How An Individual's Personal Identity and Dreams are Cultivated

People will often choose avocations that help them identify their perceived place in the world, influence how they cope with it, or even reflect an inner desire for an alternate lifestyle than the one they are living. Some enjoy leisurely pastimes, such as origami or knitting. Others may be drawn to more challenging activities, like sudoku. A particular high achiever may take up learning to fly an airplane, not with the intention of flying commercially, but for recreational purposes and even for the satisfaction of completing an elusive lifelong goal. In general aviation, it is not uncommon to meet physicians or engineers who have earned pilot’s licenses. These are people who consistently operate in high pressure settings and then will learn to fly an airplane, which requires sharp mental acuity and focus at all times. In Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, there are statements and symbolic examples to be found that show how Tom, Amanda, and the enigmatic Laura could be living their lives vicariously through their hobbies or intense personal interests.

To begin with, there’s Tom, who frequently goes to the movies to stay removed from a world of reality that his family was "somehow set apart from” (121). Tom works daily at a warehouse in order to be the primary provider for the Wingfield apartment in this “dissolving economy” (121). However, he craves travel and adventure, which he does not “have much of at work” (136). He goes to the movies often to escape his dreary reality but becomes restless when he considers “those glamorous people - having adventures - hogging it all” (149). He makes a proclamation that he is “tired of the movies”, and is “about to move”, which he proves when he pulls out a paper showing his membership as part of “The Union of Merchant Seamen” (150).

Amanda’s primary interest is to dominate and control her children so that she can vicariously live the life she felt she was cheated out of when her husband, Tom and Laura’s father, abandoned their family. She desperately worries that Tom will “jeopardize the security” of them all, if he were to lose his job (131). She obsesses about Laura either finishing business school or getting married so that neither of them will become “little birdlike women without any nest - eating the crust of humility all their life” (127).

Lastly, Laura’s preoccupation is her glass menagerie, a very passive hobby, which she polishes and when faced with uncomfortable facts of reality, will reach “for a piece of glass” (128). Perhaps Laura sees herself as part of a menagerie in this city community that is described as “one of those vast hive-like conglomerations” in one of the “overcrowded centers of lower middle-class population” (120). She is comfortable with animals and the “art museum and the bird houses” and pretty things, like the “glass house where they raise the tropical flowers” (127). She hides from reality behind glass, which is fragile and delicately pretty, very reflective of her own existence. Interestingly, her favorite animal in the collection is a unicorn, a creature that in mythical folklore is considered to be symbolic of purity, grace and love, characteristics that Laura herself possesses and desires to have. She likely sees herself as a unicorn in a “world full of common people”, as her love interest Jim puts it, or perhaps she even imagines Jim as the elusive unicorn who will be drawn to her purity and become her true love (159). When Jim dances with her and bumps into the menagerie, causing the horn to break off of the unicorn, Laura comforts herself by the idea that the unicorn “will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don’t have horns” (162). The horn breaking off is symbolic also of Laura’s impending loss of innocence and hope, similar to a unicorn being trapped by a dishonest virgin in order to lure it in for hunters who want it for its horn.

Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is rich with examples and symbolism of how Laura, Amanda and Tom used their hobbies and pastimes as means of escape from reality and as extensions of the dreams they have of the life they want and of how they wish to be perceived by the world around them.

Works Cited

Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie.” Literature: Reading to write. Ed. Elizabeth Howells. New York: Pearson, 2010. 117. Print.

AMERICAN HISTORY X and PRECIOUS - comparing media to analyze factors contributing to the self-identity of urban youth

Two movies that are useful for analyzing specific examples of the socio-economic factors which shape the formative identity of youths growing up in large cities and how they ultimately are transformed are the independent films, AMERICAN HISTORY X (Dir. Tony Kaye. Perf. Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D’Angelo. 1998) and PRECIOUS (Dir. Lee Daniels. Perf. Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton. 2009.)

An important historical context given in AMERICAN HISTORY X is the Rodney King Riots which happened in South Central Los Angeles, circa spring of 1992, in which ethnic minorities made up the majority of the victims. In the film, we see Danny Vinyard (the younger brother of a skinhead living in a suburban area of Los Angeles) whom he remembers leading a small mob of rioters into vandalizing a business owned by an Asian man who employs Hispanics. In comparison, PRECIOUS (adapted by Sapphire’s novel, PUSH) portrays an overweight black teenage girl named Claireece Jones, (Gabourey Sidibe), who goes by her middle name “Precious” and lives in a low-rent apartment in New York City. They both have been victims of extreme violence (Danny’s father having been killed by a minority while on the job and Precious attacked by young men while she is walking down the street.) With the loss of his brother (who is imprisoned for 3 years due to a hate crime witnessed by Danny) and his mother (Beverly D’Angelo) in increasingly frail health, Danny turns to Cameron (Stacy Keach), the leader of the Neo-Nazi gang his brother formerly belonged to for guidance. When Derek is released from prison, he rescues Danny from a rally, confronts Cameron and then compels his brother, Danny, to leave that way of life by telling him what happened to him in prison (being raped by a gang of Neo-Nazis and befriended by his laundry partner, a black male) which led to his transformation of thinking. The image of the two of them stripping away the White Nationalist paraphernalia that decorates the walls of Danny's bedroom, as though they are removing layer after layer of dead useless skin, is a powerfully visceral one. At the end of the scene, they are both standing together silently staring at the now clean wall with an unknown identity that has not yet been cultivated and, like new skin after an old scab has been removed, both are left feeling uplifted yet more vulnerable as a result.

As for Precious, one of the most moving scenes is also one without dialogue. On her way out to school, she views herself in the mirror and the reflection we see looking back is that of a slender blonde white female dressed identically to Precious, down to the single hair curler resting on her forehead. Precious gazes at this imagined alternative identity, gives a sigh, and then walks out. Her transformation is encouraged by the feeling of love she gets from her teacher (Paula Patton) and the emotional support of her fellow classmates in the alternative school she is sent to, where there is a feeling of solidarity among this talented, albeit misfit, group of young women. She begins to have confidence in her imagination and storytelling skill and knows that if she continues her education and learns to write, she can improve her life and progress beyond her given circumstance. In similarity, both the Vinyard brothers are encouraged by their professor (Avery Brooks) for being intelligent students with a gift for writing and having the right charisma for leadership, which should be used for positive influence.

In the final scene of American History X, Derek’s brother, Danny, is shot and killed by a young African-American male, so it could be reasoned that Derek might revert to his former skinhead way of thinking, but most likely he recognizes his own role in the fallout of these events and can choose to influence the future by his own thinking and actions. Likewise, we see Precious leaving her domineering welfare-abusing mother (Mo’Nique) and walking away, holding her childrens’ hands, determined to continue her education so that she can get a job and provide for them.

Works Cited

“Identity and Inner-City Youth: Beyond Ethnicity and Gender.”
  Heath, Shirley Brice, Ed.; McLaughlin, Milbrey W., Ed
“Urban Youth Culture: Forging a New Identity”
Youth Supplement. Growing Up Urban. www.unfpa.org/swp/2007
“American Politics and Pop Culture”
Lung, Katherine, April 24, 2008
“Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Child Development”
McLoyd, Vonnie C. American Psychologist, Vol. 53 (2) Feb. 1998 185-204
“Globalization, Culture, and Neighborhood Change”
Mele, Christopher. State University of New York at Buffalo