The Best Current Example of Organic Marketing: The Occupy Wall Street Movement
The idea for organic marketing is to create a story/brand that is self-spreading and naturally resonates within the target audience. The best example of this "contagious culture" right now is the Occupy movement which exploded from a single street to cities across the United States (and now, across the world). People across the world are following events from this single idea. There was no large, multiple-step marketing plan. There was no budget that needed approval from the board. The idea that "we are the 99%" and the action of "occupying" a city was initiated and then replicated all over.No matter what your political ideology is, you can't deny that this is a radical force that has the potential to dramatically change the political sphere of the United States.So what was the magic formula? Why did this political revolution succeed when so many more before it failed? What can we learn from their story to help our own messages spread?
- The idea was whittled down to the most basic level. How many corporations or chains have a list of mission statements or non-negotiable values? How many have you actually read or cared about? Generally, the ideas that spread the fastest and the ones that tend to stick have same common denominator: they are easy to remember and to repeat.
- Call to action. Some messages are so convoluted that there's no clear next step. Occupy made a simple but grand call to action: Get out of your house, occupy the street, and stand up to corporate greed.
- Momentum. The turn of events that led up to the original "Occupy Wall Street" was growing set of resentment felt across the nation...and the initial action created such a large impact its effects could be felt everywhere.