Marketing and Comms
#EarthToParis:
Designing Global Calls to Action and Engaging Multiple Stakeholders at Scale

“We’re going to change the world - all of us together. I know we will.” – Max Schorr

GOOD is a social impact company that creates stories, experiences, and tools to push the world forward. During a dynamic workshop Monday afternoon, the GOOD team - including Max Schorr, co-founder and Chief Community Officer; Casey Caplowe, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer; and Gabriel Reilich, Head of Video - provided case studies, tools, and interactive exercises to help workshop attendees answer the question: How do you build something that people want to be a part of?

The goals of the workshop were:

Schorr said: “We didn’t want to preach to people, we wanted to co-create with people.” They’ve partnered with organizations (including Dick’s Sporting Goods, PepsiCo and SolarCity) to create campaigns to educate and compel millions of people towards action.

The workshop highlighted GOOD’s #EarthToParis campaign, which catalyzed public attention and action to support COP21 in Paris in 2015. Paris was set to be the focal point of the planet and, moreover, the future of the planet. Caplowe explained that #EarthToParis served as a rallying cry: “Now is the time to wake up.” The call to action was simple: Send in a creative video with the #EarthToParis hashtag. The response was immense - they received videos from all corners of the globe, in all climates, from all ages. Through this campaign, it was made clear to the public and world leaders that the discussions at COP21 were important to the world.

Using lessons learned from #EarthToParis and other successful campaigns, the interactive workshop engaged participants to explore GOOD’s three pillars of building an activation campaign:

1. Call to action.
2. Breakthrough storytelling.
3. Coalition and community building.

The first exercise focused on picking a topic and an inspiring outcome. The next exercise pushed attendees to create a name for their call to action. Then, how do we create a compelling story to share that call to action. Caplowe explained that GOOD “[thinks] of storytelling as something that helps your broader call to action out there.” Lastly, who are the key partners who will help you bring that call to action to a global scale?

Videos are a great way to tell your story to a vast audience, if they are interesting and give people something to talk about. Reilich provided examples of impactful video content that people will not only watch but want to share with others (see If the World Were 100 People). GOOD has found that videos that evoke a positive and strong emotion are the videos that people will watch and share with their friends and families. On the other hand, videos that evoke a negative and strong emotion will generate a lot of clicks but people are way less likely to share with others. To illustrate this further, Reilich showed two cuts of similar videos about climate change. The first, while visually beautiful, was filled with scientific facts and left the audience feeling “bummed.” That video received less than 100,000 views. In contrast, their second take of the video still provided education but focused on a positive message. That video received over 25 million views.

The GOOD team provided participants with tangible, actionable tools to be able to create their own activation campaigns and to “prove once and for all that good business is good business.”