Sicko Stories

To this day, the single thing that I find most powerful about the web is that it truly is a grassroots medium. 

While the world's newspapers and television stations are controlled by a very small and select group of media owners who act as gatekeepers, on the web everyone has the ability to be heard.   

What continues to excite me about the internet is that as it evolves, this fundamental truth - that all of us now have "access" to an audience - only gets stronger and more powerful. For the first time in history, every single person on the planet has a global platform in which to share his or her thoughts and opinions to the world.

Plain and simple, there are no gatekeepers on the internet. 

With this in mind, I think Michael Moore's approach for marketing and generating grassroots awareness and momentum for Sicko, his upcoming film on the health care system, is extremely smart.

On Wednesday Moore posted a very simple one minute video on YouTube in which he asks people to share their own personal stories about how the health care system has failed them. 

As of this morning, less than two days after it was posted,  Moore's video has received over 160,000 views. Seventeen video testimonials have now been posted by people from all over the country, with hundreds of others now watching them each and every day.

With Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore showed himself to be an absolute master of grassroots marketing. So  its no surprise that he also innately understands that at the end of the day, the internet is about the collective "us". He understands that the best way to get people talking is to bring them together and to encourage and empower them to share their voice with others by using the tools that are available to them.

For months we've been hearing about how brands are now leveraging "user generated content."  But in almost all instances, the results have been absolute crap.  The reason for this is that what people are being asked to generate content for is not something that they feel all that passionate about. 

At the end of the day, how passionate can we honestly expect people to get about a soft drink or a pizza?

Moore understands that our health, and our lack of proper care for it, is something that we do indeed feel passionate about.  To successfully market Sicko on the web, he knows that what he needs to do is to tap into this frustration and to connect with people's passion points. 

By developing a grassroots community on YouTube that is centered around the frustrations people have with our health care system, Moore is not only marketing his film but also tapping into the essence of what the internet does best -  allowing each and every one of us  to confirm to ourselves and to others that  we are indeed alive and that we have the ability and the right to be heard.

Comments

[John Mack]

If your readers would like to see a review of this film by a noted pharma blogger (the first blogger to actually see the movie before judging it), please see "SiCKO is Boffo but Not Anti-Pharmaco, per se" at http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2007/06/sicko-is-boffo-but-not-anti-pharmaco.html

[Ian]

Well said Marc. Moore posts a 1 minute video and look at the reaction ... it's so obvious, so simple, so elegant, so appropriate. Yet so many marketers can't figure out how to start or engage in a conversation with their stakeholders.