“The clever promotional campaign not only increases awareness of the cause, but also gives consumers a call to action. Many marketing campaigns can capture attention, but far fewer can bring in money via sales or donations,” Winterich said. “The ALS challenge has brought a memorable campaign at a minimum, but it’s also given many individuals a chance to connect and identify with others. When participants range from celebrities and sports stars to elementary school children and their teachers, the challenge seems to have helped humanize others, bringing different groups of people together on the same level.”
Many students and faculty members from the Penn State community have participated in the challenge, including Roger Williams, Penn State Alumni Association’s executive director. Penn State football head coach James Franklin and several members of the team took the challenge, too, in honor of former Penn State linebacker Tim Shaw, who was recently diagnosed with the disease. Other Penn State coaches, including women’s soccer coach Erica Walsh and men’s hockey head coach Guy Gadowsky, have also doused themselves in ice water as part of the challenge.
Dr. Craig Hillemeier, CEO of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, took the challenge on behalf of the Penn State Hershey ALS Clinic, which specializes in studying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the disease behind the ice bucket challenge that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
Social media success
Many students identify social media as a key role in the success of the campaign as most of them learned about the challenge by seeing videos posted on popular social media sites and getting nominated by friends.
“It felt pretty good because when you do the challenge, you get to nominate people as well, and it's like a chain reaction. The awareness keeps on growing and the donations keep growing,” said Kimmie Shui, a senior majoring in hotel management. “I'm pretty sure that a majority of people do not even know what ALS is. It's good that it is now out there.”
As an international student from Hong Kong, Shui said that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has brought great impact not only to the United States, but also to other countries around the world. “It helps bring it to international attention instead of just national,“ she said.
Winterich agreed on the positive impact social media has brought to the success of this campaign. “Social media — and the Internet more broadly with sites such as GoFundMe — has generally had a positive impact on charitable giving,” she said. “It allows people with a cause they’re passionate about to solicit aid around the world for little cost.”
Winterich said that on the flip side, the Internet and social media drastically increase the number of charitable organizations that are requesting funding assistance, resulting in a lot of smaller donations from people giving to multiple charities. “Many consumers are willing to give small donations — $10 or $20 — to a cause, which when just asking a few friends and family may not have a large impact, but when it’s spreading on social media and viewed by millions, the end result can be phenomenal,” she said.