Hello, My name is...

In today's world of social media, I think there may be better ways to raise awareness about a cause you are passionate about. A 19-year old PETA intern formally known as Jennifer Thornburg recently changed her legal name to CutOutDissection.com (yes, it's a real website) in order to bring awareness to her protest against using animals for dissection in schools.

Somehow I really wonder if CutOutDissection.com will still like her name a few years from now. I think the idea of associating yourself very closely with a cause can be effective (ie Bono and ONE or AIDS), but not to the point where the best option is to change your name to a bizarre website address. Social media and viral marketing seem to be the best way to get a message across effectively, especially if it has the legs to support itself through relevance, importance, urgency, or strong truth.

Publicity When You Don't Expect It

Do you think that Ben & Jerry's expected to be making headlines this week? No new flavors coming out, no special announcement, no anniversary...they could have hardly expected to make headlines.

So what happened?

PETA drafted a letter to Ben and Jerry's asking them to stop using cow milk and use human milk instead for their ice cream. They came back with the response of "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

This will backfire on PETA

By PETA trying to get Ben and Jerry's to stop using cow's milk, they gave the ice cream makers a very expensive amount of free publicity. All of that free publicity might just briefly spur sales of the ice cream. Just writing about this is making me crave some of the Cookie Dough ice cream....