Jul
16
Can a Potty-Mouth Campaign Sell Sanitation?
July 16, 2009 | Posted by Michael "Aquadoc" Campana
1 Comment
Yesterday I received an email from Leonard Markidan, communications manager of Skadaddle Media. The message began:
Let’s talk shit.
Okay. That expletive naturally piqued my curiosity, so I read on. As I suspected, his message was peppered with double entendres, puns, and wise-ass comments. Markidan must be a fellow Catholic high school grad, still mired in his sophomore year (as Mary Frances is wont to say about me).
Markidan’s email described an agressive social media marketing initiative, Twitter for Sh-tters, to make sanitation ‘sexy’. So here’s what the site had to say:
Why is sanitation such a dirty word? For whatever reason, it has become taboo to talk about it. We all poop, crap, dump, or whatever you call it! Well, we think it’s time to cut through the crap and start talking shit.
Why now? Because the world needs it. Lack of sanitation has become a life-or-death issue in the poorest parts of the world, and we can’t hold it in any longer. Non-profit Wherever The Need, which provides eco-sanitation toilets where they are needed most, created Twitter for Sh-tters to push hard to get people talking about the straight poop. We’re raising money to build more eco-san toilets (the aforementioned “shitters.”)
The idea is simple: every day, Twitter users – whether they have 5 followers or 5,000 – will spend the day tweeting to try and get their followers to donate. Our “Daily Dumpers” can tweet about whatever crap they want from the best “potty humor” to simply just “talking shit.” The point is to take this long-avoided topic and, pardon the expression, step right in it.
Will you give a shit?
You can follow their Tweets at Twitter.
Sanitation (which I’m not sure is a ‘dirty word’) of this type is a tough sell. What this movement really needs is someone famous to serve as spokesperson. But who’s going to espouse such a cause? Maybe someone classy, like Sigourney Weaver or Meryl Streep. Or a girl-next-door-type like Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl. Or perhaps someone over-the-top, like Jack Black, Russell Brand, or Seth Rogen. How about potty-mouthed Sarah Silverman? Or Pauly Shore (ha ha)?
So who’s your choice?
A final note about this. I’m sure some were turned off by the language Markidan used. It didn’t faze me, but a couple of friends emailed me to say they did not care for this approach. I asked Markidan about this and he responded that he knew it would be divisive, but that the majority of the feedback has been positive/supportive. He felt that with all the worthy causes out there, he needed something that would cause people to stand up and take notice. I agree; this issue is so far under the radar that such an extreme campaign is warranted. Time will tell if his approach worked.
As I said earlier, this topic, although extremely important, is a tough sell. Sanitation is one thing, but when you get down to defecation and urination, we all look the other way unless we’re telling jokes at a high-school reunion. But Markidan did provide me with today’s quote, which illustrates the problem.
What is your take on this issue and Markidan’s approach to it?
As for me, I’m off to Tweet about sh*t.
‘“The cognitive scientist Steven Pinker lists a dozen categories of euphemism, including taboo (shit), medical (stool, bowel movement) and formal (feces, excrement, excreta, defecation, ordure). The category that’s missing is ‘conversational.’ There is no neutral word for what humans produce at least once a day, usually unfailingly. There is no defecatory equivalent of the inoffensive, neutral ‘sex’.” – Rose George, The Big Necessity
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Comments
1 Comment so far
Subscribe
[...] Can a Potty-Mouth Campaign Sell Sanitation? Yesterday I received an email from Leonard Markidan, communications manager of… [...]