Promotional campaigns

Wiki ▸ Outreach and promotion ▸ Promotional campaigns

Buoy promotional campaigns are efforts to inform and educate the public about what Buoy is and how it works. Different promotional campaigns may focus on different audiences or different aspects of the tool. Of course, many of these campaigns will overlap with and reference aspects of other campaigns.

Buoy: Tell Your Friends Where You Are and What You Need

"Buoy: Tell Your Friends Where You Are and What You Need" focuses on the technological capacities of the tool. It highlights primarily on what happens after a user sends a Crisis Alert.

This campaign is built around Buoy Use Cases. These describe scenarios in which someone might use Buoy to reach out for help. They illustrate the way that a given user's existing team is able to help them in a scenario.

Key images include screenshots of the Sending Alert screen and the Incident Map.

The intended feel is stress, a sense of being under threat, followed by relief at having Buoy to turn to.

Video idea: Illustrate Buoy use case scenarios, overlaid with narration describing the tool. See Promotional screenplay

One key audience for this campaign is INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDERS e.g. groups that might host a Buoy on their organization's server, who have an existing community of need they serve, etc.

Buoy: Build Your Team

"Buoy: Build Your Team" focuses on the interpersonal capacities of the tool. It highlights primarily what happens before a user sends a Crisis Alert.

This campaign is built around Personas. These describe archetypal Team Members -- competent, trained lay people who are commonly relied upon by members of their community in a crisis (e.g. the First Aid Specialist, the Shelter Advocate, the Computer Expert, the Handyman, the Blackbelt.) They illustrate the process of creating a Team in advance of a crisis.

Key images include screenshots of the My Team invitation system and of the chosen Team Members themselves.

The intended feel is fun, pleasure and confidence in the awareness that all the resources one needs for support already exist in their own community.

Video idea: A user appears to be selecting members for their raiding party in an RPG, looking at a list of characters with associated stats and abilities, but they are actually selecting members for their Buoy team. There are some shots of other users receiving invitation alerts on their phone and accepting them, but it still appears that they may be accepting invitations to play a game. The reveal occurs when the original user is caught in a crisis situation and sends a Crisis Alert -- the user's team members suddenly appear in real life.

One key audience for this campaign is INDIVIDUAL USERS, e.g. people who are likely to build and/or join a Buoy team.

Buoy: Call a Friend, Not the Cops

"Buoy: Call a Friend, Not the Cops" focuses on the political capacities of the tool. It highlights the need for Buoy in the current political climate.

This campaign is built around relevant current events. These are based on (but do not explicitly reference any specific) situations in which real peoples' interactions with state-based support services had a negative (unexpected, undesired, excessive, tragic, etc.) outcome. They illustrate real world scenarios in which a better outcome might've been possible if the person in crisis had access to a tool like Buoy.

Key images include things like media coverage of police violence, and the "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CALL 911?" screen that pops up on some phones when the emergency call button is pressed.

The intended feel is disgust with the existing available services, and a sense of turning one's back on the police and being embraced by a welcoming circle of competent friends.

Video idea: TK - May be useful to brainstorm ways this campaign could be more quickly responsive to recent news items, so maybe some delivery mechanism other than a video?

One key audience for this campaign is POLITICAL ALLIES, e.g. people who already share the Better Angels' abolitionist sensibilities, and are looking for ways to take concrete actions in that direction.