Close, But No Cigar

A recent promotion by a high-fashion philanthropy and a company that makes the coffee we love to hate exemplifies another example of old thinking about new media.

On Dec. 7, the "Starbucks Love Project" coordinated people throughout the world to sing The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love" simultaneously to, as it puts it, raise awareness of AIDS in Africa. Folks either downloaded video or tuned in using their webcams.

Although for a great cause, two things about it make it more ephemeral than emphatic.

One is that its purpose--to raise awareness--presupposes that this on its own is a significant act. The problem however goes much beyond greater awareness. The individual contributions were cut together to produce--what?

Two is that it has an exceptional instead of integral relationship to people's lives. Instead of being an organic part of what people do already, it asks people to pull out of their day-to-day lives for a prefab and scripted activity, which makes it less significant and personal.

A similar case is the difference between last year's mobile-telephone company's smash viral dance hit at London's Liverpool Street Station and what followed. The initial event at the train station generated organic involvement; people wanted to join in and phone/video about it. And it had great energy. The follow-up group singalong to The Beatles' song (is there a pattern here that's turning into a demographically significant rut?) "Hey, Jude" at Trafalgar Square was prefab, deemed "special" by design and intention, and was doa by comparison.