Social media case study on the Weinstein Company’s grassroots Twitter campaign for the documentary "Bully," which was headed by their Senior Vice President of Marketing Bladimiar Norman. Source: http://www.thenewsdeck.com/2012/04/anatomy-of-a-social-media-activism-campaign/

1. Anatomy of a Social Media Activism
Campaign
Case Study: The Bully Project
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2. Is social media good tool for the
activist?
Online media has occasionally proven very
effective in cases where social integration is used
to spread awareness of a cause. Case in point:
the Weinstein Company‟s #BullyMovie Twitter
campaign, headed by Senior Vice President of
Marketing Bladimiar Norman.
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3. Bully, The MPAA, and Marketing
The documentary Bully rose to notoriety for being
the catalyst for a wide outcry against MPAA
ratings. Intended to be screened for children as
well as adult audiences, the film was saddled with
an R rating that prevented it from being shown to
its ostensible target audience. The Weinstein
Company, the film‟s distributor, took on the task of
both marketing the film and attempting to
campaign for a ratings change. They were aided
with the second goal by an independent
movement begun by high school student Katy
Butler, who started a Change.org petition
demanding a reexamination of the rating. The
petition went on to gain 500,000 signatures.
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4. Campaign Messaging
The Twitter campaign, however, did not focus on
rating difficulties, or even specifically on
marketing the film. The aim of what became the
#BullyMovie campaign was to spread basic
awareness of how widespread the epidemic of
bullying is among the nation‟s youth through
straightforward tweets like, “Did you know 13
million kids get bullied every year? I support
@BullyMovie. Let's make it a trend: #BullyMovie.”
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5. Grassroots Campaign
Bladimiar Norman, the Weinstein Company‟s
Senior Vice President of Marketing, stated that,
“The goal was to create an organic trending
of #BullyMovie by activating a massive grassroots
campaign, securing one million tweets within one
day in a 24-hour period.”
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6. Twitter Tuesday
March 27, was nicknamed Twitter Tuesday in the
Weinstein offices. The company pulled all hands
into the campaign through a custom promotional
toolkit and an aggressive tweet and retweet
campaign. Norman spent time attracting celebrity
interest, which resulted in an extraordinary
outpouring of attention from notables like Ellen
Degeneres, Katy Perry, Joel McHale, Zooey
Deschanel, and dozens more.
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7. Celebrity Support
"The outpouring of support for this film is unlike
anything I have seen before," said Bladimiar
Norman in a conversation with the Huffington
Post. "'Bully' and the social action campaign, The
Bully Project, are very personal to The Weinstein
Company and I am incredibly honored by the
generosity of these websites.”
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8. MPAA Appeal
The day before the Twitter campaign, the
Weinstein Company stated that the film would be
released unrated, but the MPAA eventually
agreed to another round of review. Following the
second appeal, the film‟s rating was changed to
PG-13, ensuring that its target audience could
attend screenings without supervision required.
This was an important point for the film‟s director
Lee Hirsch, who has pointed out that many
children might be unwilling to see the film if forced
to attend with their parents.
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9. Conclusion
The massive outpouring of #BullyMovie support
on Twitter has proved that an aggressive, ground-
up awareness campaign can catch on if promoted
with proper attention to messaging and audience.
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10. Sources
Mashable: How the #BullyMovie Twitter
Campaign Triumphed Over the MPAA
The Huffington Post: „Bully‟ Movie: Celebrities
Join Weinstein Company‟s Crusade Against
Bullying
Inquisitr:„Bully‟ Documentary To Be Released
Without A Rating
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