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
[This social media case study appeared on The NewsDeck]
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
That day, 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.
"The outpouring of support for this film is unlike anything I have seen before," said 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.”
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.

2. 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.
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