Tuesday 29 November 2011

Why I love Feminist Ryan Gosling by Zoe Amar


One of my favourite blogs of the moment is Feminist Ryan Gosling (Hat tip to Regina Yau of amazing charity The Pixel Project for making me aware of it.)

If you haven’t seen it already, Feminist Ryan Gosling has become something of an internet phenomenon. It combines pictures of Ryan Gosling (obviously) and feminist theory. Each caption begins with Gosling’s famous ‘Hey girl’ meme.

It began as a joke between writer Danielle Henderson and her fellow postgraduate students on a Gender and Women’s studies course, but has already received coverage in the Huffington Post, Stylist and Marie-Claire.

As a communicator, I love this blog because of its witty take on feminism. It’s sharp, fresh and funny. And I like to think that somewhere out there teenage girls who have seen it will be curious to find out more about feminism.

My point is that I would like to see more humour used in communications - where appropriate, of course. I know that charities often deal with very serious issues, but there is no reason why we can’t be funny too, as this piece from The Guardian Voluntary Sector Network shows.

A dash of wit can engage your audience, make them think about your cause in a different way and help your charity cut through the communications clutter. Look at the success of Greenpeace’s Volkswagen Darkside campaign.  

Hands up if you’d like to see your campaign go viral, like theirs did? The right use of humour could give you more exposure than extra zeroes on your budget. 

Zoe Amar is Head of Marketing and Business Development at Lasa, a charity which provides services to Shelter, Age UK and thousands of other charities across the UK. She is also on the Bright One board and is a regular personal commentator and speaker on charity marketing, contributing to The Guardian and Charity Comms. Zoe is a Chartered Marketer and tweets from @zoeamar



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