Last but not least: Ducks are awesome

Communicating animal welfare issues is not easy: most people would actually support the cause, but don't want to see shocking and distressing images. So they prefer to look away and focus on more easily digestible topics instead of informing themselves. This explains, for example, why many people still wear real fur collars, even though organizations and the media have been informing people about the scandalous background for years. They are certainly not bad people, but they don't want to be informed and prefer to hide behind arguments full of holes and lame excuses (which can now be read again in the reader comments on the major online portals).

Perhaps it would be more efficient to shake people up with positive emotions. An Australian initiative shows how it can be done - and how to turn media, which is no longer so new, into an effective viral weapon. On November 17, it posted a video called "People being awesome" Facebook. The film is a series of human duck rescues, accompanied by music. At the end there is an appeal to the voters and the Labor Party of Victoria to take a stand against the apparently brutal and senseless duck hunt there. Plus link Saveourducks.com.

The video does not appear to be particularly elaborately produced or particularly original - many clips are already familiar from YouTube. But it works: The film was viewed over 88 million times (!) on Facebook in nine days and shared more than 1.8 million times (!). It was liked 750,000 times and commented on 35,500 times. Social media campaigns could be so easy - if they really hit the mark for a change. (hae)