The incredible story of how a documentary, "Kony 2012", went viral and helped raise millions of dollars for the NGO that made it

Headlined "Guerrilla marketing" (great title, that), a five-page feature in a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has re-focused the spotlight on a 30-minute film about the heinous acts of an African warlord.

Kony 2012 was launched on YouTube by the US-based NGO Invisible Children in March — Facebook and Twitter users will remember the many "shares" and "likes" the link gathered on the way to becoming a worldwide sensation — and its popularity resulted in, according to the article, nearly two million people visiting the donation page of Invisible Children within the first few weeks of the campaign.

JOSEPH KONY

Bloomberg Businessweek staff writer Claire Suddath, who has clearly done an enormous amount of research for this story, tells us that Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell designed Kony 2012 to do two seemingly incompatible things:

1) explain a protracted international conflict happening very far away; and 2) be as popular as a Buzzfeed list. Russell did away with much of Kony’s back story and focused instead on the target audience: teenagers and twentysomethings browsing Facebook (FB) and Twitter.

He added some feel-good philosophy about the interconnectedness of society, scored the film with a dubstep song, and shortened it to 29 minutes and 59 seconds because a timestamp starting with a 2 looked less daunting than one with a 3.

Russell also put his young son Gavin in the film because, as Invisible Children’s director of idea development, Jedidiah Jenkins, explains, “if you want to get something watched online, you either have to put funny cats in it or little kids.”

What a terrific lesson that is about how to engage your target audience. Now you know why I think "Guerrilla Marketing" is such a wonderful headline for this piece.

There's more in the article in terms of marketing wisdom — as well as human interest. I was intensely moved, for instance, by the description of Russell's plight today:

He couldn’t be interviewed because he’s recovering from the “brief reactive psychosis” — a psychotic episode often caused by stress — he suffered after the release of the video, according to Invisible Children. He hasn’t returned to work. In an e-mail, his wife described his recovery process as “building invisible fences around what’s sacred [and] getting back to life.”

And why was Russell stressed out? Because, Suddath writes, the backlash against Kony 2012 was as swift as the video's spread.

At the height of the criticism this spring, 10 days after Kony 2012’s release, police found him naked and shouting in a residential San Diego neighbourhood, apparently suffering a nervous breakdown. Footage of the incident quickly appeared on TMZ and Gawker.

Why was there a backlash? What was the criticism about? Read "Guerrilla Marketing" here to know more. Also read: "Five Reasons the Kony Video Went Viral".

• Claire Suddath is a superlative writer by any measure. Learn from her "How to write a gripping article on office lunch thieves (yes, you read that right)".

• Photographs courtesy: Bloomberg Businessweek

• As far back as March 1998, The New Yorker, one of the most cerebral magazines in the world, had published a report on the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony. Read it here: "Letter from Uganda".

UPDATE (July 30, 2018): Read this BBC News profile of Joseph Kony: Child kidnapper, warlord, 'prophet'.

How to write a gripping article on office lunch thieves (yes, you read that right)

If you have read "25 commandments for journalists" and "How writers can overcome reader resistance", you are sure to appreciate a Bloomberg BusinessWeek feature on, of all things, office workers who steal your lunch.

I hear you ask, "Is that even a story idea?"

Yes, big-time. Ask anyone who has been the victim of lunch theft at work. Ask youngsters who live in a hostel that provides a common kitchen and refrigerator. Ask Tapasya Mitra Mazumder who told me earlier today that she stopped leaving food in her hostel refrigerator after she found a creepy bite mark in her wad of butter.

"But," you continue, "what can you write after you have put down a couple of points? How do you make this story interesting enough for readers?"

Well, there's a lot you can learn on that front from Claire Suddath, who wrote this piece on office lunch thieves in the July 30-August 5 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.

She begins with a colourful anecdote to engage her readers:

My friend Peter’s boss always eats lunch in the office — it’s just not always his lunch. If his boss finds a sandwich lying around, he scarfs it down without a second thought. People warned Peter about this when he took the job, at an aerospace tooling company near Seattle. Once his boss snatched an apple right off his desk; Peter has now taken to hiding his snacks in drawers.

Having engaged her readers, Suddath proceeds to "entertain" them. The opening line of the second paragraph makes it clear that Peter's boss is not the only aberrant around:

Everything is up for grabs in office kitchens: soda, coffee creamer, potato chips, it doesn’t matter.

Then we get an example from Suddath's own experience, which is followed by advice from a business etiquette expert. You will marvel at the wit in this particular paragraph.

After some more interesting nuggets of information presented in a smoothly flowing manner, Suddath tells readers how the problem can be tackled, with the help of Kerry Miller, the creator of a blog (you have to read Miller's advice, and also visit the blog concerned).

By the time you have come to the final sentence of the feature, you realise you have not only been engaged and entertained but also enlightened. What more can you ask of a writer?

• Read the feature in its entirety here: "Stop! Lunch Thief!"

• Illustration courtesy: Bloomberg Businessweek/Erik T. Johnson 

FROM PASSIVEAGGRESSIVENOTES.COM: “People steal other people’s food and drink so often in my office that security put up a notice,” says our submitter in Florida. “Apparently, the sign isn’t working.” Instead, the notes left by the victims have turned into an ongoing office-wide joke.