I was first alerted to the celebrity Digital Death campaign in the first few days of December when my favorite celeb-razzing blog joked that the charity might have more success if the donations went to permanently shutting down the Twitter and Facebook accounts for these martyred stars rather than resurrecting them. Perhaps it was the skeptical nature of my first exposure to the campaign, but I felt a twinge of guilt thinking that the whole production – for a good cause, no less! – was misguided at best, egomaniacal at worst. I failed to see the monetary worth in celebrity social media accounts and found the connection between status updates and AIDS (“How many real lives can be saved by sacrificing a few digital ones?”) a tenuous one. Turns out, I wasn’t the only critic.
The Digital Death campaign, the brainchild of Alicia Keys, was launched on December 1 (Word AIDS Day) as part of Keys’ Keep a Child Alive charity on the premise that pop culture icons would sacrifice their digital lives (cut off all communication on social networks) to save real lives. Fans of “dead” celebs Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Ryan Seacrest, Elijah Wood, Usher, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Keys’ husband Swizz Beatz and more were called upon to raise $1 million by making minimum-$10 donations to revive their idols and do a good deed in the process.
In theory, there were more than enough touchpoints to reach $1 million within days or even hours (nearly 30 million followers on Twitter alone). More than enough, that is, if the fans cared – which apparently they didn’t. After raising approximately $166,000 on World AIDS day, after five days the donation ticker hadn’t reached $300,000, even after lowering the minimum donation amount from $10 to $1. This posed a problem for the dead celebs who were counting on a short stay in the digital afterlife, as social networking provides a good chunk of their income. Kim Kardashian reportedly earns up to $10,000 per tweet when encouraging fans to buy from vendors at a discount.
In fact, the temptation to get back to business was too much for some. Usher reneged on his pledge and came back to life before the goal had been reached. The dead celebs were getting anxious, and I’m sure the ad wizards behind the whole scheme were likewise worried that this charitable effort would end in embarrassment.
Enter Stewart Rahr, pharma mogul and friend of Swizz Beatz, who stepped up to the plate to donate a cool $500,000 to save these stars from what turned out to be a marketing blunder of epic proportions.
It’s tough to say at exactly which point this campaign got off track. Overall, it seems the campaign misjudged the worth of celebrities in social media. Could it be that, despite the following these celebrities have amassed, a star’s presence on social networks isn’t a must-have in followers’ daily lives? Did Keys and her brain trust vastly overestimate the worth of a glimpse into celebrity life? Are the followers and fans of celebrity tweets not the giving type? Or are they simply not in a position to be able to donate? Presumably many Facebook fans and Twitter followers are teens and tweens, many of whom are without debit or credit cards.
This philanthropic failure makes me question the worth of having a social media presence. Can it be monetized beyond paid posting, or is it a luxury that’s welcome when free but disposable when not? If fans and followers wouldn’t pry open their wallets for charity, is there any chance they’d have done it for a brand? Could a brand leverage social media for profit, or is a social presence expected for free no matter what? What does this flop say about the power of these celebrity names/brands? In this age of social everything, why didn’t more people care about losing their favorite famous personalities on Twitter and Facebook?