An Act of Charity That Needs to be Emulated: Random Acts of Generosity

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Oprah Winfrey issued a challenge to some 300 members of her audience. She issued a video camera and $1000 to each one of them. The catch is that they could not spend this money on their relatives. They had one week to reach out to someone in need. Right of the bat, this is a great marketing coup for the Oprah Winfrey Show and all its sponsors. These audience members could give the money to some charities, organizations and deserving individuals. The stories had to be videotaped. This is a grassroots movement that stems from the idea of doing good. On an advertising level, news organizations will pick up the story quickly. What happens is that Oprah can create a buzz with all that money. And Bank of America and all the Harpo Holdings will benefit from this new idea of doing. Oprah could have used any of the numerous ad agencies in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to come up with some fancy ads that will be on a few media. But, in her marketing and advertising departments' wisdom, they choose to go with individuals who will go back to their cities and hometowns to spread the word. For a buzz, there is no greater and better ingredient than that! All local journalists want to track this story. Is Oprah trying to set an example for others during this holiday season? You bet. It is time to give and be appreciative of others. Let us see who can outdo Oprah's largesse.

Oprah has a new opportunity to create groundswell of marketing buzz with bloggers and low-income entrepreneurs. If I were Oprah, I could give a second life to this marketing tour de force by getting bloggers and micro or mini entrepreneurs involved. By virtue of their solidarity, bloggers would jump to the occasion to show what type of charities they have been supporting. They would blog about every step of the process of giving away their $1000. The blogosphere, podosphere and vlogosphere would be a-buzz about the Oprah Winfrey show. Some of the bloggers, vloggers, podcasters may think about low-income entrepreneurs and the companies that are trying to raise funds to help them break the cycle of poverty by not relying on handouts. The newswire would pick the story. So would Yahoo.com, Google.com, Digg.com, SFGate.com, NYTimes.com, Newsweek.com, boingboing.com, mybloglog.com, techcrunch.com, Times.com, and AOL.com. It would be like a gift that keeps on giving. PBS/Frontline would also call to get the scoop. There is no doubt that Cable news networks such as CNN.com and Fox networks would come calling. They would inquire about why the bloggers decide to give to p2pmicrofinance web firms such as kiva.org, Microcreditcapital.com and others. They would find out that some people are still thinking about the poor in countries such as Haiti, Uganda, Bengladesh and elsewhere. They would find out that has been trying to get people, ordinary individualsto help the poor. By advertising on its Webcalendar Advertising board, Microcreditcapital.com can raise enough money to fuel the entrepreneurial spirit in Haiti and other Latin American countries.

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