Amnesty International UK Pocket Protest May 2012
At the beginning of May 2012 Amnesty kicked off ‘Pocket Protest’, the purpose of this campaign was to keep their constituents informed of the latest human rights breaches. The campaign used mobile where users would opt in to join the campaign, this text action gives amnesty the means to contact those who opted in and inform them of new petitions.
Pocket Protest Poster
Reply when a participant signed up for pocket protest:
‘Thanks for joining our text action network: amnesty.org.uk/text when someone’s life, liberty or safety is at risk we’ll let you know. Reply STOP AMN to opt out’When new petitions where organised for acts against human rights all of Amnesty’s campaign followers were updated with the following examples of messages request support:
‘Today = 10yrs of Guantanamo Bay. That’s 10yrs of US human rights abuse. Reply CLOSE to sign petition to Obama. Text STOP to stop Amnesty Intl msgs’‘US: Christi was locked up for life w/o parole @16 http://amn.st/yzPpGr Rply ACTION by midnight to support her clemency appeal Optout?STOP AMN to 70004’
When users responded to these support requests their names were added to the relevant petitions to make their voices heard against these violations.
The response and support for this campaign was great with people opting into have their voice heard to those needed to listen. The campaign was very well published, for example with traincards used in the busy London underground network asking commuters for their support and providing those wishing to speak up with a gateway to do so.
Pocket Protest in use on London Underground train carriage
The head of Amnesty International UK had this to say about the campaign:
“Amnesty has always been about ordinary people, busy people with lives and jobs of their own, who make human rights abuse across the world their business. Pocket Protest It’s about commuters in London refusing to be passive bystanders and instead taking action to demand change.”
- Kate Allen
So much was the support that those in the Music business wanted to endorse Amnesty’s message:
“Being able to use a mobile phone to help people whose human rights have been taken away is a simple yet fantastic idea. It’s really empowering. Everyone should become a Pocket Protester!”
- Richard Hughes, from the band Keane
This campaign utilised the instaGiv platform and mobile service to allow people to opt in and join the Pocket Protest using keywords and shortcodes to respond to calls for support like those used on London train carriages, vastly increasing the speed with which campaigns can be launched and responded to.
Amensty Protest responses graph
Another Charity accelerating change via Mobile.
