BBH Barn Team Waffle, which is half of the BBH Asia/Pacific 2012 intake of creative interns, are all up in arms about their anti-trafficking persona being removed from Linkedin. So much so, they've posted a plea to Reid Hoffman on tumblr begging him to reinstate the ad. The "ad" that was a fake profile on Linkedin, that befriended (oh, I'm sorry, networked), with a bunch of creative professionals on Linkedin.
Our idea was simple: the more connections the profile made, the more people we would have educated about the issue. Ultimately, it’s a matter of public awareness.
Don’t undertake the following:
Create a user profile for anyone other than a natural person
They meant it, so Linkedin removes your revolutionary "ad", run in a "media" you did not pay for in any way and you go crying all over the free media you can get your hands on.
— BBH Barn Team Waffle (@BarnTeamWaffle) July 24, 2012
Look up the term contextual advertising kids, and try to understand that most professionals who use Linkedin to keep track of business contacts (as it was intended), honestly don't want fake people befriending them, no matter how needy their cause is. Instead of wasting your energies on begging Reid Hoffman to renstate Kim Diya, you should head back to the drawing board and think up one thousand more ideas for your local nonprofit client, who needs your help and has allowed you to help them. Please do the trafficked ladies one better than this, team.
Do 'em a good ad that gets their message out.
Is this little bit of extra eyeball helping in any way? You're welcome.
