When every meme becomes an ad: Bra Color on Facebook 'sold' breast cancer foundations.

Suddenly everyone on Facebook was updating their statuses with colors. "Black", "White", and if I had been on facebook it might have read "day-glo-green with day-glo-orange lace". Yes, it was the bra colors that every woman from Norway to North Dakota was updating their statues with, and everyone from Mashable to the tabloid Expressen in Sweden were writing about the phenomena. Even @osocio who keeps tabs on non-profits was asking me if I knew anything about the "campaign":

Now as it turns out, people really wanted this to be about breast cancer. So much so that the Komen foundation benefitted from the Facebook bra messages 'campaign' that they didn't start. Is this a first? Meme travels the web, and consumers want it to be a viral campaign so bad that they assign a sender?

Although the idea didn’t come from Komen, the organization’s Facebook page has reaped the benefits.
Komen spokeswoman Andrea Rader says the page had 134,000 fans on Friday morning. After people began posting their bra colors, the number jumped to 136,000. By Monday, the total was 142,784 and counting.