Friday Wake-Up Call: The Parkland students' 'meme lab.' Plus, can crowdfunding save Toys R Us?
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Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. What people are talking about today: Ahead of Saturday’s March For Our Lives against gun violence in schools, Time magazine put survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, on its cover, with the headline “ENOUGH.” Its reporter visited the group’s social media content studio, which is in an undisclosed location in a strip mall; to get inside, Time says, “you have to knock three times on a locked glass door and then loudly identify yourself so the kids are sure you’re not an armed stalker.” Vanity Fair visited too and calls it a “secret meme lab designed to propel #NeverAgain beyond the march.” The students, with the help of a few alumni, are working on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat content, according to VF, and plan to start work on YouTube videos next. Each member has veto power over content. One member tells VF that he “made four memes that could have been viral but released only two, because the other two are wryly satirical, ‘and the media yells at us when we’re laughing.'”
What brands are doing: Lyft says it’s offering free rides in 50 U.S. cities on Saturday to people attending March for Our Lives demonstrations. MTV and the NAACP are sending busloads of students to Washington, D.C., for the march, Teen Vogue reports.
A reminder: It’s not too late for creatives to submit posters to help amplify the March For Our Lives message. Send them to Ad Age’s Ann-Christine Diaz (adiaz@adage.com), and Ad Age will put them online so demonstrators can download and print them or put them on social media. Read more about the project here.
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