By Erica Martinez, planning director at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

A month ago, the phrase “ice bucket challenge” didn’t have much meaning. But fast forward to today, and there are world leaders, celebrities and regular folks getting dunked over the head on with an ice-cold bucket of water on video … all in the name of raising money to fight Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Watch: Ben Affleck Takes the Ice Bucket Challenge

Thus far, the “challenge,” which almost immediately went viral, has raised over $88 million for the ALS Association and it shows no signs of slowing down – in fact, it’s taking on fresh life: Samsung has now turned the challenge into an ad for its waterproof Galaxy smart phone – and challenged Apple, Nokia and HTC to take the challenge. (Samsung will donate an undisclosed sum to the Motor Neurone Disease Association, a term that is often interchangeable with ALS).

But there was something different about the fundraising aspect of the challenge from the start – it turned out to be the first non-disaster charitable event to get Generation Y involved on such a high level. Pulling on heartstrings to get donations is a classic tactic to elicit donations, but this doesn’t work as well with young donors, who may like inspirational stories but are more fickle with their giving and don’t want to hear the same story time after time.

The ice bucket challenge turned out to be the first non-disaster charitable event to get Generation Y involved on such a high level.

For charities to thrive, they have to discover new ways to engage with younger donors. Young donors are random in their giving, and as likely to make a donation based on something they see in the media as they are based on a recommendation from family or friends. They are a part of the participatory culture and like to find ways to get involved, especially if donating is easy and can be done via mobile or text. Traditional methods need to be supplemented with creative ways to engage with a broader audience.

Watch: Will Smith Gets Dunked in the Ice Bucket Challenge

However you slice it, the challenge has been a huge viral success, a campaign that started out in grass roots – and so had no expectations or metrics to measure that success. In the social media space, August 2014 will be remembered for (among other things) that endlessly trending #icebucketchallenge hash tag, and all that goes with it.

But why did it work? Viral campaigns are hard to predict, but there are a number of important factors that come into play here:

•  It’s easy. Anyone can participate; all that’s needed is a bucket, some ice and a smartphone.
•  It’s high-tech but low-touch. Facebook plus a smartphone. Most people have access to both, making this feel high tech (“I made a video!”) but without the need for anything fancy. After all, it’s about dumping a bucket of water over a person’s head. There’s no perfect angle.
•  It’s an active way to do something – a person isn’t just forwarding something to friends that someone else accomplished; he or she is participating in the spectacle.
•  It’s silly. People like to laugh, and as a nation people needed some comic relief to wash down the other, tougher hashtags that dominated August (like #Ferguson).
•  It feels authentic and something that’s highly unscripted and personal, even when celebrities are doing it.

Ultimately, being unscripted and organic are keys to viral success. Don’t try to be the next ice-bucket challenge, but think differently and take a chance. No one can map out what will make a video, or a charity challenge, go viral. But keeping it simple, using technology, getting an audience involved and adding a dash of humor is a great recipe for an idea to catch fire. Even if it has to be ice cold to do it.

Erica Martinez is Planning Director at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness. Prior to joining SSW, Erica worked in brand strategy, content strategy, trends and insights at BAV Consulting, Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve and Meredith Xcelerated Marketing. She has been published in MediaPost and is a panelist at industry events.

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