The Next Ice Bucket Challenge Is To Create The Next Ice Bucket Challenge

The “ice bucket challenge” has raised more than $100 million dollars for the ALS Association. The charity group raises funds for awareness campaigns, research, and more for the debilitating illness most well-known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The ice bucket challenge has been a rousing success by nearly any measure you wish to use.

Spinoffs and marketing attempts to re-use the ice bucket challenge idea are, of course, inevitable. Origins of the ice bucket challenge are sketchy. It began as a generic charity awareness and fundraising attempt in which people would choose a charity, announce it in their ice bucket video, drench themselves, and then challenge others to do the same. Eventually, according to Time, a man in Florida linked the challenge to ALS, was followed by others, and it snowballed from there.

Now, given the huge success of the ice bucket challenge, news agencies such as CBS News are reporting that other causes are hoping to find their own ice bucket challenge to skyrocket their own fundraising. An NBC affiliate in Colorado, 9 News, even gives tips courtesy of the Denver Business Journal for creating the next ice bucket challenge.

Causes around the globe are working to create their own spinoff of ice buckets, with some creative results. The Kissed by a Pit Bull Challenge hopes to raise awareness for the love of dogs and the mistreatment of that specific breed both in media and life. That one has raised about $50,000 and attracted celebrities like Kevin Bacon and Jasmine Veil, reports The Inquisitr.

A professor at the University of Utah says that the ice bucket challenge has a few factors which make it catchy with the general public, not the least of which are the peer pressure capabilities of social media. Talking with the Deseret News, Professor Avery Holton said there are three specific keys present in the ice bucket challenge.

“There are three keys: pressure, personalization, and then a feeling of belonging to that effort.”

Of course, charities hoping to just use the ice bucket challenge for their own efforts might have to rethink that copy-cat strategy. The ALS Association has filed for a trademark on the term “ice bucket challenge” and may be able to get it, says Boing Boing. Negative backlash caused them to withdraw the application, an update announced soon afterwards.

In the end, it seems likely that charities and causes hoping to raise awareness and funds through social media outreach are poised to begin doing so with their own creative renditions of the ice bucket challenge. Will they be successful? Some likely will be.