In the summer of 2014, people with connections to ALS (LouGehrig’s disease) raised awareness of the condition by urging people to post videos of themselves dumping buckets of ice water over their heads and to challenge others to do the same.The efforts raised millions of dollars in online donations to the ALS Association for enhanced research and patient services.

This real-time marketing campaign generated 17 million videos uploaded to social media platforms from 159 countries. Celebrities posting videos available on YouTube included Will Smith, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg. The Ice Bucket Challenge generated 70 billion video views and raised $220 million. The best part? Zero dollars were spent to promote the Ice Bucket Challenge, yet 440 million people saw it. The ALS Association has now expanded the wildly successful challenge into several opportunities to support the fight against ALS. For more information, visit http://alsa.org/fight-als/teamchallengeals and alsa.org/fight-als/challenge.

1. Real-time marketing lets marketers digitally link brands to important moments in customers’ lives. Explain how real-time marketing was used in the Ice Bucket Challenge. Why was this campaign successful?

2. Create a real-time marketing campaign for a product or service of your choice to create customer engagement using online, mobile, and social media. How would you measure the success of your campaign?