About a month ago Janet Owens with the United Way approached Harrington Design to help with marketing strategy for a viral campaign. The concept was beautifully simple. Give $5 and ask 5 of your friends to give $5.

Easy enough right? Well, the Twin Cities launched a similar campaign and it flopped. Viral marketing is harder than it seems. You can’t force something to be viral. It either is or it is not. Our task was to develop a strategy and oversee the development of a Flash Movie, testimonial video and Web site. In about 4 weeks. I worked closely with Dianne Austria, the United Way’s in house designer to design and build the materials.

Thanks to the amazing team of Melanie Husk, John Willman, Craig TerBlanche, Wendy Hummel, Elizabeth Ash and others who helped put this together.

So that was the easy part. Now we have to spread the word. We are looking for people who have active social networks to blog, tweet, facebook, LinkIn, IM the heck out this. And of course, give your 5.

So what are you waiting for? Seriously, do it now.