A Message from Oloo to the ODM Leadership

[Onyango Oloo]

A Message to the Orange Leadership from a Future Member of the Reds

Sent by Onyango Oloo to the ODM in Nairobi, Friday, September 30, 2005

I am writing this solidarity message to the collective leadership and secretariat of the newly constituted Orange Democratic Movement on the penultimate day of September hoping to ignite an ongoing discussion, robust debate and frank exchange of opinion.

As many of you know by now, I am a firm supporter of the NO to Wako campaign. To this end I have devoted a lot of my time and resources in raising the issues and promoting debate on the JUKWAA online forum that I launched in August as a venue for discussing Kenyan and international politics.

If you go to the home page of our site and scroll half-way through the page, you will notice a flashing news banner with the following slogans:

Give Us some Orange Juice!
Vote NO on November 21st!
Say Tumekataa to Wako!
Say Hatutaki to Violence as Well!
Peace is the Path Way to Democracy!
Put Your Pangas and Stones Away!
Referendum is NOT about Luos or Gikuyus!
It is About Our Quest for a Democratic Katiba!
Shun the Fear Mongers!
Isolate the Tribalists!
One Kenya, One Destiny- for Justice and Freedom!
Kenya Belongs To All of Us!
Let Us Not Make Kenya Another Rwanda '94
Let Us Make Kenya More Like a South Africa '94
Pamoja Tutashinda!
Wavumulivu Hula Mbivu!
Vijana Wataka Nini- Katiba Mpya!
Wazee Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya
Wanawake Wataka Nini- Katiba Mpya!
Wanaume Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wakristo Wataka Nini- Katiba Mpya!
Waislamu Wataka Nini- Katiba Mpya!
Wafanyi Kazi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wafanyi Biashara Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Walemavu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasanii Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasomi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasomali Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wameru Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wakisii Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wadawida Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wachonyi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
WaOgiek Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wabukusu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya
Wagunya Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wapokomo Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wamaasai Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Waturkana Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Warendille Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasakuye Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wagabra Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Waborana Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Watharaka Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wandia Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Marasta Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Mabeste Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Mashujaa wa Mtaa Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Mabingwa wa Ushake Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wajeng Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasapere Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Makarau Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Maodinari Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Masupuu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Macheki Bobu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Warogi wa Hip Hop Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Mashabiki wa Chini kwa Chini Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Maveteran wa Ndombolo Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wapenzi wa Zilizopendwa Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wafuasi wa Rusha Roho Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Machampioni wa Benga Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya
Wazee wa Mwomboko Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Vijana wa Bund Ohangla Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wachejazi wa Mugithi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanawake wa Chakacha Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanaume wa Sukuti Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanariadha Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanandondi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanakandanda Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya
Mashabiki wa Rugby Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wanaofuata Mpira wa Vikapu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Watazamaji wa Redykulass Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wasikilizaji wa Jee Huu Ni Ungwana Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wakamba Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wahindi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wazungu Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Watoto Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wazazi Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
WaKenya Nchini Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Wakenya Ngambo Wataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Sote Wenye Kenya Tunataka Nini-Katiba Mpya!
Waingereza Wasema NO!
Waswahili Wasema Hapana!
Kura ya Maoni Twapiga Tukinena na Kuwika Hapana
Haya Basi Naomba Chungwa!!


(I)

From the above it is obvious I am taking sides. Unlike some hypocrites, I do not shy away from saying that YES, I do have a NO agenda and NO, I will not be a Yes Man to a monstrosity – despite the number of times President Kibaki will call someone of us “ wapumbavu” because we decline to partake of a bunch of poisoned bananas.

Let me congratulate you on a very well organized national campaign. I must say that you have done very well in terms of organizing the public rallies, preparing talking points and having influential opinion leaders and news makers take your cause to the national media within the country and to many of the Kenyan public forums internationally. I have been impressed by your alacrity in taking a colour and a fruit and infusing it with passion, with dreams, with ideals. Hopefully at the end of the referendum campaign you will still be able to sit down before a sahani of matoke and ask for a second helping. Within the confines of mainstream politics, I must say that you have managed to put together a team with a “national” veneer- and the fact that you have had rousing Karibus in each province attests to your country-wide pull. Of course one would have wished for something more along the lines of gender parity in terms of your overall leadership.

From what I have been privy to offline and from what I can see online, it would appear that going by your current showing, there appears to be no way for the YES side to squeak through to victory unless they get embroiled in massive voter disenfranchisement, outright rigging and falsification of results. But to do that, they risk a terrible imbroglio. The very fact that what I call the Gang of 74 led by Syongo and Wekesa and some elements of civil society are feverishly hankering for a postponement, a cancellation or a boycott on the spurious and specious reasons that the referendum vote will “divide” Kenyans attests to the formidable challenge you pose to my former lawyer's "government project". Elsewhere I recently issued a rebuttal to those bleating for a deferral with democratic destiny and last night I fired off a rejoinder to Prof. Makau wa Mutua’s boycott call.

(II)

On this issue of the impending referendum on the Wako Draft of the proposed Kenyan Constitution, I think that your team holds the strategic and tactical initiative.

By that I mean is that you have a strategic edge over your rivals because you have managed to not only capture, but to harness the popular democratic mood in the country which speaks of frustration, anger and bitterness and the shameless betrayal of our national aspiration that the core of the NAK leadership and their newly found fellow travelers from Nyachae’s outfit and Biwott’s faction has exhibited openly towards the Kenyan people.

Despite the fact that the blood-soaked KANU party is on the NO side, the same wananchi who buried this political party at the 2002 polls is hoisting the leadership of the Official Opposition as heroes and sheroes- underscoring a salient point in national politics- it is not where you started from but where you end up that really matters at the end of the historical day. For example at the beginning of his life the young Harry Thuku was a fire-breathing militant nationalist who confronted colonial racists fearlessly. Yet towards the end of his life in the 1950s the same man had graduated into a Nyeuthi Quisling par excellence, railing against the Mau Mau and showing common cause with the Hingas, Mathenges, Mahihus, Nderis, Kanyotus, Gethis and Michukis on the homungati front. Today we see Koigi wa Wamwere and Mirugi Kariuki two unbroken comrades from the 1970s and 1980s forming part of the bulwark of the repressive apparatus of the contemporary Kenyan neo-colonial state- just like some well-known ex–detainees in your own leadership ranks temporarily lost their sanity to seek the leadership of the KANU party at Kasarani on March 18th, 2002.

Tactically, you also hold a comfortable lead because you brilliantly turned the tables on your YES antagonists by turning their own agenda against them- because after all it is the Kiraitus and Wakos who thought it would be a great idea to have Kenyans vote yes on no to their caricature.

(III)

Some words of caution and let us cite the last month of the 2004 US Presidential elections for illustrative purposes.

Right up to that point, John Kerry was pulling ahead on all key indicators- opinion polls, televised debates, endorsements, crowds at public rallies, media coverage you name it. But Kerry grossly underestimated George Bush’s capacity for electoral mayhem- from a minor thing like sneaking in a listening device literally behind his bulging back to cheat during the live debates to putting in an electronic rigging operation months in advance in key states like Ohio to egging Osama bin Laden (whose older brother was a business associate of the Bush family right up to 2001) to blanketing the Bible belt with fears of a Gay Takeover, a Feminist Dictatorship and a 21st Century Slave Uprising- the devious work of the dastardly unconvicted felon Karl Rove- to cashing on voter apathy when it came to the Democratic base while hauling everyone who could vote Republican to go out and vote.

In other words, Karl Rove and his Republican minions “conceded” the public relations battle to Kerry even as they hit the hustings and rejuvenated their conservative social base, winning surprising cross over appeal from a fresh infusion of deranged right wing immigrants, including a clutch of unhinged neo-conservative Kenyans that I saw prancing online during that period.

So even if we factor in the 300,000 stolen votes in Ohio- or whatever that number was, the Republicans still scored a victory over their Democratic opponents in at least one area- staying on message and bringing out their base of card carrying supporters.

It is my considered opinion that the announcement, mark you, I am talking of the announcement, not the formation of the Orange Democratic Movement was rather premature and served to dilute and somehow derail the main message which was:

“Kenyans, irrespective of where you stand ideologically, vote against the Wako Draft because it is a mutilation of Bomas and it is a shameless attempt to hoodwink the wananchi that the Wanjiku led path to a Katiba has been consummated at last when in fact they are busy installing an Imperial Presidency.”

Also as some of your detractors have underscored, crowds in the stadia do not translate to millions of voters ticking the NO option in the comfort and privacy of the polling booth. In other words, you must meticulously verify that you actually do have the numbers.

Some of us observing from the overseas sidelines saw the flashing pangas at the Thika rally as a sneak preview of the bloody tactics that some of the lurking war lords in the Yes team may resort to as the countdown to November 21st goes to the wire.

Resorting to crude tribal vile talk referring to some Kenyans from certain regions and communities as so called nyamu cia ruguru and using the scarecrow chatter that Raila wants to overthrow Kibaki is simply fear mongering- but as we saw in the United States, such fear mongering often works. In our Kenyan case however, no amount of ethnic solidarity pitting the andu aitu against the k*hiis- or any other tribal permutation of adversaries can effectively dislodge the national consensus that has developed against the Wako Draft.

From my quiet corner here in Canada I surmise that the only avenue available to the Yes side is reaching back to Daniel arap Moi’s old bag of electoral tricks- politically motivated clashes, arbitrary arrests, harassment by the secret police, manipulation of voter records, denial of access to polling centres in NO majority regions and plain old ballot stuffing and fraudulent referendum results. Judging from their ruthlessness in clamping down on the civil servants strike and the July mass action days, I would hazard a guess that this coterie in power is simply too drunk with power as to completely disregard the loss in human lives that its ruthless repression of the NO supporters will surely entail if matters ever got to that. The fact that they committed three faux pas in a week- arresting David Ochami from his own newsroom with a crude lie; staking out elected MPs in parliament and denouncing the very donors they supplicate themselves whenever they are in a financial crunch points to a growing desperation to hang on to power at all costs. Privately I have been informed that some of the NAK schemers have decided they will not make the “mistake” of handing over power to someone outside the Mount Kenya region- surely a stance that is a recipe for a future civil war because there is no section of this republic that can arrogantly arrogate itself the not so divine right to perpetual rule over the rest of the Kenyan populace.

Given the above paragraph, I would therefore urge the leaders of the Orange Democratic Movement to cater for the possibility that some mischievous miscreants in the Banana camp will attempt to PROVOKE a series of violent conflagrations that can then be blamed on the NO side, giving the Yes side several possible options-

Shutting down the referendum;
Paralyzing the operations of the Orange team;
Declaring a State of Emergency
Imposing an unpopular result on a cowed and terrified public.

Personally, having seen those pangas there is nothing that convinces me that some of the war lords in the Yes Camp are NOT determined to assassinate Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta, Najib Balala, William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi and other NO leaders.

The stakes are simply too high, ladies and gentlemen of the Orange team.

Lots of promises have been made- I am told that apart from Tuju who may have been promised the Prime Minister slot as my friend Miguna Miguna speculated recently, Simeon Nyachae may have been offered similar plums- with some of his North American aides allegedly being groomed for certain diplomatic appointments. The fact that Musikari Kombo decided to defy his own Ford-Kenya reconnaissance briefings that project a huge win for NO in Western Province and other Ford-Kenya strong-holds leads me to assume that this and other cabinet ministers have simply been bought as cheaply as a gunia of makaa. This means that all these people-the Tujus, the Nyachaes, the Kituyis, the Kirwas, the Ngilus, the Mungatanas, the Dzoros and the Saitotis- will be co-conspirators in whatever dark and devious plots that are currently been cooked along with the sufurias of poisoned matoke in the kitchens of the Yes campaign.

(III)
Vigilance must be a watchword of the Orange team which must assiduously stick to democratic principles punctuated by civil and non-violent methods while keeping a hawk eye on the look out for any breakout of overt fascist activity.

I was going to say that here the Orange Team could marshal the services of the human rights groups and other civil society organizations, but alas, as a sector, one can not assume that they are really opposed to the Wako Draft- a very big percentage have gone on the record as being adamantly opposed to the Bomas Draft which is the bedrock of the NO campaign. Yesterday I saw a flashing banner- which did NOT later translate into a feature story posted online citing a report about Kenyan- based civil society organizations calling for the referendum to be cancelled. If verified that for me would place those civil society organizations certainly in the anti-NO camp if not out rightly with the Yes team. In other words, the NO camp cannot and should not expect some of this country’s most prominent social justice organizations to stand up and denounce the Interhamwe tactics of the Yes team- so far it is only Maina Kiai that I have seen issue a public statement against the nyamu cia ruguru yapping on some FM station. But let me hasten to add that I rely on the stories selectively posted to the web by the three main dailies- and we never get to read The People, Taifa Leo or other publications that may or may not have covered other remarks. At any rate, I am part of a very extensive mailing list of these civil society organizations and I can say without fear of contradiction that I am yet to see anyone denounce Michuki for reducing Kibaki to a Gikuyu president and Karume to a Gikuyu minister.

[CONTINUED...]

[Onyango Oloo]

(IV)
What this means is that a secondary task of the Orange team from now to the day of the referendum is to identify, recruit and train its own network of human rights monitors focusing on abuses that may occur in the last fifty days of the referendum campaign. Related to that, I would urge the Orange team to set up a Nation wide Rapid Response Network that can be set up at almost no cost simply by harnessing the widely available tool of SMS. I may SMS some of you with more details about this. The Orange Team should also have a dedicated Web team that feeds Kenyans around the world with the latest developments in the NO Campaign. In doing this, it is crucial that the quality of information is beyond reproach- nothing damages the credibility of a campaign as wild rumours, unsubstantiated slander, pure lies and crude half-truths. This implies that this Web team should fall under the aegis of ODM Communication Director David Makali who as a veteran journalist, knows how to vet and verify stories before unleashing them.

(V)

Let me offer some unsolicited advice on how to deal with the media. We recently posted on our JUKWAA forum, Raila Odinga’s opinion piece on the role of the media that was first carried by the Nation, the Kenya Times and the Standard.

With all due respect to Agwambo, may I suggest that Orange team needs to raise its game, as far as media savvyness and strategy just a notch please?

Here is what I mean.

Over here in Canada people from the communities of Colour, especially people of African Descent have spent literally decades butting heads with the North American mainstream media for its racist and marginalized coverage. When they deign to cover us we are either boxed in when it comes to talking about sports, entertainment or as in the case of Africa, ethnic conflict, AIDS and poverty- because that is all they ever see. Some of us still spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get “fair” and “balanced” coverage, writing letters to the editor and cultivating relations with specific writers to ensure better coverage in the future.

But the systemic exclusion still remains.

That is why some of us ventured into the then untested waters of the alternative media, the community based radio stations and newspapers and other spaces where we could get our messages out. Of course these alternative outlets also have formidable systemic barriers that often militate against their long term survival.

Over the last ten years, due to the digital communications revolution, the rules of the game have changed. You can set up a forum, a blog, a news portal, a website in less than ten minutes and electronically transmit your message across the world in seconds.

Of course you cannot and should not try to totally ignore the mainstream media- but one must create their own media outlets- and these are fairly inexpensive is what I am saying. NARC tried this in 2002 with their websites and what not- although we noticed that these sites were pulled down as soon as Kibaki was sworn in. In a related note, the domain name that was registered to Nyachae’s presidential campaign- and I will not even mention it- was taken over by porn marketers in the United States to peddle human flesh and the degradation of women.
So what I am briefly saying in terms of media strategy is to do what some of us Kenyan in Canada do: people like Adongo, Miguna and myself tried for years to submit our articles to the Standard and the Nation- and more often than not, we were rebuffed and censored largely because of the content because I do not think that someone can convince me that our writing is sub-par compared to some of the opinion pieces we see published every day.

Instead of climbing to the top of the CN Tower and hurtling to our suicidal doom, we opted for something less dramatic- we joined the existing online forums like Mashada, Africa Op-Ed, Kenyaonline, Mambogani, Mwananchi, Kenya Ni Yetu and so on and became active contributors, but FOCUSING on one area- Kenyan politics. It was not long before our views were very well circulated in cyberspace to the point where today, despite the fact that we are hardly every covered in our daily press at home, hardly any serious political pundit inside and outside Kenya is unfamiliar with the names Okoth Osewe, Onyango Oloo, Adongo Ogony and Miguna Miguna, to cite just a handful.

In the last few months we have started breaking loose from these forums-because some of them are really snake pits where all you see posted for hours on end is tribal junk, personal attacks and juvenile pornographic yodeling. Our evolution is taking the form of blogs like the Kenya Democracy Project, Leta Siasa and the newly fangled forum, JUKWAA. Now we have found a simple way to interface these online forums-dominated by Kenyans abroad with the social justice networks in Kenya- simply by emailing a link to one our pieces to the hundreds of names in some of the mailing lists we belong to. For instance this message that you are reading at this second is not only available at JUKWAA and via links at the Nation Forum and many of the above named discussion sites- it is also being directly emailed as a link to almost a hundred Kenyan based organizations and individuals who are part of the Kenya civil society sector.

(VI)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Orange Democratic Movement what I have described above is a manifestation of something called “viral marketing” that I think you should familiarize yourself. By the way, this is an open message so your adversaries in the Yes camp are also taking copious notes- if they are not already implementing some of these very suggestions as we speak. I have copied and pasted the following article from Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.

Viral marketing is sometimes used to describe some sorts of Internet-based stealth marketing campaigns, including the use of web logs, seemingly amateur web sites, and other forms of astroturfing to create word of mouth for a new product or service. Often the ultimate goal of viral marketing campaigns is to generate media coverage via "offbeat" stories worth many times more than the campaigning company's advertising budget.

The term "viral advertising" refers to the idea that people will pass on and share cool and entertaining content; this is often sponsored by a brand, which is looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, images, and even text.
Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign, relative low-cost (compared to direct mail), good targeting, and the high and rapid response rate. The main strength of viral marketing is its ability to obtain a large number of interested people at a low cost. The main weakness is that sometimes messages can look like e-mail spam and this creates the risk of damaging the brand. The 'from' and 'subject' lines then become very important in order to remedy this problem (Tell-A-Friend principle); for example, when sending a link or webpage, sometimes the subject line is "(Name of person here) thought you would like this page". The receiver will then recognize the name and know that it is not unsolicited.

The most difficult task for any company is to acquire and retain a large customer base, through the use of the internet and the effects of e-mail advertising the B2C efforts have a greater impact then many other tools of marketing. E-mail generates 15% of online sales in North America and is on the increase. Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail; it encourages users of a specific product or service to tell a friend. This would be a positive word-of-mouth recommendation. One of the most successful perspectives found to achieve this customer base is the integrated marketing communication IMC perspective.


History

The term viral marketing was originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail's email practice of appending advertising for themselves to outgoing mail from their users. The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a "susceptible" user, that user will become "infected" (i.e., sign up for an account) and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As long as each infected user sends mail to more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than one), standard results in epidemiology imply that the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential.

Types, Methods, and Barriers
[
Types of viral messages

Pass-along: A message at the bottom of the e-mail that prompts the reader to pass along, such as chain letters.

Incentivised viral: Offering rewards for providing someone's address. This can dramatically increase referrals. However, this is most effective when the offer requires another person to take action. Most online contests offer more chances of winning for each referral given; but when the referral must also participate in order for the first person to obtain that extra chance of winning, the chance that the referral participates is much greater.

Undercover: A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity, or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass-along. Particular effort is made to make the discovery of the item seem spontaneous and informal, to encourage natural memetic behavior. Outside world "clues", such as graffiti appearing in cities with key viral words, is often used to direct people to search out the presented "mystery". Because of the large amount of unusual and entertaining content on the internet, this can be the hardest type of viral to spot, especially as companies try to imitate the style and content of amateur websites and authentic underground movements.

"Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing" ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising. Prior to releasing a movie, some Hollywood movie stars get married, get divorced, or get arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention them. An example is the publicity campaign about the dubious love affair between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes that came out just before each of them released a movie. [1] [2]

matching services require each user to create a confidential list of friends and acquaintances they are interested in dating. A match only occurs if the object of their affection reciprocates by logging in and placing them on their own secret list; thus, each user has an incentive to get their crushes to visit the site. Most of these services allow users to email recipients messages informing them that an undisclosed person has a crush on them. On eCRUSH, one system using this methodology, 20% of the email recipients start accounts of their own. A Business 2.0 article noted, "eCrush is intrinsically viral – hopeful romantics become eCrush marketers as they try to find out if their crushes return their ardor"[3].

Methods of transmission

Transmission of viral marketing can occur in one of four ways:

Word of Web: Typing into a web-based form that converts that information into an e-mail, sends to recipients. An example of this is any article at MSNBC.com. In the article, there are links that encourage you to send to a friend; this brings you to a web-based form that you fill out, and this form converts all of the information to the recipient in an e-mail.
Word of E-Mail: The most common type: forwarding e-mails, such as jokes, quizzes and 'compromising' pictures.

Word of mouth

Word of IM: Perhaps the fastest-growing mode of transmission, hyperlinks are sent over instant messaging servers such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, or Google IM. This method is popular with many young people who are arguably more likely to trust a link sent by a friend via IM than by that same friend through e-mail.
[edit]
Barriers to viral marketing

Size: If viral content is a video clip or streaming video, it may be too large for the recipient to receive. However, newer technologies are eliminating this problem, as internet connections grow faster and e-mail inboxes become more capable of receiving large files.

Media Format: A viral marketing campaign will be unsuccessful if the message is in a format that most people can't use; for example if particular software is needed that is not widely used, then people will not be able to open or view the message.
Email Attachment: Many people receive viral marketing messages while at the office, and company anti-virus software or firewalls can prevent people from receiving or viewing such attachments.

Cumbersome Referral Mechanism: For a viral marketing campaign to be successful, it must be easy to use. For example, if the promotion is some sort of game or contest, then asking for referrals should be an option immediately after the game, not as a condition to play.

Sabotage: Especially in the case of Undercover style marketing campaigns, the discovery of the marketing nature of a popular campaign may cause the same social networks to inform people of the commercial intent of the meme, and promote a formal or informal boycott of the company or product in question.

Examples of viral marketing

Hotmail is the classic viral marketing example
The spread of text messaging
Serenity (movie)
Burger King's The Subservient Chicken and Coq Roq
Nurofen's award winning inner space game
Tupperware parties
Fictional websites in Doctor Who
ilovebees.com - Viral Marketing for Halo 2
Jamie Kane BBC sponsored online game


(VII)

Apart from those marketing and promotion tips, I would like to suggest the following also to Orange Team:

1.Do NOT lose focus of what this campaign is all about- it is about DEFEATING the Wako Draft on November 21, 2005. Please take any lists of potential cabinet ministers in a future ODM government and shred those, making sure that you flush these shreds down the nearest choo. It is simply TOO PREMATURE to be yakking about forming a new government.

2.Recognize that the members of the Kenyan Left are YOUR MOST STABLE ALLIES, therefore expand far beyond the ranks of the mainstream politicians and seek working arrangements with the most progressive forces in the country. As you all know politicians in Kenya are regularly bought and sold as a gunia of korosho in the political market places where they prostitute their votes and mortgage their constituents' democratic aspirations- for instance by bolting from the back benches of the opposition to the front of the government side as freshly minted ministers without even bothering to consult with the electorate. Your surest bulwark is to ensure that the overwhelming MAJORITY of the leadership of the ODM within the next two years consists of non-MPs.

3.Do not be provoked in retaliatory violence between now and November 21st, nor should you try and match the other side litany of derogatory remarks.

4.Where are the women in ODM- there is a lot of testosterone reeking up that joint!

5.Where are the young people-yes I know, we can see some but we need to see more!

6.Where is your international section? Some people mistakenly think it is composed of Messrs Adongo, Miguna, Osewe and Oloo- not true.

7.Will you read and discuss this document?

Onyango Oloo
Toronto

[Onyango Oloo]

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