'Kony 2012': Guerrilla Marketing

When Ben Keesey learned how many people were watching his video, he thought YouTube was broken. It was March 5, and Invisible Children, the nonprofit of which he is chief executive officer, had just launched Kony 2012, a 30-minute documentary about Joseph Kony, the African warlord who’s been kidnapping and killing people for more than 20 years. Keesey, 29, checked YouTube the morning of the debut; the video had 50,000 views—a healthy number. Soon, tens of thousands of people were commenting—and the number kept growing. “YouTube doesn’t refresh its numbers immediately,” he says. “So we didn’t know how many people were watching it, but we could tell from the comments that it was taking off.”

Then the nonprofit’s e-mail system broke. Its sales force was locked out of its online store. Its Web design firm struggled to keep the website from crashing as tens of millions of people flocked to it. Media outlets called; Keesey and Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell spent the following days flying between California and New York for appearances. “Have slept only two hours in four days,” Russell tweeted before he went on the Today show on March 9, “Pray for focus[ed] mind.” At home, Russell’s wife, Danica, was so overwhelmed that she left uncooked lasagna in her oven for two days. “It got scary,” recalls Keesey. “All we could do is hang on for the ride.”