Lessons for ZMA from Ellen’s Epic Samsung Selfie Stunt

Ellen Degeneres (@TheEllenShow) beat us to it!! If you read what we wrote about the Zambian Music Awards (read if you haven’t) and what they could have been tech-wise, then you understand the grief we feel right now for not coming up with this sooner. Although in our defence, we were not the ZMA hosts.

It took ONE selfie to get the world’s attention. It had Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong’o and Brad Pitt in it. Amazing right? This particular selfie was retweeted over a million times, beating a previous record held by Barack Obama.

Bringing it home, the ZMAs are nothing like the Oscars, but they are still important to the Zambian music industry.

Regardless of what event is taking place, social media’s importance cannot be over emphasized. Can we please steer away from ignorance and use this platform to our advantage. With over 2.6 million people having access to the internet and with 98% of those people having access the internet on mobile devices, there is no reason that any event being hosted in Zambia cannot and should not draw in a crowd.

Aside from making an event become a trending topic, companies can use it to promote their products or services. For example, Samsung sponsored the Ellen’s selfie moment. She was using Samsung products throughout various parts of the awards as part of it’s  One Samsung campaign launched at the Oscars last evening. It doesn’t really matter that she was using an iPhone backstage! Samsung still got their moment of fame.  Zambian firms should take a big leaf out of that book and use all the various events to be in people’s face in the most creative and least annoying way possible.

Plus, Ellen managed to buy some pizza too which was crazy for an awards show  because everybody expects little finger foods, right? We’ll leave Debonairs, Pizza Inn and whatever fast food places we have to take that in. Who wouldn’t want the brand of pizza to show up at such a huge event?

All it takes is a group of people who think outside the box, or even just throw the box away and let their creativity run wild! Zambia is full of smart out-of-the-box thinkers just hit us up so that we can hook you up.

Pictures courtesy of Mirror UK