The success of this was probably down to seige mentality mostly. We all have arguments and say things to our family but if anyone else was to join in everyone quickly turns on the outsider.

It certainly helps that someone well known gets behind a campaign, that stands true for most campaigns.

Why did the NHS at 60 campaign die? No pun intended. Firstly there is a large portion of, so what? What was the rallying cry? Nothing really to get behind, nothing to get the passion flowing, as you said, no motive. No motivation.

Also it was a bit rich for the govt to start such a campaign when it’s seen by many inside and outside the NHS to have managed to thoroughly screwed the thing up through a plethora of bureaucracy. Who really is proud of the NHS right now? I want a great NHS but certainly not happy with what has happened to it over the last few years. Not to mention that anything a govt tries to do is inherently uncool.

You hinted at something about latecomers and as the campaign did crossover into the mainstream there were probably a lot of them that heard about it from the TV or radio and thought that it was something they would take a look at and also it was a topic they could relate to. The idea was very simple and the right one.

What I also found interesting was the number of tweets I saw from Americans saying how they wished people in the USA would defend something so strongly and in such a positive way.

Events like this don’t happen often but all organisations could learn something from this experience. Marketing types especially go out very explicitly to try and create viral campaigns, which goes back to your first point of authenticity. It can’t be done.

There is a sense of catching the moment and an essence of the unknown in this sort of thing.