The Engagement Octopus of Movember

       
Graphic credit to Brandon Home and Threadless

A good chunk of what has obsessed our office over the last few weeks is the launch of Movember, christened last week by a moustache-inspired art gallery Movember launch event in Toronto.  This is my third year as a committed, albeit scant blonde, MoBro (@movembersean) .

Part of the success of the Movember movement to change the face of men's health, has been in extending out well beyond the traditional circles of fundraising, in order to deliver attention, buzz and engagement.

It's open armed approach is embedded in its history - from 30 Australians having a dream (and perhaps one too many lagers), Movember has grown to a cause supported by 620,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas worldwide raising millions of dollars for the treatment and detection of prostate cancer worldwide. The success of Movember has not been driven by celebrity, a wealthy steward or a crisis moment; it's more been driven by word of mouth and getting people to care about and change their appearance for a cause, where they live, work and play.

Here's the impressive array of places you'll find Movember this year, consider the Movember Engagement Octopus more than 30 tentacles wide:

On the website front:

1) Movember.com - a GQ-meets-Trucker Mo designed website whose key mission to to spread news, orchestrate fundraising and share member involvement with 6 country-based offshoots.

2) Movember Registration Area - where all the fundraising begins - sign up as team captains, join a network challenge and integrate all your fundraising onto Twitter and other social arenas.

3) The Movember 5-Plex - five things you can do while on Movember.com - update on news, see how you rank across other fundraisers, get some merchandise, build out your social pages and visit a swanky and flash-based The Lodge - and amidst the stag heads and other clasically male trinkets, check out the Style Guide, some tips and facts and 5 basic Movember rules.

4) The MOSCARS - a MO-sourcing, video based competition built by Meme Labs to aggregate all the videos that flag why Mo Bros and Mo Sissas are participating in 2010, the three top videos get suited up with Movember swag.

On the Social Extensions front:

5-8) MO Social - Movember has keenly taken advantage of digital word of mouth by inhabiting the top 4 networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr with many country and city specific handles - next year perhaps we'll add LinkedIn - but perhaps that would make us less cool?

9) Movember Digital Challenge and Captains - we've localized and created a focus for our web interests through passioante city-based captains and assistant captains in 20 cities across North America.

10) Movember Digital Champions - the recruitment of concentric circles of 2,000 digital ambassadors in Canada - who are connected, influential and ready to MO Up  who will all congregrate at @MoChampions.

11) Movember Network Challenges - the ability to compete against peer companies, agencies and teams by activating a multi-team leaderboard within Movember.com and starting some Mo smack talk.

12) Movember MoPhone - check out iPhone apps and get your iMo on with Movember MoPhone and monitor, scrutinize and share your 30 days of follicle growth.

On the sponsor, PR and merchandise front:

13) Movember Threadless Challenge - one of my favourite causes meets one of my favourite crowdsourced websites - check out over 400 of the best Movember T-shirts you'd ever want to see, vote on and buy.

14) Movember Hockey Mos - the use of Lanny McDonald and Wendel Clark as front men is as Canadiana as maple syrup and Kraft Dinner, also take our recent poll on your picks for the best historical and current hockey Mos and which team logo derserves a MO.

15) Movember Cufflinks - grow a Mo with style with Arbitrage cufflinks .

16) Movember Shoes - get a pair of limited edition shoes from Tom's and have the coolest slicks on the block.

17) Movember T-Shirts - get some groovin' T-shirts and badge your self publicly http://www.zazzle.com/movember+tshirts  or http://www.palmercash.com/search.aspx?x=0&y=0&SearchTerm=movember.

18) Movember Mercedes-Benz Sponsorship - Mercedes-Benz is a lead sponsor for the effort and is offering up some Smart Cars for promotion and some Mercedes-Benz prizing for the key fundraisers. 

19) Movember Schick Sponsorship - check out the Schick manscaping swag available from Australia and North America in this year's effort as well as an effort to tailor your Mo at SchickMoPic.ca.

20) Movember Moo Cards - those lovable stationary cards do it again - this time get your ready made Mo Business cards and MiniCards - just ordered mine.

21) Movember Sector9 Longboards - forget the grizzly November weather - bump and grind down your local 'hood with an official Movember 'board.

22) Movember Demitasse Jewellery - attention Mo Sistas, attention Mo Sistas - get your moustache inspired jewellery and become the fashion diva of Movember.

23) Movember Canadian Club Cocktails - move over Mad Men, your season may be over but ours is just beginning - look for official and some unofficial Canadian Club cocktails inspired by Movember - having drank all of them at the Toronto launch, I highly approve.

24) Movember NHL Players - it's anticpated more than 15 NHLers will be donning a jersey and growing a Mo this Movember, as much as playoff beards are important, mid-season MOs are even more important - have a read on the Minnesota Wild's effort and it's link to the NHL effort of Hockey Fights Cancer.

25) Movember NBA Involvement - talk about a home season opener, NBA fans got their dose of Movember recently in Vancouver

26) Movember Corporate Challenges - who says bankers, lawyers and investment people don't have fun, one of the more successful efforts in Movember is getting prominent companies to raise funds as a company with an automatic company match

27) Movember Prostate Cancer and Livestrong affiliations - establishing strong ties to the representative bodies for Movember in Canada and the U.S. leaves a trail of a lot of positive goodwill and also the raison d'etre for undertaking the campaign.

On the events/experience front:

28) Movember Local Committees- it's amazing what happens when local people embedded in their communities rally their own business, organizational, trade and neighborhood groups around the Mo flag.

28) Movember Gala Parties - commune and celebrate with your MoBros and MoSistas by fundraising and joining us at the 7 Canadian gala parties and 14 US gala parties from Aspen to Victoria.

29) Movember Moustache-Inspired Art Exhibitions - the moustache has had a long and storied tradition among the elite and bourgeosie of society - why not launch our effort this year by celebrating the aesthetic of the Mo ?

30) Movember Barber Shop Shave Offs - November 1 straight edge clean shaves, remember follow Movember's five golden rules and you can't go wrong.

31) MoCupcakes - the quest to find the manliest cupcake in Canada - join our effort as a cupcaker, amateur baker or cupcake enthusiast  @MoCupcakes .

32) Movember Event Space -why wait for a gala event to pop up in your 'hood? Organize and post your own events and order a Movember party in a box .

32) Movember Prizing - compete for one of fourteen Mo grand prizes  - vie for the title of Man of Movember, Miss Movember, Lame Mo, best Mo Combo, best Mo team, best Mo fundraiser and many others http://ca.movember.com/prizes/.