Alexis Ohanian and the Tale of Mister Splashy Pants

Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit gave a brief talk for TED in India in November of 2009, cleverly titled, "How to Make a Splash in Social Media."

Reddit is a social news website, or as Ohanian defines, "a democratic front page of the best stuff on the web." Users submit new things that pop up on the web and people either rate the stories with a thumbs up or thumbs down, depending on their opinion.

Ohanian goes on to tell the story of Greenpeace, who wanted to draw attention to their cause of stopping the Japanese government from hunting humpback whales. To generate interest in their campaign, they decided to install tracking devices on the whales. However, they determined that before doing this they should give a name to one of the whales.

Reddit became involved in this campaign because someone wanted to name the whale "Mister Splashy Pants," as opposed to some of the harmonious Japanese names that were suggested by other contributors. The movement to name the whale Mister Splashy Pants sky-rocketed, not just by receiving thousands of votes on Reddit, but Facebook groups, applications and even old-fashioned paper signs were made by the general public to support the naming of the whale this comical name.

The campaign as a whole was a success. Greenpeace adopted "Mister Splashy Pants" as the whale's name and even created a full branding line around the whale, compete with merchandise ranging from ecards to tshirts. Furthermore, Greenpeace accomplished their mission, and the Japanese stopped the hunting of humpback whales.

Ohanian reflects that social media was crucial for this campaign. People that became involved in the cause weren't even all whale lovers, but the general public who just found this campaign to be interesting. "The internet is a level playing field," states Ohanian, referring to the fact that anyone, regardless of their location or status can become involved in something major.

One of the most important factors for Greenpeace and raising awareness over social media is the fact that it costs nothing, yet its reach is endless. They went from a simple idea of saving a whale, to a full line of a brand of user-generated ideas, not to mention an accomplished mission.

This is social media at its best.

Click here to see the video.