Imagine walking down the street, going about your daily business or getting off an airplane after a 15 hour non-stop journey and suddenly the person standing next to you starts singing or dancing and other people join in. The next thing you know, you’re absorbed in the sheer magic of that moment. You are that moment.
Let’s make it a little boring now. Let’s talk business. To make a customer or a potential customer feel that way is any PR/marketing practitioner’s dream. And we see it happening. The current T-Mobile advert (designed and executed by Saatchi & Saatchi) running across all major TV stations has made a lot of organisations sit up and take notice of the incredible impact of this social media phenomenon- flashmobs.
I first came across flash-mobs while looking for a Michael Jackson tribute video. And the fact that this could be used as a marketing strategy definitely crossed my mind. So what exactly is a flashmob. According to the Oxford Dictionary, which has included this term recently, a flash-mob is “a public gathering of complete strangers, organised via the Internet or mobile phones that perform a pointless act and then disperse again.” A lot of advertising agencies are using this phenomenon to create and garner interest in existing products/services. A flash mob incorporates almost all forms of social media. It's shared on facebook, available on youtube, made popular by tweets. Hence, it's become an intrinsic part of digital advertising and public relations. Another great video I came across while doing my research was the Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport (Beirut Duty Free) Dabke / Hip-Hop flash mob.
How effective do we think these flashmobs and why have they become so popular. I believe it’s a simple psychological effect on the psyche. It’s basically appealing to the emotions on people. Advocates of emotional appeals argue that effective communication connects at a visceral level. An emotional appeal is related to an individual’s psychological and social needs for purchasing certain products and services. Many consumers are emotionally motivated or driven to make certain purchases. Advertisers aim to cash in on the emotional appeal and this works particularly well where there is not much difference between multiple product brands and its offerings.
The flash mob effect can take us somewhere almost magical — a place in which out of the random movement of individuals in a crowd, something beautiful and co-ordinated and ordered emerges; a place where we can share something with total strangers, without cost or harm to ourselves or to anyone else for a few short minutes before the song is over and the performers disperse. And even though some of these flash mobs are advertisers’ tools designed to encourage us to buy some product or other, you can see from the expressions on the faces of the performers and the crowd that that’s not what they are experiencing; they’re feeling delight and pleasure and a sense of being a part of something. And I think there’s a gift for us all in that.
Being able to make a consumer feel that magic is the ultimate goal of an advertising/ PR practitioner.
Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/27/t-mobile-flashmob-ad
Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/27/t-mobile-flashmob-ad
I have seen the video of Michael Jackson as well, but to tell you the truth I had never associated it with PR. However, I think the idea of flash-mobs is really interesting since it allows a group of strangers to promote a message all together in a public space through many "different" ways, such as dancing, singing or staying frozen (http://prontherun.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/flash-mobs-and-public-relations/) depending on the aims of the campaign. PR practitioners should start considering it as part of a campaign, given the fact that it can also be organised by social media.
ReplyDeleteI have always wondering how much people actually contect these flash mob with the message or product they are promoting? I agree that they connect to people emotion and are a new way to generate emeotional appeals, but are they translated to the message or do they just make people smile for a minute.
ReplyDeleteAlso I wonder how much they are really organicly organised when they are beening use in ads like for T-moblie suggesting its nothing more than a paid for publicity stunt.
Without doubt flash mob is able to create impressive PR stunts and does help catch people's eyes. However,I have the same doubt with Eva - How effective can flash mobs be in terms of brand/products publicity; whether the message can be interpreted by people and also more importantly: to be conducted correctly.
ReplyDeleteEven if it's a paid for publicity stunt, it does register the product/service in a consumer or a potential consumer's mind in an attractive way since it is almost directly involving them in the whole proces. It's huge in terms of brand publicity as it is released on both traditional (television, radio) and digital media at the same time.
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