Flash Mob Advertising

Flash mob advertising is a way to do advertising, in which flash mobs are organised and orchestrated by companies and businesses, as complementary elements of a whole campaign. The aims of this advertising strategy are to make known a certain product and to increase brand recognition or brand loyalty, influencing consumers’ buying behaviour. As opposed to 'classical' ones, advertising flash mobs are coordinated and registered at the responsible public authority. A further element of distinction is the presence of actors who have to follow specific instructions given by the organizers.

As to achieve the best results, the goals of the flash mob must be defined before the event planning. Furthermore, flash mob advertising need to be well considered and planned in detail to be successful.

History
The idea was born in the 19th century in America, the first flash mobbing act is dated 1958. In the north of New Jersey, a radio station asked people to peep the heads out of their windows at midnight, shouting in unison “Excelsior!”. The test was a success.

During the 21st century flash mob became a common practice for promoting products or brands, combining a mainly aesthetic issue with a more concrete one.

In 2003, Bill Wasik created the first modern flash mob in New York, in order to promote his own magazine, the so-called “Harper’s Magazine” (currently known as “WIRED”). This is considered as the starting point of the modern flash mobs advertising.

In the following months, this phenomenon quickly spread, at first in New York and then all over the world, generating a so massive response on digital media and newspapers that Wasik himself was shocked by this huge diffusion of Flash mobs.

In 2004, the “Flash mob” definition entered in the Oxford English Dictionary.

This phenomenon radically evolved: the first and original type of Flash Mob was the so-called “Atomized flash mobs”, but in this typology there was not an interaction between the “mobbers”.

Few years later “Interactive flash mobs” (also called Flash mob 2.0) appears, quickly becoming the most popular type.

A more recent typology is represented by “Performance flash mobs” that, differently from other types, have a clear intent to promote artists, performances, events and to theatricalize urban life.

Then there are the “Politic flash mobs”, that apply the originality of flash-mobs to the more traditional street protests. This evolution process ends with “Advertising flash mobs”: in more recent years many advertising campaigns utilized flash mobs to promote product and services, exploiting the enormous potential of this phenomenon as an innovative and powerful advertising tool.

Flash mobs perfectly fit with viral and guerrilla tactics that are key elements of the contemporary advertising, combining them with the use of urban areas and open spaces.

Furthermore, flash mob advertising generates a huge secondary Internet buzz, thanks to digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

The growing popularity of this type of advertising captures the attention of many advertising agencies that start organizing flash mobs.

Characteristics
Traditional online and offline advertising have experienced a reduction in their appeal; in fact, promotional

methods that combines advertising with public activities are becoming the most effective ones: questing, events, flash mobs.

According to a survey conducted by Nielsen in 2013 about Global Trust in Advertising, with more than 28 thousand respondents in 58 countries, the 84% of people is more willing to trust other peers’ advices on products or services, rather than trust ambiguous advertisements, often considered risky. The decision-making process seems to depend more and more on these “peers’ recommendations”. This result highlights the importance of interpersonal relationships which can generate a system of persuasion far more intense than other tools applied to traditional advertising.

However, consumers’ decision-taking is also influenced by their culture, in terms of individualism and collectivism: especially in the second case, the group of reference represents the focus of actions, with its social conventions and internal rules. So people get used to collectively negotiate the meanings that will be released in the society as “commonly accepted information”.

It is exactly the negotiation of such meanings that helps different individuals to identify them as a group.

New technologies have certainly enhanced group formation and group activities; flash mob is one of the results, in which people suddenly aggregate, perform something and then disaggregate; all of this, to catch the attention and often make a public statement. In a sense, we can associate flash mob advertising with the effects of word-of-mouth marketing:  both aim to enlarge the target market as well as the consumer base.

We can identify flash mob advertising as a form of C2C business; actually, we can better define it as a B2C2C marketing, because by organizing the events, the companies give the initial stimuli to exchange impressions and/or share contents.

The coordination of such phenomenon starts online, with an email that fix a rendez-vous (time and place) and a set of instructions: the information starts to circulate with the purpose of involving as many people as possible.

We are likely to consider flash mob advertising as a powerful marketing tool, able to higher the brand awareness and at the same time to spread a good reputation and image of the company. It represents a great occasion to boost sales and promotion, too.

Create brand awareness through flash mob advertising is possible thanks to the fact that many people are in the same place, at the same time, performing something predetermined and planned by the company, which is trying to position itself the closest possible to consumers.

Benefits
Some benefits derived from a process of flash mob advertising are:
 * Instant recognition. Besides being part of a marketing campaign, the flash mob takes place in a real environment; this means that people of the local community talk and discuss about it and its effects, enlarging the fame of the company that in turn will benefit of a free word-of-mouth marketing effect.
 * Cheapness. Associated costs are reduced and expenditure remains contained; the phenomenon is supposed to go viral for its intrinsic nature. Only few actors would be paid to perform the script or even nobody, letting the participants free to enjoy the event, and observing the reactions. Rent for spaces are also cut; the only costs the company has to deal with are cameras and technicians, permissions and media plan.
 * Killer application. Thousands of people will be reached by the campaign. Flash mobs heavily double the number of people exposed online, that perhaps are going to be replicated/shared/posted and videos and comments about the event are main social platforms. The consequence is that this dissemination automatically arises a fast word-of-mouth, which in turn can involve a lot of people.
 * Building relations. Flash mob advertising in useful to create new relations with the public, by possibly control the perceptions of the company and its reputation (unusual methods to shock people and leave the mark, increasing visibility and recognition).

Failed flash mob advertising
Philip Grant and Edward Bloom defined as failed an advertising flash mob which is unable to get viral. Grant organised focus groups to investigate the reasons of their failure. The results showed that:
 * People share only what is original


 * Some advertising flash mob are considered “fake” because all the participants are actors


 * Videos are in low quality


 * People feel they have been joked if the logo of the company who organised the flash mob is not shown from the beginning

T-Mobile
In 2009 at London, the famous cell phone service provider organized a flash mob dance to promote the brand. An individual started to dance in the middle of Liverpool Street Station and more than 300 people joined him. The “T-Mobile” flash mob has become incredibly popular, gaining more than 40 million views on YouTube and generating an enormous “buzz” on social media. This flash mob advertising also won a prestigious award at the 56th Cannes Lions advertising festival.

The success of the previous flash mob encouraged T-Mobile to organize even more ambitious promotional events such as the Flash mob at London’s Trafalgar Square in 2009, joined by  more than 13,500 people, including the famous rock star Pink too, or the more recent one organized in 2010 at the Heathrow Airport.

Other flash mob advertising
Colgate: Customers in a supermarket started to brush their teeth while doing the shop Nivea: People started dancing with a girl who just tried the product

Tic Tac: The company created a candid camera to promote its mints

British Airways: A giant suitcase with the union jack was put in a Moscow mall and doubles of English icons (such as Queen Elisabeth II) entered it welcomed by hostesses as if they were boarding on a plane.