Small Business Growth Strategies

I finally fired up the TiVo last night to watch Oprah’s street party on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. The Black Eyed Peas were the opening act and their performance was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and one of the most inspired viral marketing campaigns out there. If you don’t want to read the spoiler to this, go watch the video and come back for the rest (trust me, this video is really fun to watch!)…

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090908-tows-flash-mob-dance

The event featured a flash mob, which is essentially when a crowd gathers and performs some kind of event in unison. In this case, 21,000 people participated in a choreographed dance to the Black Eyed Peas hit song “I Gotta Feeling.”

Reasons to love this video:

1. Nobody has performed a flash mob on such a large scale before.
2. The song is great and the whole performance demands to be rewatched.
3. It’s brilliant viral marketing. Not only did the band get huge exposure on Oprah, but the video has been downloaded over half a million times on YouTube, and that’s not counting those of us who would rather watch the well-produced version on Oprah’s site.
4. People are talking about it. Here I am spreading the word and I’m not alone. That’s the beauty of viral marketing.
5. It’s thought-provoking. How could you create similar results (perhaps on a smaller scale!) for your business or performance or…?

Also note that this wasn’t spontaneous. It was orchestrated, directed and produced. Over 800 dancers (who were reached via social media sites like Twitter and Facebook) showed up to learn the choreography. They were placed in the audience to help all 21,000 attendees participate–not an easy thing to accomplish. But clearly the results were spectacular.

I just downloaded the song on iTunes so the marketing campaign worked on me! What do you think?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

written by Stephanie Chandler