Here’s your nerd-word of the… week*.
(*may not appear every week)Flashmobs
A flash mob (or flashmob) is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. -(Wikipedia, yes it’s a real source sometimes)
Flashmobs have been around for years now, usually ‘relatively’ small scale. Usually they are run by university students with a lot of time on their hands. See: Ninja Flashmob
But lately, more of them are actually large scale productions, professionally run by PR firms.
The reasoning for the PR firm is simple. Forcing people your message is difficult, and buying ad space on TV or Newspapers is expensive. So why not have a campaign that people instinctively WANT to watch and share with their friends, and make the viewers come to you?
So they create these YouTube videos or internet memes, and just let them run wild on the internet.
Flashmobs are a great example of this shift in advertising. Check out some great flashmob videos by PR firms:
