Flash Mob Anyone?
For years clothing, grocery, auto, home electronics, and DIY retailers have attempted to drive traffic into their stores with events, offers, coupons etc. Marketing departments crunch numbers and models trying to find relevance for their customer base, a very costly operation when considering staff and system costs.
How else can you drive traffic into your store? The concept of viral marketing and social networking has caught on, but the practical applications are few and far between. Youtube videos are great for advertising products. Facebook widgets can do the same. If you’re a retailer, however, it takes something more to drive people to your store.
The concept of the flash mob was born at the beginning of the century as a way to organize social groups for political reasons, for causes, or just for plain fun. It has been more recently made popular by T-mobiles ad campaign showcasing the recent mobs in London train stations. I’ve laid out a few scenarios for driving traffic to stores using flash mobs. Some of them are a bit silly, but it’s a fun topic and an interesting way to look at marketing.
Scenario 1: It’s Valentines Day, and a popular greeting card retail chain sponsors a flash mob speed dating event on Facebook. Speed daters are driven to a local retail store, and are encouraged to by flowers and greeting cards as part of the event.
Scenario 2: An auto retail chain sponsors a local car club’s Facebook page in order to organize a flash mob at a local dealership. Members are driven to the site to test drive a new model or line of models (perfect example, Toyota’s Scion line.)
Scenario 3: It’s the week before spring break, and you’re a hip clothing retailer like Abercrombie, Urban Outfitters, or Hollister. The local marketing department seeks out some local social networks and organizes a flash mob of local high school and/or college kids to go to a particular store and try on bathing suits.
Flash mobs are popular because people are drawn to and feel comfortable performing unusual activities while in larger groups. There are obvious downsides to this type of traffic, such as crowd control and unqualified consumers. It is a fun concept, however, and I am interested to hear any other ideas, so feel free to post.
Scenario 1: It’s Valentines Day, and a popular greeting card retail chain sponsors a flash mob speed dating event on Facebook. Speed daters are driven to a local retail store, and are encouraged to by flowers and greeting cards as part of the event.
Scenario 2: An auto retail chain sponsors a local car club’s Facebook page in order to organize a flash mob at a local dealership. Members are driven to the site to test drive a new model or line of models (perfect example, Toyota’s Scion line.)
Scenario 3: It’s the week before spring break, and you’re a hip clothing retailer like Abercrombie, Urban Outfitters, or Hollister. The local marketing department seeks out some local social networks and organizes a flash mob of local high school and/or college kids to go to a particular store and try on bathing suits.
Flash mobs are popular because people are drawn to and feel comfortable performing unusual activities while in larger groups. There are obvious downsides to this type of traffic, such as crowd control and unqualified consumers. It is a fun concept, however, and I am interested to hear any other ideas, so feel free to post.
Comments
Interesting idea. But what about retail flash mobs that provide some economic benefit for the consumer? For instance, why not flash mobs to purchase those cars, with volume discounts enjoyed by each customer? Anyone doing that?
Posted by: Alan Mairson | August 8, 2009 4:37 PM
Great point. What's in it for the customer besides being a part of the event? I love your idea of the volume discount. It reminds me of the late night jewelry show where the price of the ring keeps dropping until everyone gets it at the low price of $49.95.
Obviously I've been up late blogging too much ;)
Posted by: Seth Lively | August 12, 2009 4:54 PM