The marketing experts polled in last week’s mini-case study concurred on one point: Holding a launch party was not the best way to use a firm’s limited marketing resources to launch a new product. If careful marketing research was done, using relatively sophisticated techniques to uncover a social network and identify real opinion leaders (individuals who held a large network of potential customers together as “nodes” in the network), then of course these would be the people to invite to the party. They would do most of the marketing for you. However, the research itself might prove to be more expensive than the party, and there might not be much left over to purchase caviar and champagne.
Many smart marketers, when faced with a marketing challenge and limited budget resort to “guerilla marketing”. Just as small, under-equipped revolutionary forces avoid head-to-head combat with superior, better-armed enemies, the guerilla marketer exploits stealth, ambush and the element of surprise. Unable to match multi-million dollar advertising budgets and large sales forces, the guerilla marketer uses devices such as simple but clever outdoor ads, viral email campaigns and social media to get the message in front of as many people as possible (for some great examples and short cases of guerilla marketing campaigns, see www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com).
One of the guerilla devices that I thought Square One might have used instead of a party to get its message across would have been to organize a “flash mob” – a seemingly impromptu gathering of people all singing or dancing around a particular theme. Obviously you would want to stage the flash mob in a venue and at a time that would ensure maximum traffic – so perhaps – in Vancouver at least – in the Waterfront station during rush hour. The propose of the flash mob would be to have as many people exposed to a simple message, as quickly as possible, by having them observe a large number of people dancing, singing or saying something about the message. There might also be some kind of giveaway that accompanies the message and reinforces it.
For example Square One is about insurance – or “covering”/”protecting” its clients – so giveaways that might bolster this message could include an inexpensive umbrella, or a poncho, to “cover” the recipients on one of Vancouver’s notoriously many rainy days.
The city of Vancouver is no stranger to flash mobs. For example, the wonderful education charity Imagine1day held a very successful flash mob during the 2010 Winter Olympics to raise awareness of the cause of sponsoring education in Ethiopia.
Opera singer Philip Grant regularly arranges flash mobs in the city, most of which involve staging an impromptu opera performance at busy venues like the Granville Island markets.
I’d venture to say that readers will agree with me, after watching one of Philip’s numerous flash mob videos on YouTube, that one would be far more likely to be affected emotionally and positively by a seemingly spontaneous staging of La Traviata than by the usual old canapés and white wine cocktail party.
Given the choice of a party or a flash mob to launch a new marketing idea, I’d go for the mob every time.
Leyland Pitt is the Dennis F. Culver EMBA Alumni Chair of Business, and professor of marketing in the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University. He has taught MBA and executive courses at the University of Chicago, London Business School, and Columbia University. His work has been published in journals such as Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly, which he also served as Associate Editor.
