ONE-TO-ONE MARKETING: Comment - Ways to showcase your brand in a flash with mob mentality

But how can we harness the power of a flash mob, and what are the implications?

The first answer is simple - create our own communities. When this community grows in size and member efficacy, you'll have enough fertile ground to develop viable commerce. As logical as this seems, it's unfortunate that many people seem to underestimate the importance of creating a community.

The wealth of information we can acquire from mining data from a community - email click rates, content popularity, message board participation - can really help us shape the destiny of our communities and brands. Do you want to create a craving or influence purchasing decisions? But why stop there? The envelope can be pushed. A shopping mall season's greetings, for example: imagine if, during the Christmas shopping season, we sent out flash mob emails asking the mob to wear a red top on Christmas Eve and dance like a turkey for a minute at noon at, of course, a client's shopping mall? Imagine the PR and traffic it would create.

Bravo to Super Bra: Remember the great Cantonese comedy Super Bra? The online campaign had great results. Many people created their ideal bra online and shared the design on a mini-site - that was a wild competition.

What about getting wilder by asking mobs to watch the movie in a cinema and shout "bravo" three times when the actor reveals the 'Super bra'?

Think it'll cause more than a stir? Would this lure people to watch the movie in a cinema just to experience the 'bravo'? Now imagine if we could derive research figures from the audience. Could we get people to join a mailing list for future "interactive movie" gigs?

True colour of 3G: When the 3G online promotion campaign was first launched; we had applause from our client and surfers. They were amazed by the fun and interactivity of being able to change the colour palette of Yahoo Hong Kong's front page. Imagine if we got our 3G community to wear six uniquely coloured T-shirts one on top of another. Now imagine if we got that 3G flash mob to take off those T-shirts one-by-one to show the colours of 3G, just like the traditional Chinese performance of 'face changing'.

Wouldn't that be spectacular?

Without a doubt, the flash mob concept if applied to marketing can lead to an avalanche of ideas. Our challenge as marketers then, is to figure out how to get measurable results from flash mobs. Ultimately, though, the bottom line is whether we're talking the same language as the mob: fast, adventurous and fun.