Flash Mob is defined by
Wikipedia as “a large group of
people who assemble suddenly
in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then
quickly disperse. . . [it] generally applies to gatherings organized
via social media or viral emails.”                                                                                                                                                  
The power of the mobile cell phone has enabled us to get together
en masse and do crazy weird things. This May, in London’s Trafalgar
Square, 13,000 random, cell phone carrying individuals got together
for a mass karaoke session. Thousands of strangers singing aloud
out in the open instead of wedged in the  dank corner of some
karaoke bar made for massive karaoke session. 

    Pink at Trafalgar Square in London

The flash mob
phenomenon, fueled by
social media sites
such as Twitter almost
guarantees more karaoke
collectives in the future,
and while thereare no
documented cases of
flash mob karaoke on
this side of the Atlantic,
it is sure to hit our shores
soon. 

This sort of cutting edge cultural activity is no accident though. While
flash mobbing was started by individual users of social media, major
corporations are diving head first into experimenting with their major
brands on social media; the key strategy being consumer participation
and engagement. Thus, it is no accident that the Trafalgar Square
flash mob was a T-Mobile project.

                 


A big corporate sponsor means money and celebrity, and that explains
why there was a jumbotron displaying song lyrics and the presence of
pop star “Pink,” who joined in and led the crowd in a rendition of the
Beatle’s “Hey Jude.”

The entire event was filmed of course as a commercial and has over
14 million views on YouTube. This mass karaoke session followed
T-Mobile’s successful dance flash mob earlier in the year at London’s
Liverpool Street Station. That stunt actually closed the station for an
hour or so. One can only imagine what’s next; do you think
“Sweet Caroline” will go over very well at Grand Central?