Three can be a crowd, but one hundred can be a flash mob—assuming you're hip to trendy forms of mass expression and willing to coordinate ahead of time.
Sal "The Man in the Orange Hat" Picataggio, loved the "banned" (for viral marketing hype purposes) subway gunfight commercial so much, he decided to recreate it on the University of Florida campus with a small army of his closest friends. Luckily Sal is founder of the UF Flash Mob, which means he has experience when it comes to confusing innocent bystanders. "Like any good flash mob," says Sal, "the bystanders had no knowledge of this before hand and as soon as it was over, we left no trace..." Nicely done.
Somebody at MS must be congratulating themselves over the effectiveness of that bangin' spot. First it gets conveniently tagged as "banned," which always gives your viral campaign that Faces of Death edge. Then it inspires an authentic homage among members of target demographic. According to the self-proclaimed inventor od the quiki-crowd phenomenon, flash mobs (dictionary definiton: “a public gathering of complete strangers, organized via the Internet or mobile phone, who perform a pointless act and then disperse again.”) are, like, so 2003. But he's just pissed that corporations have appropriated his "metaphor for the hollowness of hipster culture" for gauche marketing purposes. Sorry dude. Where marketing ends, fanboy love begins.
