Stunt Marketing
Some of you may think that on the hottest day on record in the city of Los Angeles I would choose to stay indoors and avoid the 105 degree sun, especially in the middle of the day. I would have probably done that if it wasn't for a marketing stunt that I was invited to participate in.
My husband sings with the Gay Men’s Chorus. Last week they received an invitation from Universal Pictures to join other choruses from the Los Angeles area to join voices and burst into ABBA songs in a middle of a Dodgers baseball game. Yes, you are reading this right. ABBA and Baseball. Two things you would never put together. But read on, it gets better.
The Chorus didn’t think twice and accepted the invitation. Lucky for me, Chorus members could bring guests to the event so here we were, about 30 guys on a bus to a 1:00 pm Dodgers game. On the bus we received a lyric sheet for 3 of the songs we were going to sing. You see, this little stunt was to promote and get a street buzz for the upcoming movie Mamma Mia! based on the songs of the Swedish super group ABBA. I do have to make a small confession and let you know that I really didn’t need those lyric sheets. I’ve been an ABBA fan since I was 10 years old and I must have heard these songs thousands of times by now.
When we arrived to Dodgers stadium upon exiting the bus we each were handed a Dodgers blue t-shirt with the Mamma Mia! Logo proudly displayed on the front. We found our seats and joined the other partners in crime. We now waited for our queue to burst into song.
No one in the stadium knew what was going on. This was completely underground and unexpected. When we finally started singing the first song, the theme from Mamma-Mia! Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at us. Soon after, big smiles and dancing in the aisles joined our singing. We sang and danced for 4 more times and every time we got a little louder.
This type of street marketing is becoming more visible these days. Companies realized that the power of a good buzz can get a lot more attention than a print ad or a TV commercial. So they are looking for creative ways to get people to talk. And if you think about it, a marketing stunt like this would be a much cheaper tool to use. If you think about it, this little stunt didn’t cost Universal much money in the big scheme of things. Buy a few hundred baseball game tickets, rent a bus, print some t-shirts and let the word spread out. I am sure this stunt will show up on YouTube sometime around the opening week of the movie and will get thousands of hits. That’s thousands of people who will be exposed to the same stunt and probably forward the video to a person or two. After all, everyone knows at least one ABBA fan.
(and for your viewing pleasure, here is a video clip of us singing):
Oh my! How fun and fabulous. Okay, I've got to come up with a marketing scheme like that----it doesn't even seem like work---just lots of silly fun.
Posted by: Melissa Kojima - Artist in LA LA Land | June 25, 2008 at 11:15 AM