Flash bang: Mob recreates 360 gunfight ad

by Ken Weeks { Apr 21st 2006 at 4:00AM }

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.

Tags: viral

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

epobirs @ Apr 21st 2006 4:27AM

It's pretty pathetic that this guy cannot be bothered to give credit to the true inventor of the concept, Larry Niven. People were doing flash mob scenarios at SF cons when this 'inventor' was a toddler.

Do people think the Bungie folks invented the ring-shaped planet?

Ken @ Apr 21st 2006 7:08AM

The guy in the Harper's article sounded pretty pretensious to me.

Reddrive @ Apr 21st 2006 1:24PM

I live in Gainesvile (home of UF) and missed this "event". Would have been nice to see in person. Being a college town, we have plenty of gamers. Glad to see there are some fanboys out there.

jezctro @ Apr 21st 2006 2:16PM

Flash Mob is awesome. What more, is that we did this in a circle around a campus preacher. Sal told me beforehand that he wondered how the student would react. I wish the audio could've picked all of it up, but the best response the preacher could give was:

"So, uh, you're dead. You're dead, right? Well that's what's gonna happen to you, your just going to be dead... unless you follow in Christ."

...I can't wait until Flash Mob 8.