The video has been posted a lot over the last few days, but still think it was worth sharing. The way it works through the last century on 3 levels is great; you can listen to the music, watch the dance styles or just laugh at some of the clothes. can’t say it’s going to make me visit the new place; I live close to the Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush and I go maybe 3-4 times a year, but if you like an all in shopping experience on the east side of town, it could be for you.

Update: it’s for sale on itunes or you can get the video from the Silent Single site

Here’s an idea. Buy 2 minutes of silence for the bargain price of £1 and contribute to the British Legion Poppy appeal. This is a brilliant idea to complement the annual sale of poppies and from the stars in this teaser video video, it’s well supported. As well as raising money, the team behind it want to get the single to the top of the charts. As it’s now supported by The Sun, they may have a chance. The campaign has a simple page to buy the track and is also being promoted through the Facebook Poppy Single page. Go on, pre-buy it now.

(Disclosure: the originator of this idea is a friend…)

Yesterday, T-Mobile staged their latest event, this time at London Heathrow, with 500 actors providing a singing welcome to arriving passengers. The pre-shoot press talks about the logistical difficulties of getting this done at the airport, providing lots of lovely stories for BA, Heathrow and the phone company. Although I’m not sure why the coffee company were involved?

The logistics behind the filming have been immense, due to the sensitivities of shooting at an airport, with careful negotiations required with the airport owner BAA and British Airways, which operates from Terminal 5, as well as Costa Coffee. Sixteen hidden cameras will capture the action.

It’s going to be on all the commerical channels Friday noght – again witht he accompanying press, so they’re out to make a splash.

But are Flash mobs over (or should I say staged marketing events, as they’re not really flash mobs given the organisation required). There’s definitely some backlash, although lots of people still like the idea. From a social media perspective, they can still drive the views and impression, although I’m of the opinion that stunts are not the only thing brand should use social for.

Personally, i’m also with with TimReynolds who posted to the T-Mobile YouTube channel. If I’d just got off a long flight, the crowd of singers would have probably been the last thing I wanted to see.

An extremely annoying obstruction: After a very long tiring flight all I want to do is to get in the car and go home. The only way we could get through this pathetic so-called ‘event’ was to aim the suitcases & trolley at the participants and just walk. They finally got out of the way when it was obvious we had no intent to stop.

Here’s the final ad that played out across 80 stations just after 10 on Friday. One hte one hand, I love public group singing; on the other, how many times will T-Mobile continue to play with same idea and on a third hand, I would have been so annoyed if I’d been trying to get home!

“Foursquare has been brilliant for our business because we’ve used it to engage with customers in a whole new way and to offer them a better service.
“There’s a growing excitement about it in the UK because of the power it gives people to share their views and tips on bars, restaurants, airports, public buildings and many other locations. Social media means businesses are now forced to do their customer service in public and the best businesses will embrace this fact, rather than fear it.”

It’s not the first UK swarm, it’s been done at sports events and conferences, but they’re claiming the first deliberately planned business event that reached those numbers. The owners are busy leveraging all the tools at their service to drive traffic to their business and doing it well. Here’s one clear case of digital/social media leading to direct sales.

So if you’re going to try this, what needs to be thought about:

• Consider your audience; they have to be checking into the location for any promotion to have an imapct. So sign up to the service and see who checks-in
• Claim your business on the service and get the description, address and geo-tags set up correctly
• Make sure the offer is relevant and obtainable. Setting out something just for the mayor is great, unless your staff claim mayorship, or the title never changes. Metrodeco have a simple offer (free tea or coffee at lunch) for everyone who checks in
• Make sure your staff are aware of the offer. In a single location like this, it’s simple. Larger promotions by companies such as Gap and Starbuck have had bad press as staff were just not aware of the deals.

Remember to have some fun as well; it’s a new tool to play with, be creative and you may be surprised. Next up for Metrodeco? It has to be the Superswarm for 250 people.

Timely. Simple. Good. I like. (via Chris Hambly)

I’m just glad they’re not asking you to sing. Contextual, timely, appropriate, a good example of using the media.

To promote themselves in the new market and as a tie-in with the World Cup, Best Buy are running a pretty cool contest to win everything in their ‘man-cave’. Although focused on the male football fan, the prizes on offer would be great for anyone, including 2 Samsung TVs, a HTC Desire phone, a netbook and plenty of beer and pizza. All you have to do to enter is add a comment to the video, saying what else you think needs to go into the room. Simple contest, great, great prize.

As well as the contest, if you already have tickets, you can take advantage of their GlastoNav an augmented reality app, which will display events and locations on the site. It’s definitely available for the iPhone and probably for other smartphones, but they’ve not yet confirmed listings. They’re providing charging stations on site as well.

So it’s a mixture of a digital contest, mobile app and on-site experiential offering, there’s going to be a blog at some point; there’s no facebook page except for the ‘Like’ button. There’s also no mobile version of the site, nor embeddable widget, so it’s been slimmed down a lot since last year. Another area that’s been changed is the promotion. Last year, personal email, this year, an impersonal press release from M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment. Still a good contest, it just feels a lot less friendly and quirky than last year, the brand putting up shutters.

Update: I’ve received an email from the team apologising for the lack of contact; they’re working their way through emails at the moment and not got to me yet. Having had to do this in the past, I can understand the time taken to do a good job with outreach. So, they are being personal still which is great, far better to do this than stick with press release language.

This week, Domino’s announce their own Foursquare promotion in the UK. Slightly less glamorous than designer shoes, NMA are reporting that mayors of their restaurants can get free pizza once a week; if you’re just a member of Foursquare, you can get a free side dish. I wish I knew more, but the Domino’s site has no information visible.

Regardless of the lack of promotion anywhere I can find, I like this idea. In the US, locations like Starbucks are already awarding regular users via Foursquare and it’s no surprise the idea is spreading to the UK.