Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

The group freeze phenomenon made its way over to Ireland. What started out as a stunt in the States when over 200 people froze in place on cue in Grand Central Station in New York, has gone on to be replicated in Trafalgar Square in London and now Grafton Street in Dublin. All the videos are below.

Group freeze on Dublin’s Grafton Street

The Trafalgar Square Freeze

Frozen Grand Central

My interest in this is the fact that Flashmobs is a term that is now bandied about in marketing departments in Ireland. Unfortunately though Ireland is probably one of the least suited countries for activity like this to happen ‘naturally’ due to our small population.

As I’ve mentioned before, with the exception of online virals, trends are slow to take off in Ireland because of the small size of our population. Looking at it from a medical perspective, a virus spreads by infecting a host cell and gradually spreading into surrounding cells until an infection takes hold. Trends are much faster to spread in countries with a large population spread across densely populated urban areas. Any wonder why cities like London or Tokyo are leading trendsetters?

That being said however, I was chatting to Quintin Ahern from Army of ID about street activity. I was saying that it’s unlikely that companies will be able pull stunts like in Ireland this unless they pay people, have access to a group through sponsorship / membership, or have a dedicated following. The only comparable flashmob we could think of was a My Chemical Romance album launch on Grafton Street.

Quintin offered a good idea though for companies thinking of doing something similar. Establishing a small group, be they volunteers or paid staff, and getting them out onto the street in a bid to encourage members of the public to do the planned activity is one of the few ways to achieve this.

My only alternative idea is a media partnership with a radio DJ like Rick O’Shea whose listenership are quirky enough to come together to pull off a stunt.

Strangely enough flashmobs might have been a lot easier to pull off in the past. It’s a long way from twenty years ago when former RTE presenter Mike Murphy observed the huge listenership the state broadcaster had. He made the point that if he asked listeners on radio that if everyone tuned in would raise their hand, motorists would look around to find people in the vehicles surrounding them with an arm in the air.