Surina Sayal
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Big Music employs flash mob to promote film

After receiving a good response in Delhi, Big Music now plans to take this activation to other cities in the coming weeks

Big Pictures and Puja Entertainment’s co-production, Do Knot Disturb, is set to release worldwide on October 2 and as part of the marketing efforts for the film, Big Music used the idea of flash mobs to promote the music and the movie.

A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action such as a dance, a pillow fight or synchronised clapping for a short duration, and then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organised via telecommunications, social media or viral emails.

Big Music employs flash mob to promote film
The first flash mob was created in 2003 in Manhattan. Starting off as a social experiment and going on to be used for political demonstrations, over time, these have even been adopted by event management and public relation firms to create a buzz for brands, movies and other events, too.

For this specific promotion by Big Music, two fun dance tracks from the film Do Knot Disturb – Bebo and Mere Naal (which have a distinctive Punjabi touch) – were choreographed and a group of young dancers, dressed in Do Knot Disturb attire, visited malls of Delhi and broke into a dance to the soundtracks. They grooved to these hit songs across nine malls in Delhi, including Sahara Mall, EDM Mall, Pacific Mall and Paragon Mall over the weekend on September 18-20, and reached out to approximately 20,000 people.

Big Music employs flash mob to promote film
This flash mob strategy instantly engaged the shoppers present in the malls and moviegoers entering and exiting multiplexes, with many onlookers including kids joining the dancers.

After receiving a good response in Delhi, Big Music now plans to take this activation to other cities in the coming weeks. This has already begun with flash mob activities in Mumbai at Churchgate, Bandra and Andheri railway stations, HR and Mithibai colleges and various other crowded places such as Linking Road, Lokhandwala, Bandra and Bandstand. In these activities, a group of six people are enacting the trailers of Do Knot Disturb.

Kulmeet Makkar, chief executive officer, Big Music and Home Entertainment, says, “Big Music has consistently believed in building greater audience interaction. Do Knot Disturb’s soundtrack is fresh, peppy and energetic and a remarkable dance album. The flash mob activation is an extension of the music’s clear mass appeal and we are sure that the audience will be intrigued by these enthusiastic and unexpected performances.”

Discussing the flash mob idea, Sunir Kheterpal, chief operating officer, Big Pictures, says, “It is not difficult to organise a flash mob activity as long as you have a worthy idea. But the term flash mob is still alien to the Indian market. However, this is the very fact that makes it a clutter breaker.”

Internationally, flash mobs have been used by various brand promotions. The most popular one so far was the one done by telecom operator T-Mobile at Liverpool station in the UK in January, where a group of people started dancing and many more joined in till the whole place was buzzing. Others took pictures and videos on their mobiles and some even filmed the event on their mobiles. The company subsequently converted this into a TV ad.

As reported by afaqs! last month, it seems that the new trend in India is to promote movies outside the cinema halls. With these activities getting more innovative by the day, flash mobs have caught on as the latest idea.

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