Dance
T-Mobile
Issue 10 | March 2009
Agency
Saatchi & Saatchi
Creative Team
Paul Silburn, Kate Stanners - Creative Directors; Paul Silburn, Kate Stanners, Rick Dodds - Art Directors; Steve Howell - Copywriter
Production Team
Partizan - Production Company; Michael Gracey - Director
Other Credits
Gareth Ellis - Planner; James Griffiths, Sally Nicholson, Sarah Galea, Celia Wallace - Account Handlers
Date
January 2009
Background
In mid-2008 Saatchi & Saatchi unveiled a new campaign idea for T-Mobile around the line ‘Life’s for Sharing’, which supported the company’s positioning as the best-value network. The brief was to create an event that people would want to take part in and then share with each other. In doing so, it would reaffirm T-Mobile’s belief that the brand is all about establishing and nurturing relationships.
Idea
The agency planted hundreds of dancers and 10 hidden cameras at Liverpool Street Station in London. In a style reminiscent of ‘flash mob’ events, music pumped through the loudspeakers at Liverpool Street Station as a single commuter began to dance. As the music changed, the dancing quickly spread through the morning travellers until hundreds of people were seen moving in unison. Then, as quickly as it began, the performance ended and the dancers dispersed into the crowd. The event, choreographed by one of Britain’s leading choreographers, Ashley Wallen, left commuters stunned, surprised and delighted.
The idea was to create an event so memorable that people would want to share it. And, indeed, many people took pictures and video of the dance and uploaded them to their Facebook pages and other social media. The film of the event was edited and broadcast on TV the following day. Clips were shown on electronic poster sites in underground stations across London.
Results
Just 10 days after the event, one YouTube video had been viewed 2.6 million times, another 1.35 million times and the ‘making of’ video around 0.5 million times. A video teaching viewers the dance moves had been viewed 60,000 times.
Our Thoughts
The new year got off to a bang with this brilliant idea. Paul Silburn is one of the cleverest creative people in the world and this has his stamp all over it. It transcends traditional channels of communication being the sort of idea which becomes media, generating not just massive PR but equally massive word-of-mouth. The people who run the awards shows will be rubbing their hands with glee because it’ll (probably) be entered for, win awards, in direct marketing, television, digital, outdoor and media innovation. It is representative of a new direction advertising is taking, when brands do things rather than say things.