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The parents reading this can relate–my kids drag me into situations I might otherwise avoid.
Last month, my family was visiting my brother in DC. After dinner we went for a walk.
My kids stopped us, curious.
A street performer was just getting started with his act. He was friendly, chatty. His voice projected loud over a microphone.
He laid out a long rope, something a rock climber might use, in a three-sided box in front of him. It made a stage. I gathered it was there for safety. To define a boundary. To give the audience a place to be.
Safety from what was not yet clear.
The performer was a dancer, a Bostonian. When we arrived, ~20 people were already watching. He wasn't really doing much performing; he was building his crowd.
I could see that he had done this many times. He had tricks. He had strategies. Strategies we marketers can learn from.
The most important lessons: patience and consistency.
Building his audience took a long time. The show was ~30 minutes, maybe 10 was the actual action.
First, he asked us to cheer for him, even when he wasn't doing anything. He would insist, borderline bully. He would guilt us if we didn't cheer loudly enough.
He had a clear objective: intrigue passersby.
Those in the distance would hear the cheers, even though they were in celebration of nothing, and more people would stop.
He teased us with a few dance moves. He involved the crowd, calling up a young boy to join him.
He insisted we move in closer, filling all the gaps in the line of his fake stage.
And the crowd grew. 20, 50, 100 people. Slowly, it worked.
He involved more members of the crowd. He told some jokes.
This went on for a while—maybe 20 minutes. There was always the tease or the hope of something spectacular hanging in the air.
He kept stretching like he was about to do something acrobatic. He alluded to the risks he was going to take for us.
Eventually, he did a running front flip over one participant. It wasn’t the final act, but, still, it was amazing. It gave us a sense of what he was ultimately going to perform.
Once the crowd had reached a healthy size the show really began. Only then did he share his resume: 12th place finisher at America's Got Talent.
He established his credibility.
His routine was great. Then, he did the most ingenious thing.
He thanked the 7-year-old boy who had participated in much of the show with him, got the crowd to cheer for him, and then gave him $20 out of his own pocket.
This flipped the script, showed his generosity, and, by example, set the tone for the crowd.
With his crowd primed to cheer and donate, he completed the finale: a running front flip over 3 adults.
It was exciting. His slightly out-of-control fist pump told me how hard it was for him.
It was risky. He was not sure he could do it, but he probably knew that landing it meant he would get paid.
It worked. I've never seen anything like it. He opened his backpack, and at least 50 people filed up to drop $10 or $20 in his bag.
He started a movement from scratch by himself, surrounded by a crowd of strangers in a city that was not his own. And it was a wild success. Impressive.
He had the patience and the tenacity to build his crowd, slowly.
He demanded participation and he got it; using the crowd to attract an even larger crowd.
He used humor and the friendly smile of a kid to engage the audience.
He teased his big final move for much of the show without giving it away, saving his best material until many people were watching.
Powerful marketing is about building a movement, and movements take time to build.
What can marketers learn from this performance?
And to think, I would have walked right by this show if I didn't have kids.
Thanks, you two.
It's been some time since the last LMI. I'll be back on a monthly cadence going forward.
During the break, we've released some great research:
The winners in residential real estate will figure out how to turn maintenance reviews from a weakness into a strength.
The CDK hack took over the automotive world last month. Looking at customer reviews, we noticed an impact in its wake.
We released our premiere residential real estate research report: 2024 Voice of the Resident Report.
See you next month - Jake, Marketing @Widewail