Random Acts of Culture

The Knight Foundation, based in the USA, was established about a year ago to promote informed and engaged communities.  One of their initiatives involves using the arts to engage people and bring communities together.  Recently they have staged a series of "Random Acts of Culture" in public places in US cities.  Here are a couple of examples.

 

 

 

Now this is something I get excited about - surprise in the day, but in a nice way.  And what a great way to support local community talented musicians.  Now they just need to leverage all that viral marketing to help promote (and raise more money for) their foundation and the musicians.

The Mindmap Doc

United Breaks Guitars - Viral Marketing par Excellence

Now you may have never heard of Canadian musician, Dave Carroll or his band Sons of Maxwell.  But, after their bad experience with United Airlines, Dave's response has been just brilliant and catapulted him to instant fame and attention. 

Dave's guitar was damaged by United Airlines in transit and their response to his subsequent claim for damages was less than satisfactory.  In a very clever, innovative and quite entertaining use of "internet video marketing", Dave managed to achieve a satisfactory response (albeit belated) from United Airlines and has not only publicized his bad experience, but at the same time, made quite a name for himself, his band and provided opportunities for others (Taylor Guitars, Comedienne "Latriciawhiteagain" and more to come I suspect) to use this experience for their own marketing.

This is just a wonderful example of the power of video marketing through the internet going viral because of:

1. The power of the message
2. The entertainment value (music, parody, personality, professionalism)
3. Social marketing (and yes... I'm caught up in it!

Make sure to watch all 3 videos (see links in You Tube) and also Taylor Guitars response.