A few months a go it was a flash mob dancing in Liverpool station. This time around it’s a sing-along in Trafalgar Square.

T-Mobile continues to embrace event-based promotions to support their Life’s for Sharing  marketing campaign. It’s working well for them. T-Mobile enticed a large crowd (mob) to gather in Trafalgar square to take part in a massive ‘dance activity’ -  like the Liverpool stunt, but bigger. Instead of dancing (selected) people were handed microphones and the mob was encouraged to belt out a fourteen thousand strong version of Hey Jude. Multiple cameras throughout the audience captured the love.

The video makes you smile and I have to imagine that Sir Paul approves (legally or otherwise). While it is different in structure from the Liverpool Station video it is similar enough in approach that I don’t believe it will create quite the same buzz this time around. It’s still better than most viral videos in that it directly and obviously supports a specific market positioning – ‘Lifes for Sharing’, it is very well done and it is very engaging (very shareable). I imagine T-Mobile will  be back at it in a few months with something even ‘newer and fresher.’

The back-story around these events is almost as important as the events themselves. Pink was in the crowd to perform a few songs and to work the crowd into a performance-ready pitch. There are as many “I was this close to Pink” camera phone videos as there are “This is me taking part in the song” videos on YouTube. This participatory approach is very smart as it promotes viral and social engagement .

It’s interesting to wade through the criticism of these types of events: “It’s fake”, “It’s staged”, “It’s just a big ad for T-Mobile”. Sure it is, so what? All those people and cameras… and Pink…  didn’t show up on their own. One blogger commented that she refused payment to promote the event on her blog and was torn about even mentioning the video. I’m surprised that people still don’t realize that video seeding and PR and a million other promotional activities are an integral (essential) part of the ‘viral’ success of these videos.