CarrotMob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.
CarrotMob is a curious little thing I read about recently in, of all places, the T-Mobile sponsored (?) Electronic Beats magazine (more on that later?)
What CarrotMob offers is the evolution of Flash Mobs. Flash Mobs are sudden gatherings of people, often actually very well organised and preplanned, all doing the same sort of thing: Dancing to their ipods, behaving like zombies, pillow fights, whatever. Sure sometimes they’re pure fun and distraction, sometimes they’re for charity. Sometimes they’re utterly contrived and created for brands (T-Mobile - thema again, randomly; LastMinute.com)
CarrotMob asks the question of businesses, “why should we give you our custom?” They leverage the power that a collection of consumers can have together to make the most socially-responsible business practices also the most profitable choices (as opposed to individuals taking a stand). Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good, and in return they are rewarded by a big mob of consumers buying products an promoting the business as making the strongest commitment to improve the world. In their words, “It’s the opposite of a boycott.”
The first ever CarrotMob, a liquor store agreed to invest in upgrades that made their store more energy-efficient. In exchange, hundreds of CarrotMobbers showed up at once to support the winning liquor store – not only queueing outside the store but I’d imagine that the subsequent party that day would have drawn further attention and awareness. (There’d be scope to further promote the store through Carrot Mob advertising etc, I’d imagine).
It reminded me a little of Droga5′s Tap Project - getting people to donate to charity by paying for their tap water at restaurants.
Check out CarrotMob stuff here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. Very 2.0.
