As I sat down to write my blog post, the first thing I did to get “inspired” was play some music. So of course I played one of Stromae’s albums because his music never fails to energize. It also apparently never fails to inspire me because I knew exactly what I was going to write about. Experiential marketing.

Stromae, Paul Van Haver, is a musician from Belgium. He has received acclaim over his success in producing many chart toping songs. He has some of the catchiest songs I have ever heard and I have been a fan since I first heard his song Alors on danse in 2009. Since the success of Alors on danse in 2009, he has gained widespread fame. However, his popularity seemed to have been contained in Europe and for a large part he has been unable to gain popularity in North America.

So what did Stromae do? He took to the streets of New York and Seattle to play two of his hit songs. He is quite humorous and it’s funny seeing such a successful musician play on the streets and hand out flyers for his concert to unsuspecting pedestrians. All in all what makes experiential marketing so powerful, is its ability to create a buzz on social media. The YouTube video of him performing on the streets of New York has had over a million views and the incident also generated many articles and tweets. Everyone wanted to know who Stromae is. In the end it seems that marketing always leads back to social media.  After all social media is the most effective method of spreading information quickly through masses of people. Enjoy his video!