I was walking around Potsdamer Platz when I was approached by a young men wearing a black shirt, holding a clipboard and a bag filled with blue and green balls. Many around him appeared exactly the same and as he began speaking to me in German I knew that I was being approached by some sort of promotional effort. I quickly informed him that I could not understand what he was saying and without hesitation he began chatting with me in English. “Would you like to pass on the ball?” he asked. Lost and confused, I began to seek more information.
Pass the ball is an online social network, similar to YouTube, where people are free to post their ideas and others from around the world comment on them. Together they create a platform of ideas. Every time someone shares an idea and others comment on it, it initiates donations from Cisco to Teachers Without Borders. Also, winning ideas receive one year of free WebEx, the company that runs the website, to help make them a reality as they are brought to life through collaboration with people all over the world. Besides Germany, this currently exists in the USA, UK and France.
All around me I saw people being approached by others as they were trying to direct them into the 3D ball where they were going to “pass the ball”. On a huge screen in the middle of the Sony Center were videos of others sharing their ideas and a poster advertising the program and directing people to the website was placed right in the middle of the center. Whether or not you agreed to enter the ball and share your ideas with the world you received a stress ball for free to take with you and if you ever change your mind, www.passtheball.de was the place to go. Whether you passed the ball or not this personal selling technique made anyone who agreed to stay and chat aware of this program.
I personally passed on the ball when I shared with the world my genius idea about elevator buttons. I absolutely hate it when I step into an elevator and press the wrong floor. I wish someone would invent a button that once pressed a second time the floor chosen is deactivated. I placed my idea out there. If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to let me know!
Hey Noa,
ReplyDeleteNot only do I think your idea would be such a pleasure to have, but the promotion of passtheball.de is super cool as well. I like how they used the success of youtube and put a slight twist to it. By any chance did you get someone to tell you what the website in the usa is? For example does it have a .com instead of .de?
I also believe the location chosen for this event was a good choice. Potsdamer platz in Berlin is known as a business and tourist area. While it may be difficult to get the executives to take the time to kgive their ideas, tourists are contstantly looking for fun crazy things to do while traveling. This promotion did just that. It also allows them to later go on to a website and see the video they created in Berlin. In addition, it then allows tourists to go to their home city/state/country and tell their friends and family about passtheball.de because they may want to show them their ideas. What a great way to quickly expand a brand.