Impromptu Advocacy
People want to be advocates. If you present them with something worth believing in and provide a soapbox for them to stand on, an otherwise silent majority awaits the call to advocacy.
This was the case in Beijing, China, during Earth Hour on March 28. Weber Shandwick teamed up with smart fortwo, an innovative sub-compact car with an environmentally friendly carbon footprint, to give everyday Beijingers the chance to make a stand for sustainability.
Since everyday people don’t have their own cityscape to darken, the activity encouraged people to assemble at a predetermined location, surrounding two tiny smart fortwos parked at a trendy shopping mall. Then, at the predetermined time, everyone (everyone who knew the secret) froze. Stopped in their tracks. Motionless for three minutes. Some even struck a pose!
The cool thing of course is that everyone there heard about it on a blog or Facebook or Twitter or just straight from someone’s mouth. And now it’s online, here, for all the world to see.
This isn’t the first such “freeze.” The grassroots activity was made famous by the folks at New York-based ImprovEverywhere. It’s one example of how anyone can be an advocate whether in Brooklyn or Beijing or anywhere.
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