Drone Swarms — Between Mass Destruction and Mass Advertising

Disruptive technologies make excellent guerrilla marketing, but what else is there?

Image by Marco Verch, licensed under CC 2.0

What do drones and QR codes have in common?

The most recent guerilla marketing event in Shanghai.

To celebrate one year of the Princess Connect! Re: Dive RPG in China, video sharing website Bilibili held a jaw-dropping light drone show that took over the Shanghai waterfront night sky on April 17.

In short, over 1,500 drones were deployed to animate the iconic game characters, ending the performance with a huge and perfectly scannable QR code, which led to downloading the game.

Awe to appallment, many publications linked this performance to the ad-saturated, consumerist environment in Blade Runner, forgetting perhaps that a lot of sci-fi creations in the past decades have been brought to life through constant technological development.

It’s not your average Joe ad that anyone can put up anytime, anywhere!

So this should not awaken fears and prompt scary thoughts, although I have to admit: some of the inflammatory remarks I have seen have also contributed to its virality. And this was definitely the organizer’s intention, as a smart guerilla marketing move.