A Look at the Dance Craze Now Invading Advertising: Dance Fads Versus Novelty Dances

Marketers are always looking for new, exciting and up-to-date modes of advertising, in order to obtain sales in a highly competitive, global market. The dance craze is a sign of the times and appears to be a global marketing strategy currently attracting millions of people around the world. 

What does the word craze imply?

Dictionary.com suggests that the word craze means “to derange or impair the mind of” a certain person, or group of people. In a more archaic sense of the word, craze is “to weaken” and in a more obsolete context, “to break” something, as in shattering it.    

Dance crazes are not something new or different, although the style of this kind of social dancing varies from generation to generation. According to the Huffington Post, the latest dance crazes for 2013 appears to be the Harlem shake and Gangnam dance style. 

Marketing tools change from generation to generation. 

What appears to be new and different in marketing techniques nowadays, has to do with the ongoing transition of computer technology, which is rapidly expanding its unlimited horizons. There is new and different Internet media potential combined with the individual and collective computer skills of people of all ages. Almost anyone can create videos and use smart phones and thus, promoted dance crazes.

Marketers are taking advantage of current dance trends, capturing and incorporating them into advertising, which should not surprise anyone. Social media contagion spreads like wildfire.

One might wonder if this is a good trend, or one that could prove to be potentially harmful, or fatal to humankind. The controversy over the pros and cons of the current dance craze continues to rage on. At the same time, the demand for freedom of expression with words also leads to the freedom of expression in dance form.

Social dance crazes are dance fads that suddenly become popular, or novelty dances that last longer. Both explode on the horizon of time, but in order to last, they need the support of the masses.

Advertisements of any kind appear as fads or novelty ads that follow the same kind of status ranging from newness to oblivion. To be effective, they have to generate sales.

Part of the reason that dance crazes are effective in advertising has to do with the increased focus on physical activity, particularly as it relates to heart health. Dancing or dance crazes, entail high-energy level physical participation and have a degree of contagion. Note that another major factor in advertising is youth. 

Currently, it is the younger generation that focuses on social media and computer expertise. This is a target market for advertisers.  

Dance crazes appear to be a concern for many with respect to mental health and the older generation. At the same time, the release of energy in dancing is a healthy expression of human life at any age, although to some these dance crazes may appear too radical in nature to depict good mental health.

With respect to the future, it is highly likely that other, new and different dance crazes will replace the ones of today. They may appear even more radical and they too will probably set another, new trend in advertising.