As many of my peers can tell you, I turn my head quicker at the name “Demi Lovato” than my own. So when I heard there would be a free concert and potential “meet-and-greet” with her at the Burlington Mall on September 21^st, I had to be there. But as I sat in line for 13 hours to acquire these tickets, all I could think about was this prompt. There had to be a catch, right? How else would the concert be free?

“This concert was brought to you by Microsoft,” celebrating its new store opening at the Burlington Mall. Microsoft’s goal, like many businesses’, was to make its opening look absolutely amazing. They wanted to show all outsiders how many people showed up to their opening, hoping to attract curious customers. And they used about 1,500 teenage girls to help them do it. Being rather naive and having a huge weakness for anything "Demi-Lovato-related", I fell victim to their plan, and was one of those 1,500 teenage girls. Although no harm was actually done in this, Microsoft made me realize how everything nowadays is all for making money and advertising. 

Microsoft cleverly chose a huge celebrity with a giant fan base--almost 19 million according to Twitter-- to reel in its crowd. The exclusive meet-and-greet tickets were only given out to a lucky 200 fans, while another 1000 concert-only tickets would be given to those who would stay all night for them. Knowing that the die-hard fans would comply, Microsoft passed out the tickets after the opening and the 9 pm to 11 am camp-out. The last 5 hours spent in the mall were when fans were bombarded the most with promotion—in some cases, actually bombarded. Beach balls with the Microsoft logo were hurled around as purple Microsoft T-shirts and water bottles were distributed. The Microsoft team basically begged us to follow their Twitter handle, and use the hash tag “#MicrosoftMa” in hopes of trending on Twitter to attract more attention in exchange for prizes including autographed Demi Lovato guitars. Any time announcements were made, they were promptly followed by “this was brought to you by Microsoft” or “be sure to check out our new store”.

As 11 am rounded the corner, the opening of the store was near, and Microsoft was smart to have news stations videotaping the crowd, who was “eager to check out the new store”. But the promotion didn't stop there. In order to receive our much-deserved tickets, we had to snake through the entire store, as workers shoved electronic devices and coupons in our faces, hoping to make a sale.  The 1,500 teenage girls did a better job of promoting the new store than any of the team could have. To anyone oblivious to the actual reason of the gathered crowd, we really did make Microsoft look good. This was their intent all along. Microsoft’s strategy worked, and I give them props for pulling this all off. Had this prompt not been assigned, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about all the promotion I was being brainwashed with, unlike most of the people there. We were all there for Demi Lovato, and most people expected she just needed a reason and venue for the concert. However, Microsoft needed the hype and Demi's fame was the reason for the crowd gathering in the first place. In the process of getting 2 free tickets, I witnessed and was actually a part of a 13-hour-long "live commercial" for Microsoft.