Voices

WS+B celebrates merger by "flashing" NYC in new video

As a follow-up to its successful “I Gotta Feeling” video, in which a viral audience of more than 13,000 watched members of CPA firm WithumSmith+Brown dance and lip sync to the Black Eyed Peas song in their Princeton, N.J., office, the firm released its latest video, of a “flash mob” dance in the streets of New York City, during its “State of the Firm” event Thursday in Somerset Park, N.J.

More than 150 staff members, who had practiced the choreography, set to LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem,” for six weeks, unveiled their routine for passersby the morning of Dec. 2 in midtown Manhattan.

WS+B managing partner and CEO Bill Hagaman, who opens the video in Secaucus, N.J., before joining some of the dancers on the R train subway into the city, called the video “a huge team-building exercise. You can see the energy and the excitement.”

The firm is also hoping the video will have the impact their “I Gotta Feeling” video did, which has been successfully used at recruiting events, according to WS+B’s director and member of the management committee, Jim Bourke.

“Nowhere they go will they see that,” he said. “Kids say, I want to work with you.”

The video also helped announce the firm’s New York presence after its recent merger with EisnerLubin, which has offices near the flash mob location on Broadway.

After the firm members’ successful performance in December, captured by eight camera people and since edited for internet consumption, participants celebrated at a nearby bar.

When the establishment unexpectedly played the hit LMFAO song, about 150 or so of the patrons were compelled to an encore.

Watch the “Party Rock Anthem” video here.

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