potential to create thriving online communities, Cirque already had a fan club boasting 300,000 dedicated members. We soon became Cirque's main marketing communications agency and have been with the company ever since. Cirque du Soleil now has fi ve permanent shows in Las Vegas, one in Orlando, one in Macao, and nine shows on tour. Th ey have expanded into television, film, music, and, more recently, lifestyle products and experiences. Their business keeps growing? and perhaps the most amazing thing about the company's remarkable evolution into a cultural icon is that it took place with almost no mass marketing to support it. Before we began working on the new site, we had to come to terms with just how much the Cirque du Soleil brand meant to its fans. Almost everyone who had ever seen a Cirque show liked it. Many of them loved it and became repeat fans. Perhaps more importantly, a significant number of Cirque fans described the shows as life-changing experiences and became brand ambassadors, carrying the Cirque torch with them wherever they went. All of this happened without even a nod of recognition to how things are supposed to work in conventional marketing practice. For decades, the accepted wisdom in industry circles has been that brands succeed only if a ton of money is thrown in the direction of mass marketing. Want to be noticed? Spend big on media. Make sure that television and print ads with a simple, easy-to-understand message about your brand get out