Buzz Marketing - The Good, The Bad & The Ridiculous
An interesting report on how buzz marketing went wrong in Boston reminded me of a really good article that was in this Tuesday’s Guardian (’Psst! Have you heard?‘), on how not to go about buzz/stealth/guerilla/word-of-mouth/viral marketing.
As consumers get more annoyed with advertising, and as there is so much more advertising around now, advertisers are turning to buzz marketing (catch-all definition: using unconventional methods to promote products with an aim of generating positive word-of-mouth publicity).
Some interesting points in this article:
- It is extremely easy to make a complete mess of a buzz campaign
- Some big companies (Pontiac, Sony, Budweiser) have messed up buzz campaigns
- We’re very close to a public backlash against buzz advertising campaigns
- After foolish stunts like the one in Boston, soon any buzz campaign will have to clearly show that it is advertising, thereby losing the ’shock’ value.
Here’s a good blog on buzz marketing, if you who want to know more.
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Hey Dave, long time no talk! I like that Guardian article. Interesting, though, they claim that the Budweiser ‘Whassup’ campaign is to blame for the slump in Bud’s sales - I doubt that was the only factor. I know I didn’t start drinking Bud because of it, but it definitely didn’t stop me drinking Bud when it became an annoying catchphrase.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
There’s a fairly interesting article on the ‘buzz’ phenomenon here. Can’t vouch for the book, though! j