quinta-feira, dezembro 16, 2004: The Buzz About Buzz

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Put simply, buzz marketing is the practice of gathering volunteers to try products, then sending them out into the world to talk up their experiences with the people they meet in their daily lives. The idea is that the more people see a product being used in public, or the more they hear about it from people they know and trust, the more likely they will be to buy it for themselves. Of course, word-of-mouth has long been the way that many people find their favorite products, or learn about a new favorite movie, book or restaurant. "For years, people recognized the power of word-of-mouth in convincing, influencing, affecting consumer behavior," says marketing professor Jerry Wind. "It has more credibility than traditional advertising." But it's a fairly recent development for companies to try to create a structure around the practice, to harness and direct the way that word-of-mouth spreads -- and to attempt to measure its effect on sales once the 'campaign' is complete. "Buzzing isn't really new. The hype about these different kinds of buzz agents is what's new," says Kahn.
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Not every product can be effectively marketed by buzz agents, however. "It has to be an interesting one," says Kahn. "Products do have to live up to the hype, they do have to deliver. If these products aren't delivering coolness, this will not over time be a credible method." According to Kahn, products that fit this description are fashion items and items of cultural interest such as TV shows, books and movies -- anything that connotes a sense of being 'in the know.' "They have to be products where value comes from the social interaction," Kahn says. "What you wear, what movies you go to, what things you read -- these are all influenced by social opinion. There are other things that I buy where I don't care what other people think about them. I like Sweet Tarts. I don't really care what anybody else thinks about Sweet Tarts. But I like to go to the 'in' restaurants, and I want to have read the book everybody's talking about. I want to know what everybody's talking about around the water cooler."
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Wharton marketing professor Lisa Bolton is one of the hard-liners in the buzz marketing ethics debate. "I realize not all buzz marketing is subversive. Sometimes it's just a case of getting people on the street and getting the word out. But stealth marketing, where you don't know that something's part of a marketing campaign because people don't identify themselves as such? I thinks it's wrong. It's unethical. Over the long term, when people find out, they will feel deceived and betrayed. Ultimately, it will damage a company's brand equity."
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Besides, adds Wind, relying on word-of-mouth marketing may actually force companies to create better products. "Research shows that negative word-of-mouth is seven times more powerful than positive word-of-mouth. This really forces people to have good products. Otherwise, when you turn people loose to say whatever they want, you could be in real trouble."
"In the end it's about cutting through the clutter," says Bolton. "When everyone starts to do buzz marketing, it will just add to the clutter. Then it will be about whoever has the most unique or effective campaign, whether it's a buzz campaign or not. It will be about what works. The rest is just noise."

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1105.cfm

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