Movies. Lego. MAZDA CX-7 EARTH SEARCH - Mazda USA. The Buzz on Buzz. How influential, really, is buzz?
And is there some way marketing executives can harness the power of word-of-mouth promotion? In a Harvard Business Review article, McKinsey & Co. strategy consultant Renée Dye dissects what she calls the Five Myths of Buzz. For the following excerpt she focuses on one key myth — the idea that "only outrageous or edgy products are buzz-worthy" — and outlines precisely how marketing experts can get a grip on that elusive something that generates a hit product. by Renée Dye Buzz is the stuff of marketing legends. My research suggests otherwise. Many executives have little idea how to orchestrate a marketing campaign that exploits the full power of customer word of mouth. MYTH 1: Only outrageous or edgy products are buzz-worthy. Everyone can point to a buzz-driven consumer craze that was due in part to the sheer inanity or fringe quality of a product—think of Pet Rocks or the movie The Matrix.
What Buzz Affects* 13% Largely Driven by Buzz. It's the Conversation Economy, Stupid. As consumer markets fragment, marketers and designers must understand how platforms evolve and influence human behavior Once upon a time, we were consumers.
We consumed things. We took in the messages that were communicated to us. We didn't really get to talk back. If we had a good or bad experience with a product or service—we told a friend. Marketers are finding themselves in an increasingly frantic race to get people talking about their brands. Therein lies the problem. The Medium Is the Message. Are you a "real" marketer? Secrets of Apple-style Marketing. Forget lovemarks, it's all about trustmarks. In their original incarnation, brands were signifiers and guarantees of quality, something consumers could rely and depend upon.
In the later part of the C20th, two forces emerged that changed branding. The first was the drive by marketing experts and ad agencies to suggest that brands needed emotional differentiation in a world where all brands were functionally similar. Secondly, businesses discovered that a quick way to improve shareholder value was to strip out as much of the costs as possible. We are now starting to feel the consequences of both these actions. We are starting to see a “brand vacuum” emerge, a fault line between what brands say they do and what they actually do. Recently, the notion of marketing experts that brands are at parity and that it’s therefore impossible to provide rational brand differentiation is being severely tested.
What If airlines can no longer guarantee that their planes fly on time? For brands, proof has now become the order of the day. Yamagato Fellowship. Damages Official Site. Laundromats popping up at music festivals. Bands funded by their fans. The customer review effect. Next generation eBay feeder business. In a March 2004 briefing, our sister site trendwatching.com featured a trend it dubbed feeder businesses: new services that feed, and feed off of, web stars like eBay, Google, Match.com and Amazon.
One of the examples given was drop-off shops for online auctions, which allow any consumer to drop off an item at an eBay seller's physical location, and have them sell it online in return for a commission. Services that help ordinary consumers sell have proliferated since 2004, feeding the eBay monster (eBay users posted a total of 559 million listings in Q2-07, generating a gross merchandise volume of USD 14.46 billion). A notable newcomer is Zippi, which is taking the field to another level by introducing sophisticated tools aimed at helping eBay sellers make more money.
Over the coming months, Zippi will launch a marketing campaign to promote its consumer-facing hotline. Anyone with clutter to unload can call 1-877-GO-ZIPPI to submit an item for sale. Spotted by: Amy Leung. Newsletter. You Call This Transparency? Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras. Newsletter. Like Nudo and Tribe Wanted, which we recently covered, Ladybank Distilleries is attracting consumers by making them feel highly involved with its product.
In this case: Scotch single malt whisky. While the whisky market is dominated by large breweries and a small number of well-known brands, a counter-movement is (inevitably) taking place. Ladybank, based in Fife, Scotland, is one of a handful of new, artisanal distilleries, and is completely structured around the concept of consumer involvement. The Ladybank Company of Distillers Club, as the full name goes, plans to start distilling by the end of 2007, which means the first dram of malt won't have matured before 2017. The private club will have no more than 1,250 members. Distilling days will allow members to get hands-on, and a Whisky School will offer a total understanding of whisky production, 'from grain to oak cask'. Since Ladybank whisky won't be available for general sale, exclusivity is a big draw. Chevron - Will You Join Us - Home.