Sunday, February 15, 2009

Journal 3

Buzz Marketing (What’s the Buzz All About?)

After reading about the article about the Alpha Moms pitching the Nintendo Wii, I immediately had to take a step back and think about what just happened. It took a while to process the fact that soccer moms were pitching one of the most highly anticipated, interactive gaming systems in the world. Mind boggling indeed. However, when I saw my 30-something sister get excited when she rolled a strike bowling on the Wii, it does seem to make sense to market an interactive game such as the Wii to this unknown group of social leaders (moms). Nintendo reached out to a whole new market, while at the same time creating buzz among their favorite customers…kids. Killing 2 birds with one stone never looked so fun. From this I’ve learned in many cases, such as the moms pitching the Wii, creating buzz by actual interaction and experience can gain much warranted attention better than any ad, billboard, or commercial could ever do.

So what exactly is buzz marketing? It is essentially creating hype or so-called ‘buzz’ around a product to stimulate a spread of word of mouth between consumers. It has been used as of late to spread knowledge about upcoming products such as the Wii in the Alpha mom example. Companies can also find other representatives that are already passionate about the product and ask them to use the product in public areas to attract other users, in return for free products and company ‘swag’ (accessories, decorations, etc...)

Buzz marketing is all around us, even when we don’t know it. Our peers, family and professors create hype about products (most of the time not getting paid directly by the company) which in turn builds interest about the product or service. By actually viewing or hearing about the service from ordinary people you see every day, people typically don’t feel like they are being deceived. By taking part of the product and experiencing it from these buzzing product users, you might personally get attached to it and eventually create product buzz on your own. Unfortunately, companies do resort to paying these ‘ordinary’ people to purposely display these products or services in public as if they were doing so with their own free will. I personally don’t have anything against this strategy, but there are many customers that feel deceived if they realized these ‘buzz marketers’ were a part of the company’s scheme. Unethical or brilliant? You can be the judge…

Does this buzz marketing seem to work? I definitely think that it does. Although this can be a time consuming process, the consumers companies do reach out to employ a personal, face-to-face experience. In my mind, as the consumer, you are more attracted to things you hear from your friends and this word of mouth definitely can spread quickly to reach a large number of the target audience. With the increased use of social networking devices and Youtube, buzz marketing can only spread.

Some companies however choose to create buzz in more of an open manner utilizing normal college students like me and appointing them as ‘Campus Ambassadors’ or ‘Company Representatives.’ There is definite merit within these positions, and I feel that it is an inventive approach of promoting the brand as well as gaining exposure through these mediums. We typically see these ‘Ambassadors’ playing with video games at study break sessions or eating and passing out free bags of goodies during student traffic between classes. All these scenarios are directed to create some sort of buzz throughout the student body. I feel this is more of an effective way to reach out to our generation, a generation that seems to 'know better.' I believe that by being directly hoarded with blatant ads from companies that don’t seem to care, their efforts don’t seem effective, but when I see ‘one of us’ gives me free, company umbrella on a rainy day, I feel that the company genuinely does care about their consumers. We are no longer a generation phased with direct advertising schemes, but rather a market fueled by word of mouth from our own ordinary people.

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