Buzz Marketing
Andrew Stevenson
Consumer and Market Behavior
Writing Assignment 3
7-16-13
Buzz Marketing Buzz Marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is when businesses, products, services, or events are promoted in written or oral form via happy customers who tell others about their positive experience. Word-of-mouth marketing is considered to be a more credible source of advertising because the recipient is hearing the information from someone who is not perceived to be out for a profit. Furthermore, the person making the recommendation has their reputation on the line for making the suggestion. Consumers are more likely to trust someone that they know and like than they are to trust media that has selfish interests. When specifically talking about buzz marketing, as opposed to the more broad word-of-mouth marketing, it is described as an interaction of consumers and customers (users) of a product, service, business, or event, that increases the strength of the marketing message. This can create excitement, anticipation, positive association, etc, which is called “buzz”. The buzz is both the marketing by the company and the reaction by the customers and potential customers. Some examples of successful buzz marketing campaigns would be the hype surrounding the Ford Fiesta cars, Harry Potter movies, Twilight movies, Dexter television series, Volkswagen’s new beattle cars, the Blair Witch Project movies, and the beanie babies bean stuffed animals. For the Ford Fiesta cars, Ford gave 100 consumers a Ford Fiesta car to drive for 6 months. They were asked to complete different missions every month including delivering Meals on Wheels, taking treats to the National Guard, wrestling alligators, going to elope, etc. The participants then started sharing their adventures on social media sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Ustream, etc. This experiment was an enormous success. Ford got 6 and a half million views on YouTube
Consumer and Market Behavior
Writing Assignment 3
7-16-13
Buzz Marketing Buzz Marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is when businesses, products, services, or events are promoted in written or oral form via happy customers who tell others about their positive experience. Word-of-mouth marketing is considered to be a more credible source of advertising because the recipient is hearing the information from someone who is not perceived to be out for a profit. Furthermore, the person making the recommendation has their reputation on the line for making the suggestion. Consumers are more likely to trust someone that they know and like than they are to trust media that has selfish interests. When specifically talking about buzz marketing, as opposed to the more broad word-of-mouth marketing, it is described as an interaction of consumers and customers (users) of a product, service, business, or event, that increases the strength of the marketing message. This can create excitement, anticipation, positive association, etc, which is called “buzz”. The buzz is both the marketing by the company and the reaction by the customers and potential customers. Some examples of successful buzz marketing campaigns would be the hype surrounding the Ford Fiesta cars, Harry Potter movies, Twilight movies, Dexter television series, Volkswagen’s new beattle cars, the Blair Witch Project movies, and the beanie babies bean stuffed animals. For the Ford Fiesta cars, Ford gave 100 consumers a Ford Fiesta car to drive for 6 months. They were asked to complete different missions every month including delivering Meals on Wheels, taking treats to the National Guard, wrestling alligators, going to elope, etc. The participants then started sharing their adventures on social media sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Ustream, etc. This experiment was an enormous success. Ford got 6 and a half million views on YouTube