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BUZZ MARKETING
'Marketing to the No logo generation'
Nirmalya Kumar and Sophie Linguri on creating demand without using mass media |
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Piaggio |
During its Vespa campaign, Piaggio had models drive around Los Angeles on Vespa scooters and chat up customers in cafes and bars. If asked about the Vespa, they would casually mention its various qualities and drop the names of celebrities who had recently purchased one. If anyone showed interest, the model would give them details of the nearest dealer |
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For the past ten years, the reach of television and other mass media to younger consumers in the developed world has been on the decline. With traditional advertising techniques gradually losing their ability to tap target audiences, companies are turning to new approaches to reach consumers and create demand for products and services. One such approach is 'buzz marketing' or marketing by word-of-mouth. This article examines it and shows how companies like Red Bull are successfully putting it into practice.
Why have traditional media become less effective in creating demand for products? There are three main reasons. First, the increasing fragmentation: as the number of television channels, radio stations and consumer publications proliferate, the audience splits into more smaller groups. This makes it significantly more difficult and expensive to reach out to a particular audience than it was in previous years.
Second, competition from other media outlets has grown. Computer games and the Internet have drawn younger viewers away from television screens. A research in the US shows that on an average, households with Internet connection spent five fewer hours watching TV per week than non-Internet households in 2002.
Ford |
Ford identified 120 people in six key markets as trendsetters (for example, local DJs). Each was given a Focus to drive for six months as well as promotional materials to distribute to anyone who expressed interest in the car |
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Third, people have grown cynical towards brands and multinational companies. Naomi Klein's anti-brand treatise, No Logo, continues to sell in large numbers, two years after its publication. Protesters continue to trail the meetings of global economic institutions like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, attracting growing support for their attacks on the perceived collaboration between governments and big businesses.
And other threats too are emerging. Digital recording technologies such as TiVo now enable a small but growing number of viewers to ignore advertisements while watching television. Some research suggests that in five years, almost half of households in the US could be using similar products to bypass commercial breaks.
Yet, while the younger generation is turned off by sleek advertising and is highly suspicious of corporate manipulation, it remains highly brand-and-image-conscious. Buzz marketing also known as 'word-of-mouth marketing', 'guerrilla marketing' or 'stealth marketing', has emerged as a way for companies to get on the right side of consumers in the battle for sales.
Buzz marketing involves getting the trendsetters in any community to carry the brand's message, thus creating an interest in, and a demand for, the brand with no overt advertising. The brand message can be transmitted physically (for instance, people may be seen with the brand), verbally (the brand can crop up in conversations) or virtually (via the Internet).
Lee Jeans |
In July 2000, Lee Jeans emailed online games to trend-conscious young men aged 17 to 21. The characters from these games later appeared in the company’s jeans advertisements. In the fourth quarter of 2000, sales of men’s jeans were up 11 per cent |
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Red Bull is the master of buzz marketing. The company has created an edgy, slightly dangerous image for its drink. When Dietrich Mateschitz formulated the drink in 1987 for the Austrian market, bars initially refused to stock it, seeing it as more of a medicinal or health-related product than a mixer. However, snowboarders and clubbers soon recognised the boost it gave them, and began bringing it with them to alcohol-free discos. It wasn't long before bars were stocking Red Bull and for it to become the drink of choice in Austrian ski resorts.
The company keeps tight control on how it markets itself. In eight sales areas in the US, representatives scout for hot spots - the bars and clubs frequented by trendsetters. Once they identify key venues, they offer them branded refrigerators and other freebies along with their first order. If other conventional establishments ask for Red Bull, the company refuses, reinforcing its underground association and street credibility. To cultivate its link with the club crowd, Red Bull set up the Red Bull Music Academy, a two-week annual event.
Consumer education teams also help generate buzz. One of the first marketing techniques Red Bull employed was to hire student brand managers at university campuses, giving them each a case of Red Bull and encouraging them to throw a party. It hired hip locals to drive around in cars emblazoned with the logo and decorated with a four-foot model of the trademark blue and silver can. The cars carry 'fridges' stocked with more than 250 cans of Red Bull, distributing it to "those in need of energy" - shift workers, truck drivers, athletes, et al.
Red Bull sponsors a number of extreme sports events, including cliff-diving, kiteboarding, snowboarding, motocross, mountain biking, paragliding, street luge, ice cross downhill, skateboarding and surfing. By tying up with those who push the boundaries in these extreme sports, Red Bull has become an extreme drink by association. Dangerous and not supported by the establishment, the social circles related to extreme sports form the ideal target.
Many argue that Red Bull created the energy drink category by itself. While Coca-Cola and Pepsi were quick to follow, with KMX and SoBe in that order, it continues to dominate the market, with a 65 per cent share of the US energy drink market. And it achieved all of this with minimal advertising. It has since begun to advertise on TV, but only late at night, and it insists that the commercials are there to reinforce the brand, not to establish it in new markets.
Hasbro |
It enlisted boys to play its POX game, then sent them back to school to tell their friends about it. They were given $30 and a few copies of the game to give friends |
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Red Bull's success with buzz marketing has caught the eye of mainstream companies. Traditional marketers, however, tend to be uncomfortable with the relative lack of control over the message and target audience that buzz marketing offers. Large pharmaceutical companies have, perhaps, been the ones most successful in word-of-mouth marketing. It is a common practice for companies launching a new drug to select reputable scientists and physicians to conduct clinical trials and promote treatment. Healthcare is particularly susceptible to word-of-mouth marketing - people rely on doctors and friends for treatment referrals.
Buzz is useful to help generate demand in many contexts, but is particularly effective for products that generate conversation: in other words, products with which consumers are emotionally involved. This depends on the type of product, its target market and the people in it. It can be the perfect tool to create an underground campaign, yet, can backfire if it appears contrived, turning off the very consumers it wishes to attract. Knowing how buzz-prone your target customers are can help determine how effective a buzz marketing campaign might be. Then, it is just a case of giving your customers something to talk about.
(Nirmalya Kumar is a professor of marketing, director of the Centre for Marketing, and co-director of the Aditya V. Birla India Centre at London Business School. Sophie Linguri is a researcher at London Business School.)
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