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Buzz Marketing
"Attracting People & Creating a word-of-mouth"
Submitted by Infa Marwah, DFMGM140770
2014-16
Submitted to the MA FMG Course Team
29 October 2014
Pearl Academy
New Delhi
Index
S no.
Content
Page No.
1
Introduction
4-6
2
Buzz Evolution
7
3
Buzz: Creation&Development
8-14
4
Types, Methods and Barriers
15-17
5
The Buzz Marketing: Flipside of the Coin
18
6
Case Study
19
7
Conclusion
20
ABSRACT
Creating buzz around a content that has sufficient curiosity arousing quotient has become the trend worldwide. People across the globe have been found to share various types of content like movies, music, pictures, advertisements etc. This study shows that there have been contents that have created tremendous buzz among the masses and contents that have been unable to attract enough eye balls or ' Likes' in the social media world. Buzz marketing has received phenomenal fillip with the proliferation of social media. It is the ingredients of content and the innovative thought behind its development and subsequent transmission that actually defines the buzz quotient of a content. The cost effectiveness coupled with the extent of people's engagement that has made buzz marketing appear as a lucrative proposition to be employed by the marketers worldwide. The study concludes the viral buzz on earth in very crisp manner and thus bringing it into highlights of marketers.
Keywords: buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, social media, consumer attitude.
1. Introduction
Oxford Dictionary defines the word "Buzz" as a low, continuous humming or murmuring sound, made by or similar to that made by an insect, and Forbes enumerated the term "Marketing" as Marketing is what you say and how you say it when you want to explain how awesome your product is and why people should buy it. So when these words combines up we create an atmosphere of the attracting the target groups along with high scale profits, thus called BUZZ Marketing, also called Viral Marketing. It does not restrict itself with products but also services for eg. A buzz for a up-coming movie. "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." "Buzzing isn't really new. The hype about these different kinds of buzz agents is what's new," says Kahn. (Kahn,20011)
Buzz Marketing along with its bright positives also bring along the myths of buzz marketing by our society, like
1.Only outrageous products can create buzz
2. Buzz just happens,
3. The best buzz starters are your customers only
4. To profit you must act first and fast
5. Media and advertising are needed to create buzz and many more.
'Buzz Marketing' has been considered as an alternative strategy of creating preference and demand among prospective customers by the theoreticians and practitioners for times past. Though given caution, this geometrically progressive marketing strategy offers significant opportunities for the firms. The immense popularity of the online social media among the people has given the opportunity to add a new dimension of buzz marketing, as these social networking sites are accommodating a massive exchange of views among the users. Companies planning to use these online social media as a driver of their buzz marketing efforts inevitably would face the challenge of acquiring favorable response from a versatile and almost uncontrollable mass of users. Hence, profiling the users of these media who would ride on the buzz is of utmost value for all concerned ones. This study focuses on the users of the online social media and aims to create profiles of these buzz riders.
Qualitative in nature, this study also proposes some strategic implications for the different categories of online social media users to elicit positive responses of the buzz marketing efforts of the companies." (Khan.M and Mohammad.F 2011)
1.1 Delamination
Though young, the concept of buzz marketing has acquired attention of scholars from all "the amplification of initial marketing efforts by third parties through their passive or active influence". Whereas, Womma (2004) defined the same as: "Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand". Apart from attribute based definitions, Hughes (2004) has defined buzz marketing on its functional characteristics as: "Capturing attention of consumers and the media to the point where talking about your brand becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy; A conversation starter". According to SearchCRM.com Definitions (2010), buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique that attempts to make each encounter with a consumer appear to be a unique, spontaneous personal exchange of information instead of a calculated marketing pitch choreographed by a professional advertiser. Historically, buzz marketing campaigns have been designed to be very theatrical in nature. The advertiser reveals information about the product or service to only a few "knowing" people in the target audience. By purposely seeking out one-on-one conversations with those who heavily influence their peers, buzz marketers create a sophisticated word-of-mouth campaign where consumers are flattered to be included in the elite group of those "in the know" and willingly spread the word to their friends and colleagues. By looking at the above definitions, we can form an understanding that buzz marketing is when consumers talk about the brand to other consumers. In other words, buzz marketing is nothing but word-of-mouth communication. At this point, confusion might arise whether there is any difference between buzz marketing and word-of-mouth marketing.
1.2 Buzz Marketing V/S Word-Of-Mouth
Word-of-mouth has existed since humankind; people have always talked with each other about products, issues and events that are important in their lives (Oosterwijk & Loeffen, 2005). There is a difference between word-of-mouth that results from day-to-day interaction with customers and the kind of word-of-mouth that occurs as a result of a specific campaign to create or encourage it. If people talk about a product because they are just happy with it, this is organic "word-of-mouth, while amplified" word- of-mouth occurs when a firm tries to encourage and accelerate word-of-mouth with the launch of a campaign (Womma, 2005). From this point of view, buzz marketing is "amplified" form of word-of-mouth that results from a firm's organized effort to make people talk about the product or brand with others. So apparently buzz marketing is not completely synonymous with word-of-mouth, rather it a form of word-of-mouth. ((Womma, 2005; Riegner, 2007)
1.3 Online Social Media (OSM) – Key path for Buzz Marketing
Internet social activities have presented marketers with challenges as well as opportunities to reach specific target markets. The recent most and perhaps the most popular addition in internet utilities is the Online Social Media (OSM). Although recent, scholars around the world have already contributed much in defining and characterizing OSM. Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) conceptualized OSM as a set of internet applications, i.e. blogs, social networking sites, content communities, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds and social worlds that offer people the opportunity to interact with other members by creating profile sites, group communities, uploading pictures and sending instant messages. OSM enables the internet users to share, send and receive content with each other (Demopoulos, 2006). Whereas, Solis & Breakenridge (2009) perceive the OSM as a means of democratization and radicalization of the role people play in the process of reading and disseminating information through text, pictures and sound. A social networking website is defined here as "one that allows internet users the ability to add user-generated content such as: comments, feedback, ratings, or their own dedicated pages" (iProspect, 2007; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Companies are trying many different ways to attract the attention of consumers and create a successful social media strategy (Coon, 2010). According to Brennan (2010), a product firm's OSM profile can allow customers to connect with the firm in a more direct manner than on a Website, and to connect using a social media platform that the customers are already using. Companies can increase their customers sense of brand connection and create transparency by answering their questions on a public site to make the connection stronger. According to the Socialnomics (2009), a survey made on 880 marketers showed that the number one benefit of using social communication channels (SCC) was to generate exposure for the firm whilst the second and third was to improve traffic on the website and build new relationships.
The development of communication and information technologies has encouraged the emergence of new communication channels that have enhanced the options available to businesses for building relationships with clients (Albesa, 2007). According to Gensler, Dekimpe and Skiera (2006) more and more companies are becoming multi-channel operators, which mean that they are extending their only available online channel, the firm webpage, to reach out to a global audience. Businesses should seek a multi-channel configuration that provides "channel advantages", because each channel presents different strengths, but at the same time presents limitations and complications (Barrutia, 2002). Socialnomics (2009) found that 25% of search results for the World's Top 20 brands are links to user generated content and 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands. Socialnomics (2009) found that, people care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them and 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations while only 14% trust advertisements.
2. Evolution Of Buzz in market
Some argue the term viral marketing was originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail's e-mail practice of appending advertising for themselves to outgoing mail from their users. The first to write about viral marketing was media critic Douglas Rushkoff in his 1994 book "Media Virus." The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a "susceptible" user, that user will become "infected" (i.e., sign up for an account) and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As long as each infected user sends mail to more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than one), standard results in epidemiology imply that the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential. (Wampole,H. 2012)
If each user sends mail to more than one susceptible user then the campaign will in theory continue forever, or at least until all susceptible users have already received the message. Even if the message is not forwarded quite that often, the message might still be forwarded many more times than it was initially sent. For example, consider a campaign that starts out by mailing 100 users. Not all of them will forward the email, but some of them might. This 'some' would be tested using market research; say, for example, that it turns out to be 80% and that each forwards it to only one friend. In this case, 80 people would receive a "first generation" forwarded message.
Eventually the campaign would fade out. Research must be carried out on the life expectancy of such a campaign. More complicated formulas can be generated, but this would be the easiest for most marketing departments to work out. So the final campaign would cost the original amount of funds needed to send the email to 100 users and the rest would be users marketed by viral methods and normally for free.
(Wampole,H. 2012)
3. Buzz : Creation & Development
Buzz marketing is an indirect communications method that has been used successfully in the promotion of a wide variety of products, services, and ideas. By identifying and cultivating non media opinion leaders, the technique generates word-of-mouth communications between these early adopters of products and services and the early and late majority of people who tend to follow their lead. Thus how to create the BUZZ is the question for the day. Ciotti,G.(2008) presented following seven techniques towards creating a Buzz for a particular product/service.
3.1 Evaluation of your product category for its buzz potential
Before creating a buzz, a proper research analysis is done to evaluate over the product potential capacity to create the buzz or not. Market segmentation is done to follow this procedure in the society and its needs. Professor Karen.J (2009) did a research on the emotional buyers specifically targeting women and found out the following analysis, which present through my research over creating buzz in the first step.
REASON FOR GOING ON A SPENDING SPREE
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN AGREEING
I want to cheer myself up
79%
I want to treat others
75%
I feel I'm looking good
61%
I'm feeling a bit low
61%
I'm feeling happy
53%
I want to impress others
40%
I feel depressed
34%
Things aren't going well with my partner
33%
I feel attractive
31%
I am anxious or worried
31%
Source : http://www.sheconomics.com/downloads/womens_emotions.pdf
Similarly, to create a Buzz many evaluations are done over the market and amongst buyers to present their product and thus getting a reaction what is thought of.
Following were some of the classifications which are undertaken in todays market.
PRODUCT CLASSIFICATION
Examples
Products that evoke an emotional response
Cars, gadgets, clothes, jewelry, entertainment, perfumes/scents
Products that advertise themselves
Logoed apparel and accessories, cars, online software, high design hardware (Apple Products)
Products that leave a trace
Email services, production technologies, personal care products
Products with network effects
Operating systems, Online services, retail
Products with high compatibility
Online services, computer hardware, personal care systems, diet systems
Products that increase efficiency
Online servies, hardware and software , home products
Source : Viral Marketing Overview PDF Yaffe-Centre Files
3.2 Chose a Target/Hub
Products or services to bring in the market a specific target in created which depends upon various factors such as THE APPAREL GLOBE-TROTTER brought such a segmentation too like
source : http://www.theapparelglobetrotter.com/apparel-segments.html
Thus the second step brought about choosing a target/hub to create its buzz.
NETWORK HUB TYPE
DEFINITION
Regular Hub
Regular consumers who are interested in and likely to talk to people they know about certain types of products
Mega Hub
Celebrities, athletes, media figures, politicians, people who have huge reach and influence because of their job or place in society
Expert Hub
These are people in a social or professional network who others turn to about certain types of products because these hubs are known for expertise in specific areas
Social Hub
Social hubs are charismatic, active people who have a wide variety of friends and contacts across different interest groups and consumer segments
Source: Oxford Dictionary
3.3 Chose a Buzz Tactic
Oxford Dictionary defines a medium as an agency or mean of doing something.
Thus, to create a Buzz all over a tactic/medium is required to provide the world a sound of Buzzzz! And spread it over.
Source : Google Images
Navneet Kaushal is the founder and CEO of PageTraffic, an SEO Agency in India with offices in Chicago, Mumbai and London. A leading search strategist, Navneet helps clients maintain an edge in search engines and the online media.
TACTIC
CORRESPONDING MEDIA
ABILITY/DESIRE
Facilitating user dispersion of content
Email
Video
SMS
Blog
Widget
Website
Social Netwrok
Assumes consumer would have some desire to buzz about message and focuses on providing the ability to buzz
Creating a forum for sharing information or mediating a content
Website
Social Network
Street Teams
Blog
An integrated ability and desire approach.
Leverages existing desire or creates new desire through access to information or prizes
Encouraging consumers to parse branded message content via idiosyncratic buzz channels
Blog
Video
Public Relations
Television
WOM
Events
Free Stuff
Retail Experience/POS
Takes the consumer ability as a given, and focuses on creating desire to buzz
3.4 Chose a Media
Media types fall under two broad categories: traditional and new. The traditional media include the print and broadcast formats, while the new media include the ever-changing digital formats, such as blogs and podcasts.
Each media format has inherent strengths and weaknesses. Social media messages, for example, are quick and efficient but prone to inaccuracies. In general, newspapers provide depth and accuracy but lack the sensory appeal of television, the interactive feature of a blog, and the rapid delivery of radio.
Source :"http://tldevelopment.net/inquireHSbook/pg246"
3.5 Chose a Creative Content Direction
Creative Execution is also present in varied forms such as :
Mystery (Revealing only a portion of a product or a marketing campaign)
Outrageousness (Out of the ordinary and usually funny or entertaining as well)
Controversy ( Challenging social morals or conventional wisdom)
Innovation (Breaking new ground in technology or efficiency)
Brand Champion (A person or group of people who represent the brand)
Usefulness (Valuable information)
Sentimentality (Creating feelings of warmth, nostalgia and wholesomeness)
Originality (Never/rarely seen or thought of before)
Hilarity (Belly laugh funny)
3.6 Evaluate Risk Potential
The product-development process, however, is often seen as an undependable black box that rarely produces results that exceed business expectations. However, a robust product-development process can make the inherent risks understandable and to some degree measurable and controllable. Key to this effort are the stage-gate product-development processes in which ideas are evaluated incrementally at successive stages of substantiation. Risks are minimized by keeping investments small for projects that ultimately fail to make the grade.
3.7 Measure results and exploits any hidden value added
Finally the results are calculated and further hidden values of products/services are observed.
There are basically 6-ways of steps to create buzz marketing content. They are the following :
Taboo - The very first of Mark's "buttons of buzz" is the taboo. Taboo content is defined as something that is "labeled by a society as improper, unacceptable, prohibited, or profane." A lot of people jump right to conclusion that taboo content must be scandals, sex, and bathroom humor, but that's because the context is out of focus: instead of creating content that's taboo to society, YOU need to create content that is taboo for your industry and community.
Unusual - Things that are unusual are those that just don't seem to fit in. The kind of stuff that we simply have to look at, not even because we want to, but because the call is just too strong for us to ignore. As you know, content doesn't always have to mean blog posts, and when it comes to getting attention in spammy areas like forex trading, creativity is king.
Outrageous - In the Wharton study mentioned above, one of the "emotions of high arousal" was that of anger, and here is where it comes into play: in the form of truly outrageous content that gets us fired up and tripping over ourselves to leave feedback.
Hilarious - Funny content is often the most viral (see: YouTube videos), but it is harder to incorporate into your typical small business content strategy. While comedians can get away with being hilarious + outrageous all the time, utilizing humor for business related content has to be done a certain way, or it will seem unprofessional or not genuine.
Remarkable - This is likely the most difficult content to define, and yet it is often the most memorable and effective to create. Without making people angry, without being profane, remarkable content still manages to outshine the competition and live up to the source of its name: being worthy of remark. As an example, let's look at the fitness market. While weight loss stories are inspiring, they are a dime a dozen in a place as large as the web, and won't get the kind of traction that allows them to "go viral".
Secret - Secret content is more than just regular information like "How to set up a Facebook page", it's the kind of stuff that comes out of left field and totally blows the lid off of a topic people care about. You can only create secret content by reading good books and by breaking new information in your industry. A tough task to accomplish, but one with a ton of viral potential.
4. Types, Methods and Barriers
4.1 Types of viral campaigns :
Pass-along: A message which encourages the user to send the message to others. The crudest form of this is chain letters where a message at the bottom of the e- mail prompts the reader to forward the message. More effective are short, funny clips of video which people spontaneously forward. Many of these, such as the Cog (television commercial) from Honda began life as TV commercials and have since circulated on the web by word of mouth. The number of people reached in this way is often much greater than the number who viewed the original ad.
Incentivized viral: A reward is offered for either passing a message along or providing someone else's address. This can dramatically increase referrals. However, this is most effective when the offer requires another person to take action. Most online contests offer more chances of winning for each referral given; but when the referral must also participate in order for the first person to obtain that extra chance of winning, the chance that the referral participates is much greater.
Undercover: A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity, or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass along. In Undercover Marketing, it is not immediately apparent that anything is being marketed. Particular effort is made to make the discovery of the item seem spontaneous and informal, to encourage natural mimetic behavior. Outside world "clues", such as graffiti appearing in cities with key viral words, is often used to direct people to search out the presented "mystery". Because of the large amount of unusual and entertaining content on the internet, this can be the hardest type of viral to spot, especially as companies try to imitate the style and content of amateur websites
and authentic underground movements.
"Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing" ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising. Prior to releasing a movie, some Hollywood movie stars get married, get divorced, or get arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention to them. An alleged example is the publicity campaign about the dubious love affair between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes that came out just before each of them released a movie.
4.2 Methods of transmission
Transmission of viral marketing can occur in various ways:
Word of Web: Typing into a web-based form that converts that information into an e-mail, sends to recipients. An example of this is any article at MSNBC.com. In the article, there are links that encourage readers to send the article to a friend; this brings them to a web-based form to be filled out. This form converts all of the information to the recipient in an e-mail.
Word of E-Mail: A very common type: forwarding e-mails, such as jokes, quizzes and 'compromising' pictures.
Word of mouth
Word of IM: Perhaps the fastest-growing mode of transmission, hyperlinks are sent over instant messaging servers such as Jabber, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, or Google Talk. This method is popular with many young people who are arguably more likely to trust a link sent by a friend via IM than by that same friend through e-mail.
Reward for Referrals: Sometimes, the marketing company offers a reward for referring customers, encouraging them to use any of the above methods.
Communications Protocol: In amateur radio, the ham operators on each end of a conversation generally exchange QSL cards. The communication protocol generally expects each person to transmit their QSL information to the other person. If that QSL information refers to an electronic QSL card exchange, then the subscriber base of the exchange will grow exponentially.
Bluetooth: The widespread use of mobile phones which support free Bluetoothing has enabled promotional videos to be distributed virally between handsets.
Barriers to viral marketing
4.3 Barriers in Buzz Marketing
Size: If viral content is a video clip or streaming video, it may be too large for the recipient to receive. However, newer technologies are eliminating this problem, as internet connections grow faster and e-mail inboxes become more capable of receiving large files.
Media Format: A viral marketing campaign will be unsuccessful if the message is in a format that most people can't use; for example if particular software is needed that is not widely used, then people will not be able to open or view the message.
E-mail attachment: Many people receive viral marketing messages while at the office, and company anti-virus software or firewalls can prevent people from receiving or viewing such attachments.
Cumbersome Referral Mechanism: For a viral marketing campaign to be successful, it must be easy to use. For example, if the promotion is some sort of game or contest, then asking for referrals should be an option immediately after the game, not as a condition to play.
Sabotage: Especially in the case of Undercover style marketing campaigns, the discovery of the marketing nature of a popular campaign may cause the same social networks to inform people of the commercial intent of the meme, and promote a formal or informal boycott of the company or product in question.
5. The Buzz Marketing : Flipside of the Coin
The literature reports several obstacles, difficulties and problems encountered by companies which use buzz campaigns. The first obstacle is due to the difficulty of controlling interpersonal communication, at its several levels. Firstly, influencers may be particularly difficult to identify and, in some cases, they decide not to send the buzz, preferring to answer some specific and targeted questions. In addition, transmission and dissemination of information from one group to another, or from one community to another remain poorly understood. Thus, it was found that there are few transfers between different generations, implying that affinities and common denominators should exist to optimally distribute information (Opsomer and Bizien 2008).
Moreover, it is not possible to control conversations consumers have with each other, even if it is possible to seek to influence them in a given way. The company has no control over the messages sent between consumers (Sernovitz 2006) and, a fortiori, any possible distortion, either voluntary or involuntary. Its only concern in this case is to avoid creating a harmful negative buzz whose consequences may be disastrous for both the sales and the brand image. However, it should be reminded that it is easier to criticize someone who is not present and consequently, if consumers feel that the company responds, and is attentive to everything that is happening here and there, they are more likely to find ways to solve problems without directly attacking (Sernovitz 2006). However, it is not impossible to see the birth of a negative buzz likely to destroy in a short time the reputation of a company.
Negative messages can indeed spread at an impressive speed and escape the control of the company. A negative buzz can be caused by dissatisfied or disappointed consumers who seek to mitigate their anger, warn other consumers or take revenge. There is an old rule which says that a dissatisfied customer shares his/her bad experience with at least twelve people. However, in Internet age, the figure seems to increase to reach three hundred people (Solomon 2009). Thus, consumers may contaminate in a short time an impressive number of individuals located throughout the world. Similarly, if during a buzz, consumers think, rightly or wrongly, that they had been misled or manipulated by unethical means (Martin and Smith 2008), they doubt the real identity of the source (Petty and Andrews 2008), and may avoid the message, change their level of trust and commitment in the company (Thomson, MacInnis and Park 2005), become interested in competitors (Grégoire and Fisher 2008) or engage in a process of negative buzz. It should be noted that in some cases a negative buzz may also generate from the action of a competitor (Opsomer and Bizien 2008).
6. Short Case Studies
So popular was Nintendo's Wii that the news spread like a buzz all over the word. The popularity Nintendo gained from the word of mouth was remarkable. The initial promotion did not include a single TV advertisement and the only promotion was the positive word of mouth. Nintendo made headlines in the Wall street Journal and was featured in the NPR report about the hottest holiday gift but all this promotion was not employed by Nintendo itself. Nintendo had employed the buzz marketing technique and had gone viral instantaneously. It has a lower price range from its main competitors. Since Sony and Microsoft were producing entertainment packages with consoles and DVD, Nintendo superseded this by its pricing strategy. Since the most expensive elements which are the processor and the DVD playback are eliminated, it allows for a lower price and even then it makes more profits. The price for a Nintendo W ii is around $250 which is below PSP's whose starting price was $599. and Xbox's. Nintendo is also selling wii at a lower price as it is eliminating accessories from the main pack. The accessories will be sold separately thus allowing future revenue. (O'Gorman, 2008)
Pragmatically, Relationship Marketing (RM) theory indicates that buzz marketing enables one-to-one marketing through consumer recommendations via individualized interpersonal networks(Möller & Halinen, 2000). Considering the affinity of the targeted market segment – the teenagers – to events and highly energetic activities, Red Bull focuses on promoting the brand and on convincing the trendsetters via events and sponsorships to establish added-value perception over their products. McCole (2004) adds that experiential marketing via Red Bull self-staged events and sports sponsorships allow the consumer experience necessary to create the unconventional strategies of buzz marketingin promoting the brand.Following this scheme, Red Bull was able to dominate the US$ 80 billion energy drink industry in 1999 with a marked 68% market share (Pride & Ferrell, 2006; Franzen & Moriarty, 2008). Advertising, sponsorship and events management focused in applicable sports or high energy activities that interest their target segment are employed by Red Bull to create an open window for marketing the brand.
7. CONCLUSION
Buzz is a new marketing technique that may affect the image of advertisers and their products. This technique consists of communicating about goods or services by generating and maintaining a process of word-of-mouth orchestrated through targeted actions. When all goes well, the buzz can create product awareness through word-of-mouth allowing for reaching a large number of consumers. However, many actors involved in the process of buzz may alter the information content of the message in a positive or a negative way. The transmission of information in social networks, real or virtual, may take a turn that the company could not control with the often unplanned interactions of consumers. (Touzani,M. 2012)
Based on a qualitative research of Tunisian buzz professionals, this study helped to highlight a number of difficulties and other risks associated with the implementation of this technique. Thus, besides the risk of target fatigue, the buzz takes on uncontrollable aspects, with the risk of misinterpreting corporate messages, creating inconsistencies within the promotional mix which may lead to disappointing consumers. Another important result is the risk of cultural incongruity, especially when buzz professionals mobilize lines of communication that go against the culture of the social system in which the buzz is launched.
Several recommendations and solutions have also been proposed by our informants. Thus, they advocate a well-thought combination of creativity and rigor, attempting to efficiently attract consumers' imagination, while putting in place a mechanism in order to avoid potential threats such as diversions and bad buzz. This device would be to mobilize experienced buzz professionals and viral marketing, to predict and anticipate different scenarios and attitudes to adopt, to shorten the duration of the buzz to prevent uncontrollable factors, mainly coming from competition, and finally to develop public relations to channel the message in a way beneficial to the company.
Mourad Touzani brings out the final recommendation that relates to the coherence of buzz actions with the other elements of the promotional mix, especially in a media landscape saturated and likely to lead to information overload. The main limitation of this study is probably it only focuses on the professionals' point of view. We believe that a similar qualitative study could be conducted to understand the way consumers perceive buzz campaigns and how they react afterwards. Similarly, it would be interesting to explore new trends likely to change buzz uses and techniques, including the emergence of mobile marketing and the many possibilities it offers. A final line of research is related to the cultural dimension. It would be appropriate to undertake cross-cultural comparative studies to understand how buzz is perceived differently from one culture to another.
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Buzz Marketing
MAFMG
Semester 0
3
Infa Marwah
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