The misconception of buzz marketing

In the late 50s communication researchers Katz and Lazarsfeld found evidence showing people weren't affected by political messages in mass media in the direct way everybody believed by that time. Instead, they found, mass media content was consumed by an already above-average informed audience that processed the information and then spread the word to other audiences. They called this the "Two-step flow of information theory".

Every communication graduate knows about this theory. And do they also dig deep enough in their memory, they also may grasp the concept of "the diffusion of innovations theory", developed by Everett Rogers telling basically the same thing.

Today this is the foundation for what has become the concept of "Buzz marketing", "Word-of-mouth-marketing", "Open source marketing", "Guerilla marketing" and "Viral marketing".

Of course there is nothing new about this. People have known the power of personal influence for ages. So why the hype right now?

One reason is to be found in the dotcom-boom with some surviving success companies that reached leading positions with little or no advertising: Ebay, Amazon, Google and Yahoo all relied on cheap and effective word-of-mouth to become the top-of-mind companies in their respective segments. And if they can be billionaires......

The sad thing however is that people haven't understood what buzz really is and how it fit in the marketing mix. This is perfectly demonstrated in an recent event on the gamers blog Joystiq (thanks Mattias for pointing to the post). By tracing several e-mails with different addresses to the same IP number the Joystiq people found out that a PR agency was trying to generate buzz by writing endorsing user comments to game communities, blogs and websites. In a sensitive industry such as gaming, I guess they are ful of regrets today after the "Hello sleazy buzz marketers!" post at Joystiq. Other examples are the activities of Bzzagent who pay users to talk about products.

What these people haven't understood, or more correctly their clients, is that buzz is something real. It´s the effect of something in the marketing mix. Not necessarily a tool. It can be, but that's still no guarantee for generating real buzz.

If the "sleazy buzz marketers" had succeeded and Joystiq would have written a story about the Walmart event they were trying to promote, what would have guaranteed a buzz among Joystiq readers? Well, nothing, Joystiq writes tons of stories that don't generate buzz. As all media do.

To use the insights of buzz marketing, you must remember this simple rule:The concept of buzz in an insight. It's an insight about the power of reference knowledge, that people are relying on each others advice. It's an insight about people's enjoyment of talking to each other and the value of telling something new.
And, it's an insight to be used in product development, in design and marketing.

Thus, make products that are worth to be talked about.  Run ads that are worth to be talked about. Creat design that make people turn their heads around.

My point is. Buzz marketing doesn't change the world. It has already ruled the world since the stone age. But the insight we got from Katz and Lazarfeld can help advertisers and PR people to make more effective communication and product developers and designers to make better products. And that is really something, isn't it?