Term Paper on "Buzz Marketing Do You Think"

Term Paper 6 pages (1948 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Buzz Marketing

Do you think that every possible form of advertising has been tried? Guess again! The latest promotion is called "buzz marketing," when consumers and even actors are hired by a company or ad agency to endorse a product. The idea is to find the most liked and respected individuals in a community and have them use a product in order to create a buzz around it. Buzz, sometimes called "street marketing," can make a company more desirable. How is this different from any advertisement or commercial? In the majority of cases, the individuals hearing the message do not know that they are being duped. Consumers actually think the person feels this way about the product. So far, the Federal Trade Commission has not put restrictions on buzz marketing. However, this does not mean that it is acceptable or ethical. It still remains a controversial issue.

Last year, the partners of the new shoe company Keen needed to quickly build up an interest with buyers. They paid the popular Internet blog Cool Tools -- that gets 240,000 hits a day -- to run a post praising the Keen sandals as "a gift from above." In addition, the owner of a blog called Metacool proclaimed about Keens, "All the cool kids are wearing them." This statement even included a photo of Apple CEO Steve Jobs marketing an iPod U2 Special Edition while wearing a pair of the shoes. As a result of such buzz promotions, Keen sold 400,000 pairs of shoes while spending almost nothing on ads (Copeland and Tilin, 2005, np).

Some promoters distinguish between buzz marketing and what they call "stealth marketing," which "attempts to catch people at their most vulnerable by identifying the weak spot in their defensive shields..." They say buzz marketing is different from stealth marketing because the former clearly indicates who is behind a campaign. For example, those who separate the two marketing forms say that a politician being paid by the administration to promote a bill or an actress supporting a new pharmaceutical during a talk show would be stealth marketing. However, an individual promoting a product on an infomercial would be buzz marketing, since everyone knows these advertisements are for selling products. In many cases, this distinction appears difficult to make. Somehow the lines between stealth and buzz marketing often seem to blur.

The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates the legal use of advertisements, has not yet ruled on buzz marketing. Regardless, some people say that buzz marketing raises serious ethical issues. That is because buzz marketing often uses regular citizens who get products for talking up products. Or, the companies sometimes fall into that stealth area and hire professional actors to pose as typical consumers.

Some individuals say they would not be upset to find out someone had tricked them by praising a product in return for a gift or two. Others say that buzz marketing makes the negatives of advertising -- motivating people to buy something they do not even need or want -even worse. It will eventually lead to a situation where nothing or no one can ever be believed.

Lisa Bolton, who is a professor of consumer behavior at Wharton College, says about this trend: "I realize not all buzz marketing is subversive. Sometimes it's just a case of getting people on the street and getting the word out. But stealth marketing, where you don't know that something's part of a marketing campaign because people don't identify themselves as such? I thinks it's wrong. It's unethical. Over the long-term, when people find out, they will feel deceived and betrayed. Ultimately, it will damage a company's brand equity."

One of the first buzz marketing campaigns that received attention was run by Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications in 2002 (Vrancia, 2002). The company spent $5 million on a two-month campaign, where they hired professional actors to visit attractions such as the Empire State Building and Seattle Space Needle and pretend to be tourists. They were to ask people to take their picture with the Sony Ericsson mobile phone/camera. The actors were not supposed to identify themselves unless asked. Another group of actors, all women, went to popular lounges and bars. They did not tell the businesses or the customers who they were and had specific scripts for behavior and conversations.

In one scenario, for example, two of the women sat at the bar and used their Sony phone to play battleship. They were to act like they were having a great time with their new toy. Sony said it was all "good fun," but watchdog groups and even some other competitive company executives do not agree. "It's deceptive," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz" (Vrancia, 2002)

It is reprehensible and desperate," noted Paul MacFarlane, co-owner of the Experiment, a St. Louis ad agency that does campaigns for Southwestern Bell and Anheuser-Busch. "They are trying to fabricate something that should be natural."

That campaign is shilling, and it violates the honesty of identity rule," argued Andy Semovitz, chief executive of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The organization's members agreed street-marketing is all right as long as the people disclose that they are receiving something for their work. The companies should also use actual consumers, who discuss what they believe about the product, instead of actors.

As with any other form of advertising, there still will be many companies that go as far as they can to sell their products. Such marketers say that the buzz is much less effective or does not work at all when telling other people they were hired to promote an item.

Procter & Gamble, soon to be the largest consumer product company in the world, says that it uses a more ethical approach. Instead of hiring actors, P&G sends new products and information to 250,000 designated teens. The company says the youths are "free to form their own opinions..." since "it's critical that marketers in the word-of-mouth space have ethics. The consumer must decide what he or she will say in the marketplace." Whether the teens are more apt to give positive endorsements to such products is still unclear (Vrancia 2005).

A recent issue of O, Oprah's Magazine (2005) has an article about a woman entrepreneur whose buzz marketing group "Trendspotter" keeps clients such as Sony and MGA Entertainment updated on the latest trends among young buyers. The company is worth over $5 million. At 16, the owner, Tina Wells, began writing product releases for a girls' newspaper and received free products from over 40 companies in return. After three months, she asked ten of her friends to help her and "share the freebies." When she was a freshman in college, she brought on her first paying client.

P&G's handouts and this O. article raise another difficult issue: marketing to children. There are many parent and nonprofit organizations that are very concerned with commercials and advertisements geared directly toward children. In fact, they would like to see all such advertising reduced drastically if not eliminated. Buzz marketing that is directed toward children is an issue because it offers another way to entice young minds and, more importantly, is directed toward viewers who often do not understand the difference between commercials/ads and actual media and surely would not know that another child or adult is "acting" about a product.

The Media Awareness Network notes that the amount of money spent on children's advertising has "exploded" over the past ten years, soaring from $100 million in 1990 to over $2 billion in 2000. In addition, parents buy a great deal more for their children now for a variety of reasons, including that children are more aware of what is being sold. Buzz marketing on the Internet is seen on chat rooms and blogs that spread the word about music, clothes and other products among unsuspecting users. In fact, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) voted on ethics guidelines that oppose involving children under 13 in word-of-mouth efforts and abides by all legal restrictions on marketing to minors.

Although the FTC has not come out against such advertising, some states are seriously looking at the issue. Massachusetts introduced a bill to protect teens from online marketers. "In an era when an unprecedented number of children are being recruited by marketers to participate in online advertising campaigns, we need to protect our youth from unwanted solicitations and ensure that marketing messages are age-appropriate," state Rep Michael Festa sponsor of the bill explained. "Doing so should require parental approval of all marketing practices and materials whenever children are taken advantage of by marketers" (Newcomb, 2005)

The Massachusetts bill reads:

Section 61A. No person shall, without obtaining prior parental consent, employ a child under 16 years of age in connection with a sales force network that distributes, on the Internet or through an online service, marketing communications designed to encourage… READ MORE

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