In the recent past, we have seen Bollywood harnessing the
power of `buzz'. A lot of hype is created about a movie,
especially its special features, and this is covered by
almost all the lifestyle channels like Zoom, Zee Trendz,
NDTV Good Times, etc., and glossy magazines and page 3 of
most popular dailies. Further, the music release is converted
into a mega event, that gives people a reason to talk about
the movie before its release. Some of the teasers and the
interviews of the film are telecast on TV channels, which
further add some spice. An example of this is the recently-launched
movie Om Shanti Om (OSO). The marketer cleverly used the
platform of the Zee TV channel program "sa re ga ma
pa" and the cricket match to create the excellent buzz,
giving the people to talk about the star cast and the movie—reaching
millions of people through the Word of Mouth (WOM). Some
health magazine writing about the film hero's physical attributes
also added to the buzz.
The key here is doing all the activities proven to result
in a buzz, making people to talk about the product, service
or the idea. The idea is to create the market and mentally
prepare the customers to accept the product even before
it hits the market shelves. The trick is using the existing
social network and the communication channels of the customers
to spread the buzz.Typically, the marketing process follows some steps, beginning
from conceiving and creating value, communicating the value
and delivering the value. Products and brands are created,
advertised, distributed and the customers buy the same.
Researches show that in most cases customers do not come
to know about a product or service from advertising or any
other form of communication, but from their friends and
relatives. This makes it imperative for a marketer to think
about the buzz. Though, some of the marketers have learnt
the art of creating buzz very well, some of them are not
aware about the criticality of the buzz factor in marketing.
The biggest misconception about the power of the buzz in
the mind of the customers is that buzz is only for specific
hype of products.
Over the last several decades, researchers, academicians
and marketers have accepted the fact that marketing is a
social process involving the society. Buzz marketing is
just capitalizing on the social process and the basic need
of a human being; i.e., communicaton. People love to communicate
and talk. Buzz uses this basic human behavior and gives
people a reason to talk and spread the message through WOM.
Buzz marketing requires strategies, tools, techniques, communication
channels and media for outstanding results. Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) defines WOM
as, "The art and science of building active, mutually-beneficial
consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications."
Andy Sernovitz A, author of 5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing
defined it in simple terms: "Giving people a reason
to talk about your stuff and making it easier for that conversation
to take place". Further, Andy explained it in very
simple terms, "It is everything a marketer can do to
get people talking."
|
