Thursday 14 April 2011

Word of mouth: Viral and Buzz Marketing PART 2/3

Although there are many types of WOMM in my presentation I would like to focus on two of them which are Viral and Buzz Marketing.

What are they and how do they work?

Buzz marketing involves an original, often wacky idea that is meant to generate publicity. It becomes more and more popular as traditional advertising just doesn’t get customers’ attention anymore. It becomes very challenging for marketing specialists to get customers to notice their advertisements. Consumers are getting better in avoiding commercials as there are too many of them all around. Buzz marketing has been created to get customers’ attention in an unconventional way.

Here is an example of buzz marketing created by one of the insurance companies.


And another one, many of you might have seen it as it took place in Warsaw. TVN created it in order to advertise a new series being released. There were several cars placed all over the city, all had the same writing on them with a telephone number. When one called the number, the voice informed that if you want to find out whether Adam found his dream girl you need to watch “Usta Usta”.

Here are the links to a few more examples of this type of marketing:

As far as viral marketing is concerned the way it works may be similar to buzz marketing although it is a little bit different.

The purpose of viral marketing is to create a content (often in the internet) that causes so many emotions that customers just can’t help themselves not to share it with others. Companies often release interesting videos on YouTube, share funny pictures.

For example TP S.A. released a video that is a parody of its competitors – Netia -
commercial. Probably many of you have seen it because some of your friends (as mine have) might have posted it on their facebook walls.

Here is the Netia commercial:

and here is the TP parody:

Here are a few more examples of viral marketing videos, that some of you might have come
across earlier if not I encourage you to watch them.

The questions I would like to ask you at the end of this part of my presentation are:

  1. Have you come across any types of viral or buzz marketing?
  2. Have you ever spread virals? (e.g. via fb)
  3. Do you find this types of marketing effective? If so, what makes them effective?

16 comments:

  1. I love oryginal actions like this!
    I find it very effective, because creative ideas are memorable and if you remember funny advert you also remember the product well. It's also important when an advert is just a story - funny or not - but the product is just "by the way". Like in TP S.A. or "Usta Usta" adverts, we have a plot, something has happened and we want to know what. Going that way we're reaching answer which is connected with a final product instead. It is completely different way of thinking than adverts we see every day, just like woman that appears in our bethroom when we have dirty t-shirt (obviously it's our favourite t-shirt). So it's not only creative but also clever way of showing us the product.
    The other aspects is emotion. If we saw something that caused strong emotions we feel a need to share with others and grapevines stars. If it become popular it's a shame to no know the advert, and if you accidentaly have an item or that product you automatically become noticed by other because you have something "from THAT advertisement".

    I came a cross of viral marketing many times. For example I got an e-mail from Rossmann or something like that with offering list as an attachment, and they have been encouraging me to send this e-mail to 10 friends, made a screenshot as a proof and send it back to them. As a reward (of this - let's be honest - SPAM) I could get some free comsetic testers. I also saw a girl on fb that was gathering "like it" clics on the product from H&M to get some % discount if she'd across about 1000 clicks.
    Personally I'm not spreading virals (only charitable ones) since I also don't want to get this. I hate all chains and other stuff.

    To sum up I like actions like that, because they show me new things that people can think out and it makes me impressed, althought it may be a lot compulsive and unwanted - ya know "another spam e-mail".

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  2. I haven't seen this type of advertisement, but I think they are good. They make people to think - and thanks to this they stay in mind longer than just 3 minutes or whatever the tv commercial lasts.
    In my opinion good commercial should be creative - not like those ones with Mr Hajzer who is promoting some washing powder. To be honest I don't like tv commercials at all because they are loud (you watch some movie and when there is commercial break you have to lower the volume), secondly they are very stupid - so I just switch the channel. And the type of commercial you have shown are introducing something new.
    So I think this kind of commercials are effective beacuse they catch attetion, they make people think and unconsciously stay in mind

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  3. An interesting, funny, creative advertisements are becoming popular. Those advertisements have chance to get more customers attention. Good advertisements to be effective should influence positively on the customers. I think that in Poland it's very hard to find creative outdoors ad or maybe I've never looking for and that is way I haven't seen a lot. I never had to spread virals but if I had to I would spread via fb.

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  5. Very interesting article. I like this link: Billboard and outdoor ads (1) , ad Bic Razor and The Economist. I appreciate them for idea, an execution and message they bring. Probably this razor is little-known brand and not good enough quality but using this kind of advertising can be more effective.
    Regarding to your question I watched movie on YouTube (kind of Viral marketing as well) “Never say no to Panda”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REG3zpqodiw>
    I`m loving it! For sure I would buy this product to not meet this Panda ;)
    In my opinion, this kind of advertising is definitely effective. The rules are very simple-I found something fun so I would like to share with someone else; this person also wants to share with other. Bunch widening.

    Many famous people promoting banks in Poland. Effectiveness can increase because it collapses in memory. Everyone wants to be like celebrities for example Antonio Bandera, Danny Devito etc. This is psychological aspect. This is false impression that we are more important as indeed is. Services offered by banks are usually not good as they claim. Participation Szymon Majewski in PKO BP Project caused that many people resigned. They invested about 3mlnzloty to hire him. They could spend this money in other ways. Support orphanage or help foundation.

    What do you think about this?

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  6. Over 10 years ago i came across of buzz marketing. It was HP advertisment. Guy was sitting on billboard, and it was written: I will not get down form here, until I get new HP computer. That was pretty funny.
    Moving on to virals. Thanks to youtube that is very effective way to advertise. Many people send eachother links of funny commercials.
    But, I don't think that it will make any difference for many costumers, if they make more and better adverts. People are used to some brands and we are not willing to change our habits.

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  7. In general I don't like advertisments but some are quite clever and interesting. I'm sure everyone here seen the guy playing on a hair at the metro central station in Warsaw, did you know he is working for IKEA?

    I'm not spreading ads to my friends, why would I spam them?

    Most effective types are the ones that make you think about it or are in some way controversial. I'm sure we all know the Media Markt campaign slogan.

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  8. @Maciej Kuchciak
    Even though Panda Cheese commercial is great, it's not considered viral marketing. Virals are best known for not being typical commercials. They are not created to support a specific product but rather give information about company, get some attention.

    In addition, endorsement (i.e. promoting products using celebrities) is not viral marketing.

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  10. I don't know what kind of advertisement it was, but I liked those advertisements of Heyah when it was entering the market. At the beginning there were only commercial showing their logo (red hand) and nothing else. This, I think made people to think about it - what can this be etc. And then when it turned out that it is Heyah you had encoded in your mind this red hand very good and just name of the brand was added to it. I think it was clever

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  11. I haven't seen this type of advertising, but I have read about it.
    In my opinion they are really funny, I couldn't stop laughing after TP and Skittles movie. I don't think I will buy this products, but I am sure I'll show the commercials to my friends ;)
    I am not sure if this type of marketing is effective. It draws our attention, but not always encourages to buy the product.

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  12. That was a really great note!
    I think each of us have come across viral and buzz marketing.
    I remember a competition between two mobile network providers, heyah and orange. Heyah and play are competing at the moment using tv advertisements.
    I reckon that each of us spread virals because they are funny and astonishing.
    Good thing about it is that we are aware that it is an advertisement. I’m wondering if it’s possible to make such an interesting viral that will make a client forget that he should buy the product which is presented.

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  13. Some time ago on television station marketed their new show by allowing users to upload their photo and sending a link to the trailer of the show, where this photo was shrunk and a few times shown in a background and at the end shown in full size. One may have believed that his acquaintances were taking part in it.

    I can't think of any viral that I've spread. I'm rather sensitive when it comes to spreading spam and advertisements, even in funny form.

    I think this kind of advertising is effective as it stands out from the regular ads, which by most people are just ignored, because there are too many of them.

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  14. I didn't quite well get the difference between the viral and buzz marketing. Isn't the difference based only on the medium the advert is distributed by?

    On the one hand the advertising or marketing in general is useful. Especially nowadays when it is so hard for the consumer to find the offer that suits him best from the huge variety of the goods we have now in stores...

    But on the another as mk already mentioned there are to many advertisements out there! The marketing specialists have to use their creativity to it's extreme to get the consumer attention... I'm just affraid we can drown in the number of the adverts we have.

    Or I'm just exagerating ;) I've got caught by on viral ad once... And even I was forwarding the link to the video to my friends. It was a movie with some guys throwing a dynamite to the lake. The explosion made huge waves on the water so the folks could surf... But the video eventually turned out to be an ad of some clothing company. Hehe

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  15. I never pay attention to advertising, and therefore perhaps I did not pay attention to these types of marketing. I remember only an ad with Leo Benhakker but I also do not remember what was it about. But I believe that this form of advertising is most effective on the Internet in particular on social networking sites where users can infect each other with the ideas

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  16. I am sure that i have come across some types of viral or buzz marketing but actually i can not remind. I know that in our world everywhere we look there is so many advertisment that it is difficult to not see them. But if you want some examples it is hard for me give you even one. I think that it is the most effective kind of advertisment because it compel people to concentrate on it. And it is because that all of this kind of advert have hidden meaning what start in our minds reaction to get know the sens of it.

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