Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff

introduction

Fasten your seat belt. You’re about to experience some turbulence, because that’s what happens when you leave the solid ground of convention behind.

You’re about to dive into the world of buzzmarketing.

There’s a lot of controversy being churned up about buzzmarketing. Most of what you hear or read on the subject is way off base. Critics say buzz is random, merely serendipitous, and can’t be corralled, but those attacks come mainly from people who have never had their asses on the line—not as entrepreneurs, and not as people with something to lose. I’ve faced the gut-wrenching fear of knowing that forty people could be jobless if my marketing didn’t work.

So this book isn’t from a sideline player who’s never really had skin in the game. I succeeded by harnessing the power of buzzmarketing. And I did it despite the warnings from traditional types who said it couldn’t be done that way.

When I spent $40 million a year on advertising in previous years, I marketed the way most everyone else does—by using major ad agencies and spending lavishly. The campaigns won some national awards, but they weren’t buzzmarketing. Then I launched a start-up, and that’s when I got buzz. Only when you’ve got everything to lose do you really understand the need to think differently. Without the fear of God, you tend to tread the familiar paths.

After playing the game both ways—big brands with big budgets and start-ups with cash-starved budgets—I found out the hard way that buzzmarketing works. It demands that you out-think instead of out-spend.

In this book you’ll discover how some exciting but unfamiliar brands and some familiar ones (like Apple Computer, Pepsi, and Britney Spears) have used buzzmarketing to grow faster and expand further, and do it for one-tenth of what it costs by more traditional means.

I’ll also share with you the Six Secrets of Buzzmarketing that will make it possible for you, too, if you want to grow faster, expand further, and do it smarter.

That’s what you’ll find in the following pages: the hands-on why, and the hands-on how, from someone who’s succeeded by breathing it and doing it.

Fasten your seat belt, you’re about to…get buzzed.

BUZZMARKETING

CHAPTER ONE

Evading the Stampede

When I worked in the corporate world of big brands, I spent millions of dollars on conventional advertising. And guess what I got?

I got conventional results.

As a big swingin’ marketer with a big swingin’ budget, I didn’t incorporate much buzz into my marketing. I also didn’t achieve breakaway growth. Yes, I won national awards and accolades, but a marketer with a big budget generally thinks he doesn’t need buzz and misses out on possibilities for the kind of growth that makes executives and stockholders smile.

Only later, in the unleashed, dazzling world of hot start-ups, did I experience the newfound power to reinvent the wheel. In place of a big-bucks marketing budget, I used my creative instincts and had a blast doing it. The start-up world put me on stage and in the spotlight. My creative brain went full tilt into action. It was a great feeling, one shared by many savvy folks in those days before the bubble burst.

In the world of big marketing budgets, the pressures simply aren’t the same. Sure, the marketing folks in a major company worry…but their worries have a different twist. Hey, there’s always another marketing budget next year. In a start-up, everyone worries if there will be a next year. In a start-up, fear is built into the company DNA. For months I would go to sleep scared and wake up scared. We had to out-think versus out-spend. We had no choice. The only way we could grow profitably was with buzzmarketing.

Translation: Our marketing had to start conversations. Why? Because word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing on earth. Period. Firms like Euro RSCG have documented the impact of word of mouth: ten times more effective than TV or print advertising. Ten times more effective. Yet many have no earthly idea how to trigger it.

I didn’t, at first. Only by experiencing the two extremes of marketing budgets—big brands with big budgets, and start-ups with minibudgets—did I come to appreciate the value of buzz, and how it magnifies every marketing dollar. I saw firsthand how millions can be wasted by treading the path of conventional marketing, and I saw how marketing dollars can be stretched and multiplied by following the out-of-the-box route called buzzmarketing.

A big-time consulting firm might charge you $500,000 for a glimpse into the secrets of buzzmarketing. But you don’t have to pay a ridiculous sum for someone else to get buzz going for your product or service. You can do it yourself. Keep reading.

What Is Buzzmarketing?

DEFINITION: Buzzmarketing captures the attention of consumers and the media to the point where talking about your brand or company becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy.

To put it simply: Buzz starts conversations.

In the traditional marketing model, the corporate marketer sits in the middle and spends money to send messages to targeted prospects. The marketing team creates a message, purchases media, and sees the messages delivered to the customer—whether business customer or consumer. End of story.

Traditional marketing model

Buzzmarketing model

Buzzmarketing begins the same way: sending messages to consumers. Then it goes further. In the buzzmarketing model, the consumer tells two friends, those two tell two friends, and so on, and so on. Creating buzzzzzzz.

People tell others because you’ve given them something to talk about.

That’s the essence, the key. If you haven’t given people something clever, amusing, catchy, remarkable…if you haven’t given them something they’ll enjoy sharing with others to entertain, to sound smart or clever, to sound with it—forget it. You ain’t got buzz.

You like to be around people who talk about stuff that’s entertaining. Stuff that’s fascinating. Stuff that’s newsworthy. Giving people something to talk about is the only way buzzmarketing works.

Make no mistake, this takes creativity. But it’s a creativity you can master, based on the principles in these pages. Buzzmarketing will propel your entire business and give it staying power.

Can You Afford Not to Be a Buzzmarketer?

Hoping to get noticed in the marketplace? The odds are dead set against you.

More than twenty-three thousand new products are introduced each year in America. Twenty-three thousand marketers and brand managers are competing for the same level of attention and the same purchaser’s dollar. They all want to grow. They all want to achieve breakaway sales.

And those are just the new products.

What about brand products, and companies that already exist? Take Motorola, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Mentos, MasterCard, Mazda, Minolta, M&M’s, Mercedes, Merrill Lynch, Michelob, Maybelline, Mitsubishi, Marlboro, Maxwell House, Mobil, Merck, MCI, MTV, Mizuno, Morgan Stanley, Marriott, Mattel, Milky Way, Maxim, Minute Maid, Maytag. What do they have in common?

All of these are fighting for attention—and that’s just a list of some of the ones beginning with M!

Of every product introduced each year in the consumer packaged goods industry, 70 percent fail. Of all small businesses started in America, 80 percent fail within the first five years. Statistically, the odds are against you. But you’re going to be the exception, because if you’re reading this book, you’re ready to listen, learn, and get buzz.

Debunking the Myths

Buzz has become a buzz word. And as happens with many buzz words, a cloud of confusion surrounds it. Let’s set the record straight.

Buzzmarketing Is Not a Means

It is not akin to TV, or direct mail, or radio. Those are means. Those are vehicles. Buzzmarketing is about ends. Remember our buzzmarketing model schematic—you still have to send messages out to consumers. Those messages can be sent through a variety of methods. Nothing is off the table.

It might be solely word-of-mouth marketing; it might be complemented with TV, it might be complemented with radio, it might be complemented with a variety of media that could combine the traditional and the nontraditional. But the goal of a buzzmarketer with every dollar spent is: Spark further word of mouth. The real goal is to start conversations beyond the obvious message. It’s all about getting people talking and the media writing about your brand. That must be the end you concentrate on.

Buzzmarketing Is Not Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing may be a series of stunts (stickering, people dressed up in costume in major cities, etc.). It can be one of the means you utilize to send your message.

Buzzmarketing is something else: a way to get people talking and the media writing about your brand. Remember, buzzmarketing is all about the ends.

Sometimes buzzmarketing incorporates guerrilla marketing. But guerrilla marketing is one tool. You don’t have to have it to get buzz. Britney Spears gets buzz—she uses zero guerrilla marketing. Don’t confuse the two.

Companies like Procter & Gamble Do Real Marketing

Sure, it’s tough to get over the logical notion that the giant firms, the companies that have been around for eons and own a humongous share of their market, must have the right answers about marketing. Stay with me. I’ll have you convinced by the time you finish reading.

I can tell you that throughout my career I have been told, You can’t do it that way. And every time I prove them wrong. Buzzmarketing makes things possible. At Half.com, a well-heeled analyst from Chase Bank’s capital group insisted that I couldn’t grow Half.com to our target of 813,000 registered users in the first year. And he was right—I grew it to in excess of one million registered users in the first year. And over eight million in less than three years.

I’ve also had people tell me to learn the basics—to retake Marketing 101. I’m used to it by now. Interestingly, the best marketers get it. One key supporter of buzz, a man who helped inspire this book, was the chief marketer at a company that has been a marketing legend for one of the most famous brands in the world, one of America’s leading soda companies.

He told me that thirty some-odd years ago he had the good luck to hang out with senior marketing execs at his previous company, Procter & Gamble. One day a senior exec told him what the two keys to success would be for him. First, Ninety percent of your time will be wasted on stuff that doesn’t matter, so do two or three colossal things really well each year. Second, If you can ever figure out the secrets to word-of-mouth marketing, you’ve got it made.

Despite the naysayers, there are many people who get it, and not surprisingly they also happen to be way more successful than the naysayers.

Conventional experts will tell you that you’ll need big ad budgets in order to experience breakaway sales growth. Bigger ad budgets equals bigger sales growth. Makes sense, right? Nope. The key is to outthink yourself, not outspend yourself. Outthink, not out-spend.

Buzzmarketing Is Too Random

I never found buzz to be too random because the trick is to follow the structured, methodical approach to get people talking about your brand and to get the media writing about it.

Buzz is not a fad diet—it’s a lifestyle change.

About This Book

I’m going to tackle buzz with you in two leaps.

First I’m going to open your eyes to the power of buzzmarketing by sharing dramatic examples of the best of the best. (Including, I modestly add, my own.) We’ll also examine some cases in which successful products were not intrinsically different from the competition but enjoyed breakaway growth built on buzz.

Then I’ll show you how to master the techniques these marketing powerhouses used and that I have used myself. You’ll learn the Six Secrets that are the critical building blocks to creating killer buzz.

The Six Secrets are:

BUZZ BASICS

The First Secret—Push the Six Buttons of Buzz

The Second Secret—Capture Media

The Third Secret—Advertise for Attention

BUZZ LEADERSHIP

The Fourth Secret—Climb Buzz Everest

The Fifth Secret—Discover Creativity

The Sixth Secret—Police Your Product

That’s what this book is about: How they got buzz. How I got buzz. And how you can get buzz.

Building a Brand on Buzz

Some brands, by all expectations, should have been creamed by competitors or, at very best, just muddled along. And yet they still managed breakaway growth. All the odds were against them—yet they came out of nowhere and shot ahead of the pack.

How did they do it, and how did I do it?

Read on.

CHAPTER TWO

Renaming a Town

You may be wondering what makes me an authority in buzzmarketing. It’s time to share the story of how I and a few others put a start-up company on the nightly news and into newspapers all over the country. How I managed to grow our start-up, Half.com, from zero to eight million registered users in less than three wild, improbable years. There are those who might say that Half.com is just another dot-com success story that bubbled along with other dot-coms. But my story is relevant to today’s market because it followed a path of growth by frugality instead of foolish expense or advertising convention. And it was all done with competitors nipping at our heels.

In 1999, I was the VP of marketing for this young start-up called Half.com, holding my breath along with a small staff as we waited for reports on efforts to raise the company’s second round of venture financing. Nearly twenty competitors with similar business models lurked, some in hiding, some in plain view. It was dot-com fantasyland and everyone was trying to take the lead in our yet-to-be-defined category—an eBay-style virtual marketplace for buyers and sellers of books, movies, music, and video games (but with the retail look and feel of Amazon).

On my second day at the not-yet-launched company, the founder and CEO Josh Kopelman sat me down in his seven-by-seven-foot office in the old Lee Tire manufacturing plant. Launch was eight weeks away.

The CEO said to me, One of the main reasons I hired you was for your background, and proceeded to rattle off some of my credentials. Then he told me, You can throw all that out the window.

I sat there, bewildered, wondering where he was heading.

The mood in the venture capital community was shifting, he said. At this point, early in the dot-com bust, the venture capitalists (VCs) had witnessed the biggest waste of money in the history of marketing and advertising. Their money. VCs were becoming the least venturesome people around. An era was ending.

Josh laid it out plain and simple. Eighty percent of our money was going to be spent by me on marketing—and tradition simply wouldn’t work in the cluttered environment of our industry. We had to come up with a Big Idea. An amazing idea. A marketing coup. And we had seven days to do it.

On the way out the door, he added, No pressure!

I think it was my first out-of-body experience.

What the hell had I gotten myself into? I’m a creative guy, yes. I’m a smart guy, yes. I achieved success by most standards, yes. I knew how to optimize a $40 million budget for improved marketing efficiency, but I never had to come up with an idea that could make or break a company. Thus began my ascent from thinking in the safe plane of corporate convention to a newer plane where turbulence was the goal. Creating a stir, creating buzz, and doing it with brains over bucks.

When I was at PepsiCo, the decisions and recommendations we made affected numbers on a spreadsheet—not people’s livelihoods. Now, employees’ paychecks depended on our success or failure.

Our CEO was employing the kind of creative leadership you’ll read about in the Fifth Secret: Discover Creativity. He knew what 99 percent of CEOs don’t—that consumers face a cluttered ad environment, so cluttered that most people simply don’t pay attention to advertising. (CEOs—Are you paying attention here?)

He knew that conventional marketing would produce average results, and average was not going to get us where we needed to go. He demanded an entirely new kind of creativity and demanded the best.

The secret in all this is that demanding the best creativity forces you to think on a different plane—to be creative enough to devise an entirely new formula with a fraction of the budget of much bigger competitors.

Coming Up with the Big Idea

Clint Schmidt, one of my top marketing mavericks at Half.com, had been bird-dogging firms to help us come up with an idea powerful enough to save the day. We made a selection, hiring a firm that was the epitome of hip and what we thought was the epitome of buzz. Twenty-somethings dressed entirely in black. Almost too cool.

I felt uneasy. I could sense in the pit of my stomach that this firm didn’t feel the pressure that Clint, myself, and others felt about our launch. Unlike us, every ounce of their creativity and energy wasn’t dedicated to the cause.

The firm came to present their Big Idea. They launched into their pitch and gave us four ideas to choose from. One was a yard sale in Manhattan, and to be honest, I don’t even remember the other three. My eyes met our CEO’s, and we both knew if these were the Big Ideas…we were sunk.

We were out of time. I began brainstorming right there. The ideas rolled out one by one.

Mount Rushmore. Could we fly a helium balloon over George Washington in the shape of a cartoon-like thought balloon reading, For rock-solid deals, head to Half.

The Hoover Dam. Could we shoot a zip wire across the dam with a huge banner hanging from it, reading, Damn the high prices, head to Half.com. I began searching a virtual map in my mind for other national monuments.

And then it hit me. Among the thousands of towns across the country, surely there must be one town with the name Half in it. What better way to put the brand on the map than by literally putting the brand on the map. Let’s find that Half town and convince them to change their name to Half.com!

I looked across the table to the folks from our not-helpful firm. They actually sneered at my idea and responded with an on-the-spot idea of their own: Slap our brand onto the recycling bins on the streets of New York. Oh yeah, that would get the media salivating.

Needless to say, we fired that firm shortly thereafter.

My colleagues and I knew we had the Big Idea now. But how do you get a town to change its name to Half.com?

Half Way to Halfway

As it turned out, there were many towns with Half in the name:

We liked the Oregon town because it was the smallest (population 350), and it was also near the Oregon Trail—the path of pioneers. We also liked Halfa, Iowa, because it would be amazing to say, Halfa Iowa [half of Iowa] liked us so much, they renamed their town after us!

We