Integrated Marketing Communications: Buzz Marketing - Essay Example

ALTHOUGH word of mouth as a source of marketing information has been around for a long time, word-of-mouth promotion known as buzz marketing is fairly recent, initiated sometime at the start of this decade.  Marketing experts noted, for instance, that the success of the soft drink brand Mountain Dew had been generally attributed to the “buzz” surrounding the product that it was loaded with caffeine – a claim never mentioned in its promotional materials (Shrimp, 2000).

Marketing entrepreneurs then saw the opportunity of helping companies improve or expand their product markets through word-of-mouth marketing. In 2001, BzzAgent sought to create a platform that “would allow people to experience new products and services, share their honest opinions with people they knew and report those activities and opinions so marketers could directly see the results” (What is BzzAgent?). T

Conversations where positive buzz is injected can take place in the workplace, in social gatherings (meetings and parties), store aisles, playfields, and online communities, among other venues. How are agents chosen?  From the list of agents, the company can pick the right agents based on their demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics.  BzzAgent provides such services as recruitment, management and communications, polls and surveys, 24-hour access to live program data, as well as data analysis and metrics, from the quantitative impact of the campaign to insights about attitudes and perceptions.

(What is BzzAgent?) It has been shown that word of mouth is considerably more effective than conventional corporate media advertising because receivers of such referrals tend to trust that the communicator is honest and has no ulterior motive in talking positively about a particular brand or product. Besides, buzz marketing has an edge over other promotional methods in that according to a study done by Harvard and McKinsey & Company, 2/3 of the U.S. economy is influenced by word of mouth (What is BzzAgent?). The proliferation of mass advertising has made audiences less receptive to their messages, and an innovative cost-effective way to capture their attention and receptivity would be desirable.

Buzz marketing seemed to provide the answer. Rather than being on the receiving end of a heavy barrage of media advertising, customers could instead have the opportunity through the buzz agents to provide feedback on products and services they have used, thus giving them some control.  The buzz marketing program would enable companies to improve their products and services. Accordingly, some companies have discovered that their integrated marketing communications strategies can be enhanced considerably with the addition of buzz marketing as a vital component of their promotional campaigns.

    Integrated marketing communications is a system of managing and integrating the elements that consist of advertising, publicity, sponsorship marketing, sales promotion, and point-of-purchase communications so that there is a unified message and all the elements fit together to achieve what is termed synergy, where elements reinforce one another to achieve superior joint results. The addition of word-of-mouth marketing to this array has yielded positive results for companies who tried to diversify to include this approach.

There are, however certain questions that may be raised concerning this new phenomenon in marketing. Firstly, how will a company like BzzAgent, as well as their corporate clients, continue to provide sustained motivation to their agent “volunteers?” Secondly, since the agents are not employees, how are their behavior and activities going to be consistently monitored so that target results are achieved? Finally, and this is also an ethical issue, what would be the effect on this trend if and when the consumers get to learn that they are being misled with referrals that have been managed from a central source?