Raquel is shot!
Or is she?
The professor lies helpless and hopeless in the middle of a forest with the police closing in.
The situations at the Bank of Spain are no better.
The team of the professor is divided amongst themselves, Rio and Tokyo are not on good terms, the authority of Palermo is challenged, and Arturo is causing very annoying problems inside the Bank.
These thrilling scenes from the Money Heist show are what keeps you hooked.
Shooting to the top, this show didn’t have the fame when it was first launched.
The show has gained alarming popularity over the past few years due to its distinctive storyline and action-filled scenes. Although the show’s primary language is Spanish, and so is its original name, La Casa De Papel. Still, it has also gained popularity amongst the English language viewers.
The popularity amongst English language viewers has also led to Netflix launching English audio for the show.
So what brought in the success?
The Connection Between Buzz and the Money Heist!
Although the show is fantastic, other factors have led to the show gaining popularity. The word of mouth of people, who liked the show, compelled their fellows to watch the show too, and the cycle continued.
The first viewers would be Spanish as the show was initially Spanish. Then, what is called the ‘buzz’ spread around, and the viewership kept on increasing? This relates to the popular new type of marketing going around globally in the current era.
The term buzz marketing has caught everyone’s eyes, primarily the corporate entities that previously spent millions of dollars on their marketing campaigns. (No wait, that doesn’t mean that they have cut it off!)
Now, with the same marketing strategy, companies have the potential to reach a more significant and broader audience.
Pssst…
(Here is a secret, with lesser money.)
What is Buzz Marketing?
Wait!
The bees are not taking over the marketing departments.. not as yet!
The word buzz means to make a low and continuous sound, which eventually develops into a humming sound. (Trust me! this insight was needed!)
The buzz is usually created by the bees. However, the phenomenon has also entered into humans who are potentially making a lot of money or saving it using the buzz. The practice is known as buzz marketing and is the newest way of marketing developed over the past decade and is being used by several companies worldwide now.
The buzz marketing aims to market a product or a service using the word of mouth of people.
(Nah! not the gossips. But gossips also do help sometimes.)
A relatable example…..
A very simple and relatable example to everyone is of a restaurant that you visit with your friends, and you like it due to its ambiance, food taste, and reasonable prices. So, you head home and tell your parents and siblings about it.
The next day, you go to school or work and also tell your colleagues about the fantastic experience you had at the restaurant. You may also tell about it to your uncles, your cousins, and even your neighbors. And remember, your friends were with you so they will also tell their parents, siblings, colleagues and so on.
And this is how it spreads, (No not the coronavirus, but it does spread like this so be careful!)
Then, further on, the people you told about the restaurant to tell more people ahead. The thread continues and continues, and the restaurant which was just visited by you and a couple of your friends is now visited by hundreds of more people based on you and your friends’ word of mouth. The restaurant has currently been advertised to hundreds of people in less than a week without spending a single dollar.
The Role of Influencers
So, an example of created buzz marketing by a company is when a group of consumers is motivated to try a product and then talk about their experience online on the company forum or their own personal social media platforms.
The consumers from this group or the group of friends from the previous example are called the ‘influencers’ in the buzz marketing phenomenon. The influencers are the early adopters of a product and start talking about the product.
However, another form of influencers is the social media influencers who have a large following on their social media accounts, and they usually talk about the experiences with the new products they tried.
Their opinions matter to a lot of people and can make or break the reputation of a product. (Yeah! they have power like that!)
80% of marketers feel that they play a significant role in the decision process of buyers.
In the current era, these influencers are usually bloggers and vloggers. Bloggers and vloggers have also started choosing their distinguished fields where they are experts. Some of the most popular ones of those are tech bloggers and food bloggers.
Tech bloggers talk about the new technology and the latest gadgets that they have tried. They share their experiences and rate the products. Before buying that product, a typical person will surely consider the experience and the opinion of the tech blogger.
Even me, when I buy a phone or a laptop or plan on visiting a restaurant, I tend to first look for the experiences of famous tech/food bloggers and vloggers with that product. Their reviews, unboxing videos, and comparison charts are readily available.
(And they really help make the decision!)
Then come the food bloggers.
Food bloggers share their experiences with new restaurants they visited or any new kind of food they ate. There are several metrics over which the food bloggers might rate a particular restaurant. Some of those metrics are the food freshness, restaurant ambiance, prices, the type of service offered by the restaurant, availability of payment methods, and so on.
A Word of Warning
A company always needs to stay aware of these influencers because its word of mouth matters a lot to the masses. They are considered to be the masters in that field and are known to possess the best judging abilities when it comes to their domain of blogging or vlogging.
For me, I always look for the laptop reviews at Mobile Tech Review before buying a particular laptop. The review videos are made by Lisa Gade. She is also the founder and the Editor in Chief at the Mobile Tech review website. Other popular tech bloggers include David H. Freedman, David Kaplan, Declan McCullagh, Duncan Riley, Elinor Mills, Eric Bangeman, and so on.
The Six Buttons of Buzz Marketing- Acing Buzz Marketing
There is a top-rated book written by Mark Hughes, which was initially published in 2005, which is named Buzz Marketing. The book is all about the new phenomenon of marketing practice which the companies are adopting. The book talks about how a company can make people talk about their products and brand.
By spending a little amount of money, the companies can reach a large audience and advertise their product just by word of mouth. It is like a domino effect.
According to Mark Hughes, there are six buttons of buzz marketing that will help you ace buzz marketing. Other professionals believe there are more buttons, but here I will be discussing the six highlighted by Mark Hughes. They are as follows:
The Taboo
(Ahem! Ahem! We hope we have undivided attention here!)
This is an extremely brave button (So kudos, if you are going for it!) And a very controversial one too.
Not many companies will be willing to press this button, and many will not find the courage required to do so. The risks involved in this button are very high, and everything might even go against you instead of in your favor.
So, the word taboo describes a prohibition or a restriction of a certain norm or a custom. In the context of buzz marketing, the taboo button describes a practice or an advert that might cause an uproar in the society about a specific company or a product. Still, the uproar will be for all the wrong reasons and strictly against that company or product.
It will give rise to controversy, and people will be talking negatively about the company or the product. Still, the point to be noted here is that ‘they will be talking.’
And then…….
‘There is no such thing as bad publicity.’
Publicity, even though bad, will tell the masses about your product.
Even though now people know about the product or the company in negative terms, but they will still want to know more. They want to interact with the company or even buy the product to see firsthand what it is.
And if there is no change of opinions, you still have earned profit over that one sale.
(Tada! you score!)
Example
There are numerous examples of this in the real world. One of the very famous examples is of Durex, the popular condom company. Usually, condoms are not the perfect shelf items at shops and pharmaceutical stores.
But Durex broke this taboo and advertised its products quite explicitly and very humorously too. So, Durex started to promote its products with its famous billboard advert, which showed a picture of a baby bed with a price tag for it with $217 written on it. And below the bed was a pack of Durex made with a price tag of $2.50. (Super sly!)
The advert aimed to convey that your expenses will be very much higher if you do not use a condom, which is very much cheaper.
In its another marketing campaign, Durex designed floor footsteps stickers towards the urinals. One of the stickers going towards the urinals was placed a bit far from the urinal, and the term ‘Durex XXL’ was written on that sticker. It was a funny message.
Lessons Learned
Although it was a taboo and Durex did catch on some controversy. But the messages proved out to be very fruitful and beneficial for Durex, and they benefitted a lot from it.
Best part!
The taboo was broken!
After that, more and more condom companies started advertising explicitly like this. Another example of taboo buzz marketing is GoDaddy and its choice of adverts during the Super Bowl.
- Be the leader and stand out
- Talk truth even if controversial
- Connect with the customers
The Unusual
Wearing two different shoes is unusual, but we are not talking about this kind of unusual!
Let us consider two types of days that you are likely to have at work.
First, you get up to go to work at the time, your get ready, have your breakfast and head out, you reach your workplace, sit at your desk and work for the entire day and just take 2 or 3 breaks, including lunch and tea.
Just another typical day at work, right?
Now, let us look at the other type of day. This time, you get up from a silk sheet on a bright morning, have a shower at the perfect temperature (I want this, the struggle is real!), eat a meal that is ready for you. Then, you head out for your work in a brand new Bentley parked at your doorstep.
At work, you are given an office to work with a sea view. You make a couple of breathtaking presentations that win your company a lot of profit-making business. After your day at work, you meet several friends that you haven’t had a chance to meet in a long time. All of you go to a restaurant, eat good food, have a couple of drinks and remember the lovely memories.
Out of the two, which day will be the more memorable one?
For me, and most of you, I suppose, it will be the latter. The reason? Because that does not happen daily.
WHY?
It was unusual; it was unique.
The same is the case with marketing. People tend to remember unusual things and talk about strange things. Many companies are adopting the unusualness as a marketing strategy these days.
Example
For example, GoPuff, a business that allows it customers to order groceries and daily convenience items through its application, makes fun of its customer's weird order lists.
Well, thinking about it, isn’t it a suicidal strategy for a business to make fun of its customers, but for GoPuff?
No?
It has actually played a vital role in their marketing. GoPuff believes that people find looking at advertisements dull, and doing something unique will catch people’s eyes, and it did. This method of GoPuff is trendy, especially among youngsters. People talk a lot about it and discuss the latest weird shopping lists called out by the company.
Lesson Learned
Apart from just the talking, people might even order weird items at weird times of the day just to get a shout out and have something funny to tell their friends about.
- You need to break out from the clutter.
Winning with Outrageous-ness
Being outrageous might be easy, but being profitably outrageous is another!
The outrageous button is one of the most difficult ones to press if you consider pressing it in the context of your business. The reason is that sometimes it becomes challenging to connect your business to the outrageous marketing campaign.
You put in all the extra efforts but then, the campaign might be very outrageous and compelling, but it might not have any connection to your company, and it will be of no use in that case.
In an outrageous campaign, a company tries to market using some hardcore practices or bold steps.
Example
An example of such a campaign is Blendtec, a US-based company that sells commercial and residential blenders.
To prove the strongness of its blenders, Blendtec started a series of videos on YouTube called ‘Will it blend?’ in the videos, some very strong objects are put into the blenders.
Some of the objects include marbles, phones, and so on. The videos became very popular due to them being outrageous. People started talking about those videos and showed each other those videos.
The videos also had a great connection with the brand, and hence, it proved to be a very successful campaign.
Lessons Learned
Marketing has no guidelines. It's very vast, with numerous unexplored territories. Outrageous campaigns are one of them.
- Be smart and creative.
- Connect the brand with the campaign.
- Test the waters before launching the campaign as a full-fledge routine.
The Remarkable
Do something out of the ordinary, create something with above-average quality, or do something that people are not used to seeing. In short, do something remarkable!
People will not talk about you or your brand if you are just like your other competitors. In order to catch everyone’s attention, you need to step out of the normal.
Example
An ideal example of remarkable marketing is Zappos. Usually, the online sellers give a return policy of 15 days or a month at max. However, Zappos did not stick to the market norms and did something remarkable. It started offering a 365 days return policy to its customers. The customers can return the products bought from Zappos until 365 days if they are not completely satisfied with the products.
Lessons Learned
I, personally, am very impressed by this return policy, especially when the return is free from anywhere in the United States. When I got to know about this policy from Zappos the first time, I did talk to my friends and colleagues about its uniqueness and remarkability. Apart from the 365 days return policy, the entire shipping and return policy of Zappos is unique and worth appreciating.
The return and shipping policy surely did create a buzz when it first came out and is still doing so due to its uniqueness and remarkability.
- Be there for the consumers.
Be the Secret Keeper
Who doesn’t love a little secret?
And being let on in secret is a bliss!
So,
What happens when you upon the truth behind a long-hidden secret at your workplace?
Now, only you know it, and you will be very desperate to tell someone about it.
Or in another situation, you get to know that there exists a secret.
What will you do in that situation?
You and your colleagues will predict and speculate what it can really be. In both cases, you will be talking to someone about it, and then they will talk to someone about it, and then the cycle will continue.
A buzz is created!
Businesses make use of this ‘secret’ button a lot. They either keep a secret or reveal it to make the people start talking about it. In keeping a secret, a business somehow just reveals that it is actually holding a secret about a particular thing. Then people start talking about it than what it could be.
For example, a special sauce used by one of the famous burger joints such as the Burger King. People will predict what the secret sauce could contain and how they can recreate it for themselves. People might even start competing against each other to see who gets closest to the original taste with their created sauce.
This will end up causing the company to be talked, and in today's social media, rehashed a lot!
Another way to use this button is by revealing the secret.
The secret can be revealed to a few people, and those people will not be able to resist themselves from talking to someone about the secret they know.
Then, mission accomplished!
People are actually talking about your secret, and it is not a secret anymore.
Example
A perfect example of this is Apple. Apple launches a new iPhone in September every year. But before that, it starts dropping hints about what the iPhone could have, how it will be designed, and what new features it might have. Sometimes, the company might even reveal some incomplete or vague pictures of the product to start a buzz in people.
Lesson Learned
Be the talk of the town.
- Create the right hype around your product and even reveal a few things. Like a cleaning company can release some cleaning secrets.
- Revealing secrets help inculcate brand trust
- Brand loyalty increases
Give the Profitable Cramps with a Touch of Hilariousness
Who doesn't love a good laugh!
People love comedy.
Funny is the new sexy!
More and more companies now try to make their adverts look funny. The reason is that people do share entertaining content with their peers and even on their social media handles.
However, as with the outrageous button, it might be challenging to create a good connection between the campaign and the brand. And. Then there is always the chance of humor falling flat.
A person might find a commercial funny, and they might talk to their friends about it, but by the time they do, they might forget the company that was featured in the advert.
Example
The Durex example that we discussed earlier can be relatable in this button too. Another prevalent example is chocolate named Five Star.
The brand is Indian, and their advertisement series usually features two brothers, Ramesh and Suresh, who forget everything for a short span right after having a bite from the chocolate as the taste is so good that they get lost in it. The adverts got very popular and still are. The connection to the brand was also a good one.
Lessons Learned
- Connect humor to the brand
- Ensure it's to the point and sits well with the consumers.
- Make a small series out of it, based on the essence.
FINAL WORD
Every business at the end of the day is looking to sell and have positive numbers below the line!
So learn the ropes of Buzz marketing as it is the future of low cost and high effectiveness marketing. Be bold, daring, and unique to free yourself from the clutter and be the winner!
Bella Ciao!
