Buzz marketing is a viral
marketing technique that attempts to make each encounter with a consumer
appear to be a unique, spontaneous personal exchange of information instead of
a calculated marketing pitch choreographed by a professional advertiser.
Historically, buzz marketing campaigns have been designed to be very theatrical
in nature. The advertiser reveals information about the product or service to
only a few "knowing" people in the target audience. By purposely
seeking out one-on-one conversations with those who heavily influence their
peers, buzz marketers create a sophisticated word-of-mouth campaign where consumers
are flattered to be included in the elite group of those "in the
know" and willingly spread the word to their friends and colleagues.
Although buzz
marketing is not new, Internet technology has changed the way it's being used.
Buzz campaigns are now being initiated in chat rooms, where marketing
representatives assume an identity appropriate to their target audience and
pitch their product. Personal Web logs (blogs) are
another popular media for electronic buzz marketing campaigns; advertisers seek
out authors of the "right kind of blog" and trade product or currency
for promotion. Instant messaging (IM) applications are also being looked at as
a vehicle for carrying out buzz marketing campaigns with either humans or IM bots doing
the pitching. As with all buzz campaigns, the power of the IM model relies on
the influence an individual has in an established small network -- in this
case, his buddy
list. As technology continues to facilitate the delivery of a electronic
buzz marketing message easier, and software applications make message
deliveries easier to quantify, some advertising experts predict that electronic
buzz marketing techniques will become a standard component in all cross-media
advertising campaigns. Others warn that abuse of this potentially powerful
electronic marketing technique will be its downfall.