June 02, 2006

Revolutionary Buzz

We all know that nothing sells a product better than a genuine word-of-mouth recommendation. Companies spend excessive amounts of money promoting products through television commercials and billboard advertisements, names of stadiums and product placements in movies, yet there is no substitute for a gushing review delivered in person by one consumer to another.

It should not be surprising, then, that a new frontier of marketing is currently being explored to meet this marketing need. It calls itself "word-of-mouth marketing," and at its forefront are companies like BzzAgent. The BzzAgent concept is quite simple. A company comes to BzzAgent with a product. Using profiles in its database of volunteer consumer "agents," BzzAgent develops a campaign by connecting certain agents with the product. The product could be anything -- a gadget, gizmo, book, baby toy, even a restaurant. The agent samples the product and is sent out into the world to chat about it -- to create buzz. Agents are given tips on how to work a discussion about the product into their everyday conversations with friends, acquaintances, even strangers, delivering exactly the kind of word-of-mouth endorsement companies so desperately covet.

I'm conflicted on this so-called marketing revolution. I'm tempted to drink the BzzAgent Kool-Aid and believe that this is a way to take marketing away from corporate marketers who are constantly finding ways to interrupt our lives in order to bombard us with advertising. The way BzzAgent tells it, the proliferation of communication we've seen in the last decade has enabled the voices and opinions of individual consumers to have enormous impact on the world economy. BzzAgent is a way to capture that power, a revolution that gives marketing to the people by making it easier for people to sample products and spread their opinions, positive or negative, about them It is free samples taken to the next level -- give a consumer a taste and she will come back to make a purchase, and hopefully bring along friends.

Sill, I cannot help being troubled by the idea of individuals working as "agents" on behalf of companies. I can envision a Tom Cruise movie or Aldous Huxley novel taking the word-of-mouth concept to its extreme where people are reduced to walking, talking, breathing advertisements, subservient to their corporate masters to be freed only by true love. Rather than giving marketing to the people, it could be said that BzzAgent is actually giving the people to the marketers. Before, companies had to make a product so attractive that people would be inspired to create buzz. Now, the companies need simply to go to BzzAgent to have their buzz created for them.

But BzzAgent's code of conduct is meant to ensure that agents maintain their free will and convey only honest opinions. Agents are not paid for their work (though they may receive free stuff). They are encouraged to share positive as well as negative opinions on a product. They are supposed to disclose their status as agents and they are taught to allow buzz to flow naturally rather than forcing it. The idea is that only honest interactions can be effective. The minute an agent appears to be selling a product rather than simply talking about it, the advantages of word-of-mouth marketing are lost.

Only time will tell whether word-of-mouth marketing will bring the populist revolution promised by BzzAgent or the capture of consumer opinion by corporate marketing departments. The concept itself, at least, is interesting enough to create a buzz of its own. In the meantime, I'm willing to experiment with it -- go tell all your friends what you think about unevenkiel.com, good or bad, and let's see what happens. Go buzz!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

good article, i actually heard about this a few years ago. I think it's genius, evil genius. Word of mouth is really the only thing i trust in terms or a product or a movie, whatever. Now i have to worry that my friend is being paid to tell me that coke really tastes great, lol. bastards.