The Perfect Blend of Buzz
Generating quality buzz is something marketing types are always looking to do. With advancing technology, generating buzz has become faster and easier. If one person forwards something interesting to 10 friends and the growth is exponential. In this day and age, people are following companies that interest them on Twitter to learn the latest news before everyone else. That is great news–if you can get people to sign up to learn instantly what is going on with your company than they are happy to hear from you. Interesting videos get shared all over YouTube, and YouTube has made it easy to build buzz by providing a share button. Can companies harness this to effectively market their products? Yes.
Will it Blend? logo
Consider the success of Will it Blend? A series of YouTube videos featuring a Blendtec blender has created an amazing amount of buzz.
It is successful because it is put out by the company, it is funny, it shows the product positively, and it is authentic. This company, with very little marketing budget at all, has been featured in the media worldwide, including MSNBC, the New York Times, Jay Leno, and the Today Show–all because of the YouTube videos. The iPhone piece alone has had more than 5.6 million views to date and the Blendtech You Tube channel has more than 120,000 subscribers.
Blendtec built incredibly successful viral campaign using a gimmick, but stayed true to the brand and the product the entire time. The potential pitfall is when companies forget that they need to be authentic. Pretending to be something that they are not can have serious repercussions. I learned in kindergarten that lying is never good. Smart marketers should remember that. Companies who attempt fake-mails, blogs and videos for viral advertising purposes are going to attract negative attention and the ire of the very vocal online community. So marketers need to tread lightly. Just check out the comments from people who responded to Dan Ackerman Greenberg’s post on TechCrunch titled, “The Secret Strategies Behind Many ‘Viral’ Videos.”
The guys in the video? He isn’t an actor. He is actually the founder of Blendtec. He created that blender. Does it actually work? Yes. It really does. The concept for the video came from performance tests in the Blendtec labs. This can be replicated in real life–I have seen it done! No snow job going on here. If you really want to blend your iPhone, golf balls, or glow sticks you really can. But I don’t advise it! The other thing that makes it successful it that not only is it funny and addictive to watch, it makes me want the product. I figure that anything that can blend Chuck Norris can certainly make a great margarita!
Chuck Norris action figure doomed by Blendtec blender.
I believe you hit the nail squarely on the head here. Most companies forget this even after they successfully employ it. Too many marketers out there and not enough realists. It’s more spin than truth in almost everything now.
The bad part is you stole my idea for Facebook status. I was going to say something about the presidential race, but then ask if it would blend. Now, you’ve stolen my thunder!