Buzz marketing for movies assignment

While surfing the Web, the typical US teenager engages in an average of two other activities, one of 0007-6813/$ – see front matter ?? 2007 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved. doi: 10. 1016/j. bushor. 2007. 04. 001 396 which is often homework. Reportedly, some 80% of business people also multitask while performing workrelated duties (Greenspan, 2004). In concert with this, there is an increasing trend for consumers to “ switch off”; they are ever more selective about what they watch and the advertising messages they trust. As Court (2004, p. ) cites, according to Yankelovich Partners, 65% of consumers feel “ constantly bombarded with too much advertising,” 69% are “ interested in products and services that would help skip or block marketing,” and 54% “ avoid buying products that overwhelm with advertising and marketing. ” To add, television and movie lovers are witnessing a revolution in digital home entertainment. With it, a growing number of people are turning away from neighborhood cinemas in order to stay home and be entertained by new technologies and advanced personal theater systems.

Consumer electronics manufacturers, IT vendors, and movie companies are lining up to extol the virtues of Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the proclaimed successors to the current DVD format (Thomas, 2006). According to Gnoffo (2005), by the end of 2004, Forrester Research estimated there were TiVos and other DVRs in 6. 5 million US households, up from 1. 9 million in 2002. That number, the firm claims, will climb to almost 50 million by 2009, representing 41% of all US households.

This being the case, entertainment marketers’ interest in the method is rising as media fragmentation continues and movie marketing costs increasingly spiral upward. Buzz marketing also satisfies studio executives who are confronted with steadily mounting marketing costs, and are thus challenged by existing promotional tactics in search of more mileage for fewer dollars. 2. Buzz marketing encompasses word of mouth and viral marketing At the core of buzz marketing is the phenomenon of word of mouth (WOM), the process by which an individual influences the actions or attitudes of others.

As indicated by the following quotes on the value of word of mouth (http://www. geocities. com/ WallStreet/6246/quote6. html), academicians have long been aware of the power of WOM on consumers’ preferences and actual purchase behaviors: “ Forget about market surveys and analyst reports. Word of mouth is probably the most powerful form of communication in the business world. It can either hurt a company’s reputation…or give it a boost in the market. Word-of-mouth messages stand out in a person’s mind….

Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate to create a snowballing effect. A widely cited first example of viral marketing is Hotmail, a company now owned by Microsoft, which promotes both its service and advertisers’ messages in every e-mail sent by patrons using the technology. 2. 3. Buzz marketing With media undergoing a vast change in a world where aggressive television ads, flashy websites, and glossy brochures compete for consumer attention, it is necessary to bridge WOM with technology (e. g. the Internet, mobile phones, MP3 players) and “ outside the box” thinking. Buzz marketing is the practice of gathering volunteers either formally by actively recruiting individuals who naturally set cultural trends, or informally by drawing “ connectors”: people who have lots of contacts in different circles, who can talk up their experiences with folks they meet in their daily lives. These people can be experts, members of the press, politicians, celebrities, or well-connected customers others rely on for information.

Unlike WOM, whereby opinion leaders are internally motivated because of their knowledge, those spreading buzz may or may not be experts, and may be spreading buzz on a host of different things that are injected by marketers. Buzz marketing captures the attention of consumers and media to the point that people talk about the brand, because the message is perceived as entertaining, fascinating, and/or newsworthy. In order for this to occur, however, there must be something interesting, clever, amusing, catchy, or remarkable enough about the message such that WOM fuels fast distribution via technology to create a “ buzz. Clearly, this requires clever marketing 2. 1. Word of mouth communications WOM communications, also referred to as opinion leadership, is the process by which one person (the opinion leader) informally influences the actions of others, who may be opinion seekers or opinion receivers. The key characteristic of this influence is that it is interpersonal and informal and takes place between two or more people, none of whom represent a commercial selling source that would gain financially from the exchange of information (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007).

The results show that WOM activities are most active during a movie’s pre-release and opening week, and that movie audiences tend to hold relatively high expectations before release but become more critical in the opening week. The volume of word of mouth offers significant explanatory power for box office revenue, both in the aggregate and for the early weeks, in support of a theory that WOM functions in the movie market primarily through an informative effect on awareness. . The literature on buzz marketing Despite the recent surge in trade books on buzz marketing (e. g. , Buzzmarketing; The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing; Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing; Unleashing the Ideavirus; Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand), academic research on the subject is still in its infancy. Among the extant literature, Thomas (2004) offers a conceptual framework with information on how to build buzz.

Defining buzz marketing as the amplification of initial marketing efforts by third parties through their passive or active influence, the author argues the ultimate buzz is delivering exceptional value, what is known as the relative advantage of the offer. When this is achieved, the offer itself will be the buzz. In creating exceptional value, Thomas stresses the importance of integrating customers into the process of product development, with the objective of surprising buyers with added or unanticipated value.

As the typical movie budget is stretched to its breaking point, motion picture players, especially those with particularly limited funds, seek to not only achieve the greatest “ bang” for their buck, but also utilize avenues which entail the least amount of risk. The low cost factor of the Internet makes it a perfect choice in this regard. For film companies with small budgets, a buzz marketing campaign is a much safer bet financially than a huge marketing budget that possesses risk. According to Emanuel Rosen (2002), author of The Anatomy of Buzz, stimulating talk is very successful for some companies.

One of the best things about word-of-mouth campaigns, he adds, is that they typically involve low levels of financial risk. 4. 5. Buzz adds credibility Importantly, to make buzz work, the person one listens to must be discriminating, and know something the audience does not. Otherwise, that person is not adding anything of value. When a friend, neighbor, coworker, or family member tells about a great movie, it is believable because the person is viewed as objective concerning the information or advice given.

This requires, however, that marketers provide individuals with something worth talking 400 I. Mohr subculture: a set of people with distinct, religiousbased behaviors and beliefs. Mel Gibson’s controversial film struck a chord among moviegoers. Focusing on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, The Passion of The Christ made a huge impact at the box office when it was released on February 25, 2004 (Ash Wednesday), earning more than $375 million during its theatrical run. Working under a limited budget for A-list stars and marketing spending, Mel Gibson set about creating and spreading buzz among the faithful.

To that end, Gibson’s production company hired several Christian marketing companies to work various segments of the potential audience. According to Baker and Lobdell (2004), the official Passion movie website was full of suggestions: for churches to buy blocks of movie tickets, and invite congregation members and their friends to attend screenings; to ask theater owners if pastors could address audiences after screenings, and hold question-and-answer sessions; to give Passion-related sermons on themes such as forgiveness and everlasting life; and to distribute Passion-themed New Testaments. 5. 1. Differentiation with cosmetic movie features

Buzz spread via free merchandise and through preview screenings, held in Greek communities for associated festivals, churches, and other organizations. Unlike many bigger pictures, the movie was shot with a $5 million production budget, yet managed to earn an astounding $240 million-plus in theaters. Due to the approachable humor it portrayed, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was appealing to a wide audience, and thus easy to grow beyond the Greek community market segment. With each passing week, positive buzz expanded the film’s run to new screens and new market segments nationwide, attracting bigger audiences.

Remarkably, Greek Wedding achieved this feat in a season filled with mega-budget studio competition, including SpiderMan and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Typically, when a movie stirs controversy and/or deals with conflicting themes, the buzz it generates creates an opportunity to grow the market segment. In the case of The Passion of The Christ, buzz was so great that it attracted audiences beyond churchgoers, whose curiosity was piqued by publicity surrounding the film. The main controversy stemmed 5. 2. Differentiation to reach market segments

Original and licensed songs were recorded for the soundtrack by some of the world’s best-selling musical artists, and Shrek action figures, video games, DVDs, and books were readied to flood the marketplace. Well over a year before the film debuted in theaters, DreamWorks announced that Universal Studios would soon add a Shrek 4-D ride to its theme parks in California, Florida, and Japan, and that the ride was intended to promote Shrek 2. A special home video release of Shrek 3-D, packaging the original movie with a 3-D feature, was also launched during the week of the sequel’s theatrical opening.

Taken together, Shrek 2’s positioning strategy created successful buzz. Companies that are masters of good buzz often push products via major events. Consider, for example, an occasion that unites the worlds of fashion, entertainment, and cars, with the glittering city of Hollywood serving as a backdrop. Each year, General Motors hosts a star-studded, high-profile affair to benefit charities and highlight its current model lineup. Dubbed the “ General Motors Annual GM Ten Charity Benefit,” the fifth version of the event, held in 2006, drew many of Tinseltown’s young, hip A-listers to frolic amid the company’s newest vehicles.

It is a clutterfree tactic that varies in possibilities. Buzz marketing is about making your message so compelling, so entertaining, so fascinating, or so newsworthy that people want to talk about it. Otherwise, it represents nothing more than another message fighting for attention, adding to the existing marketing clutter. Clearly, buzz marketing requires creative thinking. So, how does a movie or brand get people talking? The following steps can help minimize resources and increase the chances for success: 5. 6. Differentiation via non-traditional channels

Unlike in the past, when WOM traveled only in a single-utterance setting (i. e. , heard once and never again), buzz is now initiated by text messaging, emails, chat rooms, message boards, websites, and blogs. Good or bad, movie talk can stay recorded forever. Technology serves as a big asset in drawing attention and accelerating buzz, if what is delivered becomes a conversation piece. Consider the partnership between Budweiser and New Line Cinema’s Wedding Crashers, which sponsored a feature on the movie’s website entitled “ Crash the Trailer. Through downloading personal photos, the interactive feature allowed viewers to “ place” themselves and friends in scenes from the film’s trailer, and then save and e-mail the edited result to others. Of all potential examples, the marketing phenomenon known as The Blair Witch Project perhaps best illustrates the vast extent to which the Internet is able to spread buzz. Debuting in theaters on July 30, 1999, the film was released following months of publicity, including a groundbreaking campaign by the studio to use the Web to suggest that the events depicted were real.

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