Marketing Communications

24 CHAPTER 1 INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS

Buzz marketing

Word of mouth has always been important in steering the behaviour of people, but it has become increasingly

important also in people’s buying behaviour. More than two-thirds of all consumer buying behaviour is influenced

by word-of-mouth advertising.^55 People look for others they can relate and aspire to. Traditionally, media figures,

celebrities, sports heroes, etc., play an important role in commercial communications. But recently, consumers

seem to relate more to ‘ordinary’ people than to celebrities. This is the origin of buzz marketing. The essence of buzz

marketing is the fact that the spontaneous networks that make up our society constitute the most effective way to

meaningfully reach people and influence consumers. Buzz marketing is aimed at spreading the message through

the personal network of consumers. It is ‘organised word of mouth’. Buzz marketing works on the basis of the prin-

ciple ‘give them something to talk about’. It works on the basis of individuals who like to receive messages and like

to spread the word. What do people want to talk about? Here are the six magic buttons of buzz marketing: Play with

taboos: intimacies, sex... ; talk about the extraordinary; look for the unusual, but keep the link with the brand; give

people something to laugh about that makes them enjoy and talk about it to others; bring a story with a special

angle; keep it ‘secret’, people like to talk about secrets. Buzz is not something that just happens to companies, it can

be organised. A typical example of buzz marketing is blogging (weblogging): individuals who give their opinion in

real time on Internet diaries.

Stealth advertising

Stealth advertising is a marketing activity in which the commercial content is hidden. For instance, people are paid

to go to trendy bars and to promote a new drink by offering it to other visitors, without saying that they work for

the company that launched it. For instance, Sony Ericsson, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble have used this tech-

nique in the past to support the launch of a new product, to improve their image, or to build a stronger connection

with their customers (see Chapter 16 on ethical issues for more details).

Audiences and markets tend to become more and more fragmented, making mass media

less eff ective and increasing the need for more specialised and fragmented media. Com-

mun ications tend to become customised for narrower and narrower markets, and customer

contact is established by means of multimedia methods. Th ere is an increasing reliance on

highly targeted communications methods, such as database techniques and boutique channel

(highly targeted TV channel) advertising.^56 IMC are about co-ordinating multiple and diverse

tools targeted at multiple and diverse audiences.^57

Most markets in well-developed countries are mature. Th is means that a lot of products

and brands are of similar quality. Low levels of brand diff erentiation increase the need to

make the diff erence by means of communications. Th erefore, some argue ‘that the basic

reason for [the increased attention for] integrated marketing communications is that

marketing communications will be the only sustainable competitive advantage of marketing

organisations in the 1990s and into the twenty-fi rst century’.^58

Mainly as a result of technological evolutions and innovations, new marketing and

marketing communications tools are becoming available. Scanning and database technology

allow more in-depth knowledge of the consumer and, especially, a more personalised and

direct approach to the consumer. Interactive media, such as the Internet, have contributed to

a situation in which the relationship between the sender and the receiver of messages is less

unidirectional. Social media and mobile applications have profoundly changed the way

companies communicate with their stakeholders. Direct marketing and direct response

communications also lead to a situation in which communications become more and more

receiver-directed.^59 Together with increased communications literacy on the part of the con-

sumer, this leads to a market situation in which much of the power is at the receiving end, i.e.

the receiving consumer decides what he or she will be exposed to and how he or she will react

to it. Indeed, the marketing situation has gradually shift ed from a situation in which all the

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