Marketing Insights

"The average American sees three thousand ads a day."
— Professor Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

"Buzz and the right publicist are not only important but critical in show business."
— Halston, American designer

Reflecting on the two quotes above, buzzmarketing has moved beyond important to become critical to reaching today's media-saturated consumers.

You can learn all about the power of buzzmarketing and how to do it by attending this year's ACTON Marketing symposium on April 8-10 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Our keynote speaker is Mark Hughes, CEO of Buzzmarketing and the author of the tell-all book, Buzzmarketing: Getting People to Talk About Your Stuff.

This month we continue our presentation of Hughes' Chapter Three, "The First Secret – Push the Six Buttons of Buzz," which are covered under the following subhead:

"Push the Six Buttons of Buzz to Start a Conversation"

Hughes writes, "Creating buzz sounds very tough. But it can be easy if you know which buttons to push.

"Time and again, these six things push people's buttons and start conversations:

"THE SIX BUTTONS OF BUZZ

"The taboo (sex, lies, bathroom humor)

"The unusual

"The outrageous

"The hilarious

"The remarkable

"The secrets (both kept and revealed).

"Push any one of the buzz buttons, and you'll give people the currency to start a conversation.

"Maxim 1: Push the Taboo Button to Start Conversations

"Even Procter & Gamble stumbled upon taboo many years ago with Mr. Whipple and his admonishment, 'Don't squeeze the Charmin!'

"Whipple told America it wasn't allowed in the store...we couldn't squeeze the Charmin. And the Mr. Whipple campaign was the most successful campaign in the brand's history. Time after time, a Procter & Gamble ad agency would try to kill off Whipple and replace him with a new campaign – only to return to Whipple, because sales were higher with Whipple.

"Whipple succeeded because he tapped into our taboo. When we arrived at the supermarket aisle for bathroom tissue – what did we do? Squeeze the darn Charmin, of course! Why? Because we knew we weren't supposed to do it – it was taboo.

"Why did our urinal screens work for Half.com ('The Third Secret,' detailed in chapter 10)? First, because it suggested a contextual message that was creative (Don't piss away half your money...head to Half.com). But second, because it was bathroom humor.

"Bathroom humor is taboo – and we talk about the taboo. If you're ever at a dinner party with parents of babies or toddlers, give yourself thirty minutes before somebody starts talking about doo-doo and diapers. Of course, you're not supposed to talk about those things at a dinner party – they're taboo.

"Or Viagra – can you imagine your parents or grandparents talking about bedroom performance except when alone in the bedroom?

"Got a boring product like shampoo? Introduce taboo. Herbal Essences did. Each commercial pictures a woman in the shower, orgasming in sheer delight as she washes her hair with Herbal Essences shampoo.

"Clairol turned a humdrum Herbal Essences 'organic' into an industry star with their vibrant commercials playing on the close wording of organic and orgasmic. Every time you see their commercial, you see playful (but taboo) images of women enjoying their shampoo...as much as an orgasm.

"Just think if GM's Hummer could get Hugh Grant in one of its commercials (unconsciously reminding us how he was caught by the police for, er, getting a hummer from a lady of the evening).

"Talk about taboo! That would get the whole world talking!

"Maxim 2: Push the Unusual Button to Start Conversations

"David Letterman's got the unusual buzz button nailed with his 'Stupid Human Tricks' and his 'Top Ten' lists. For marketers, look as far as Pepsi's decision to put a competing product, Coke, in the Pepsi Challenge commercials (revolutionary in its day, and still not done much today). Unusual marketing makes its way into pop culture and gives people currency.

"In a very different kind of business, a man named Ian Klein decided to go into the online dating business five years ago. But when you're competing against Match.com, things get pretty competitive. His sister was one of the 64 percent of overweight Americans, and also one of the eighty million single people in America. In time, he made the connection, pushed an unusual button, and created a niche site called OverweightDate.com. Among overweight singles, the whispers started: at Weight Watchers meetings, at bars, everywhere.

"Best of all, the idea worked. People who had been shelling out $40 a month on Match.com and getting zero dates because of their weight were now getting dates left and right. These days when founder Ian Klein walks through the mall in the Boston area where the site is based, people stop him to ask about it. If he'd put on a T-shirt with the OverweightDate.com name, he'd get stopped even more.

"Will he resort to having fliers slipped to people eating at In-N-Out Burger locations in California? You bet. They're handed to everyone – overweight people, athletic people, skinny people. People laugh, they actually read the flier, and most important of all – they talk. It becomes an unusual conversation piece.

"With marketing held to word-of-mouth, fliers at In-N-Out burgers, some keyword buys online, and a few T-shirts, OverweightDate.com's registered use count tallies in the millions. Push the unusual button.

"Maxim 3: Push the Outrageous Button to Start Conversations

"You can't get more outrageous than asking a town to rename itself. Still, the town went for it.

"But a word to the wise when you push this button. Outrageousness for the sake of pure outrageousness doesn't resonate too well.

"If you try to get attention by shooting gerbils out of a cannon (as Beyond.com did), that's certainly outrageous. But if you push this button just for the sake of being outrageous, it will probably work – giving people something to talk about. But what's the connection to your brand or product?

"There needs to be some connection. In renaming our town, the half connection was obvious to everyone – and plenty of people found it outrageous. What you'll find with an idea that's too outrageous is that people might remember the ad but not the advertiser – unless there is a connection. (The gerbils probably didn't do much for Beyond.com, even if people remembered and talked about the ad.)

"Here's the difference. A hypothetical situation: a porn star in the GM Hummer commercial? Outrageous? Yes. Any connection? No. So – a bad decision.

"Now let's put Hugh Grant in a GM Hummer commercial. Outrageous? Yes (and taboo). Is there a connection? Yes. A good decision? Debatable.

"The point is: The outrageous button will work. It just works ten times better if there's a connection between your product and the outrageousness.

"Maxim 4: Push the Hilarious Button to Start Conversations

"The hilarious button works, but it may be one of the harder buttons to push – being truly funny is never easy. It can work to your advantage if done right, and to your disadvantage if you're on the wrong end of it.

"A client of ours, the food and household products company Reckitt Benckiser (they sell nine million household and personal care products every day) came to us with one of its tougher challenges. The brand was French's Potato Sticks, and it was a classic case of milking the profits with not much marketing spend.

"As a test, they asked what we could do. The budget wasn't huge, and we weren't sure if we would even accept the project, but off I went to the grocery store for three hours one night to make my decision.

"The baseline situation was awful. French's Potato Sticks used to be sold in a can but the company had recently started putting it in a stand-up pouch. It reduced the visibility of the product, but the cost savings of switching to a pouch were too attractive to pass up.

"The positioning in the grocery aisle was awful, too. Right next to Pringles, but low down on the shelf. Hard to see, hard to find, more competitors from the Doritos family arriving. A recipe for disaster, but it was a small cash cow.

"I lurked in the aisle and asked everyone who walked by if they knew about Potato Sticks (making clear I was a marketing and PR person, not a wacko). Nearly every person paused, squinted, and seemed to reach into the recesses of their brain and said, 'Yeah, I used to have them as a kid.' Bingo.

"It wasn't so bad after all. All it took was a prompt...a conversation...and people remembered.

"The next day we called to take on the project. I didn't know what we were going to do, but I knew if we could spark some word-of-mouth conversation, it would be easy to recall a brand people knew when they were kids. We later presented a two-week intensive campaign that focused on nostalgia and comedy.

"We would literally bring Potato Sticks to life – with comedians. We recruited amateur comedians and gave them the exposure and the prayer (long shot) of getting on The Ellen DeGeneres Show or The Tonight Show.

"Each day, we would have three comedians show up in Potato Sticks costumes that looked like your eight-year-old made them. Talk about rough around the edges, these were made from U-Haul cardboard boxes and spray paint. When passersby saw these people in costumes, they couldn't help but stop, approach, laugh, and ask, 'What the heck...?'

"Purposefully, we designed the costumes to look homemade rather than corporate. The costume begged inquiry. They were our conversation openers. But once you start a conversation, you've got to continue it, make people laugh (in this case) and give them a ready-made story to take away with them and talk to other people about.

"The comedians had no problem making people laugh – office workers, cabbies, teenagers, tourists, gays, straights, hot chicks, metrosexuals, old ladies, cops, and suits...they all stopped, listened, and laughed. Along with a product sample to eat, the punch line was, 'Potato Sticks...they're back!'

"Combined with two weeks of appearances all over Boston, and a Web site with riddles to guess the next Boston location, these comedians gave out twelve thousand packages of Potato Sticks.

"Since this was a test, Reckitt Benckiser wanted to measure awareness results as well as sales. They spent $15,000 on the awareness study, and to be honest, we were nervous about the results of the study even though we were confident the plan would work.

"We were pushing the hilarious button, it was planned extremely carefully and deliberately, with locations chosen to cross-pollinate throughout the Boston metro area.

"Before our campaign, unaided awareness of French's Potato Sticks tallied a mere 10 percent. With three comedians and twelve thousand packs of Potato Sticks – unaided awareness in the Boston metro area more than doubled from 10 percent to 21 percent.

"If you know anything about awareness statistics, they are like glaciers. It takes eons to move them. What we had done was start conversations and make connections. We pushed the hilarious button to do it.

"Humor isn't easy, but when it works, it works well. We weren't just getting exposure and impressions. We made people laugh. They took pictures of our comedians, and our comedians took pictures of them. The entire purpose was not to sell, but to give. Give people something to laugh about...and a ready-made story to talk about.

"Maxim 5: Push the Remarkable Button to Start Conversations

"How do you make auto parts worth talking about, among people who ordinarily wouldn't?

"When I ran marketing and advertising for Pep Boys, we looked at all the categories that moved the needle in our business and picked a few 'leader' categories to promote. One of these categories was brakes. Whether you're a do-it-yourselfer or prefer to have a mechanic fix your brakes, you need reliable brakes. Everybody does.

"So how do you create advertising about brakes that starts conversations and gets people remarking on brakes? First, we had a creative team at our ad agency, DDB, that produced a great commercial. It opened up with two guys driving back from a weekend in the mountains clad in plaid shirts. They're driving their Ford Explorer along a winding mountain road as country music plays on the radio. They pass a moose-crossing sign...then another sign labeled REALLY BIG ONES. Looking at each other bemused, they continue driving. They pass another moose crossing sign labeled NO KIDDING. They now look at each other confused, then immediately jam on the brakes – stopping just short of a huge moose, standing twelve inches in front of their vehicle. The moose calmly looks at the drivers...and begins to speak.

"'Hey, did you get them brakes at Pep Boys?' says the moose. The camera cuts to the two guys – shocked by the talking moose. The driver responds in bewilderment, 'Yeah...I did.' The unscathed moose then responds, 'I appreciate it,' followed by a closing promotion on brakes at an attractive price point.

"The commercial itself was very good and bordered on the type of marketing that people would talk about. But we needed a boost. So to enhance the word of mouth and get people remarking on it, we created an in-store campaign with the moose. Tapes of the moose commercial were sent to all the stores, and the employees loved it.

"We then had employees in every store wear a round button with a picture of the moose saying, 'Ask me about Raybestos brakes.' And guess what? When a customer sees a moose button on your shirt with an 'Ask me about...' they remark 'What's up with the moose?' It started conversations between customers and the sales associates.

"It also started a conversation among employees. They talked about the commercial, and they also talked about the new line of Raybestos brakes promoted on the button. So when customers asked about the brakes, employees knew the features and benefits and were prepared to make the sale.

"Based on the expected trend of sales from the prior year, brakes showed a double-digit net increase. The commercial itself was very good. But what pushed it over the edge was the in-store campaign causing employees and customers to talk about this crazy moose. We created a campaign that would push people's buttons and start conversations.

"Maxim 6: Push the Secrets Button to Start Conversations

"How many times has someone said to you, 'I'm not supposed to tell you this, but...'

"Secrets are currency. Revealing a secret is a definite conversation starter. People love to talk about secrets, and when they do, they become 'in the know.' They become part of an exclusive circle, and exclusivity is the cousin of secrecy.

"Sometimes withholding can work better than flooding. Limit supply and everybody's interested. Limit those in the know of a secret, those not in the know want the currency of knowing – they want to be part of the exclusive circle. Withholding a secret can push people's buzz buttons, and get people talking.

"While not intentional, Google's Gmail created secrecy and exclusivity in its Gmail account. At one point, people were paying $200 on eBay for an account (I admit I paid for one on eBay myself). But the crazy thing is...it's a lousy e-mail account (yes, it does have one gig of storage...perhaps enough for twenty years of one person's e-mail archives). But you can get e-mail accounts anywhere.

"Although it's standard practice in the world of technology to create a very small list of beta test users, Gmail was kept a secret. It became exclusive to have an address like Joe@gmail.com. Limit supply, create exclusivity, know the secret, and more people want to know also. They get interested in what they can't readily have, and people talk. Shhh...push the secret button.

"Who's Got Marketing Power?

"Do brands with big budgets have marketing power? Maybe.

"The brands with real marketing power are the ones pushing the Six Buttons of Buzz – and letting word of mouth proliferate exponentially. When consumers start talking, they begin marketing your brand for you.

"Word-of-mouth marketing works well because of attention. When people talk to each other, they've got undivided, face-to-face attention – something conventional advertising rarely achieves. Word-of-mouth marketing also succeeds because of credibility. When an advertisement tells us to buy a product, we know it to be biased; we know it to be advocacy. When our friends and family members tell us about a great product, we believe them.

"Big brands and small start-ups using word-of-mouth marketing achieve three to ten times higher sales than traditional marketing. George Lois, who put Tommy Hilfiger on the map, puts it at the top end of that range, claiming a ten-times impact when you create buzz.

"But remember, word-of-mouth marketing ain't easy. You've got to create a story...ready-made for watercooler conversation. It's got to be entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy. You've got to give 'em something to talk about. Connections count, impressions don't.

"When people begin talking about your brand, you'll break away from the pack in no time. Push people's buttons – the Six Buttons of Buzz."

If you haven't already acquired Hughes' book, Buzzmarketing: Getting People to Talk About Your Stuff, you can buy it new, in hardcover for $16.29 at amazon.com. Used copies are also available.

Reading it before the symposium is an excellent way to get more out of Mark Hughes' keynote presentation at the ACTON Marketing symposium in Charleston on April 8.

Mr. Whipple Creates Buzz by Squeezing the Charmin

A number of the famous Charmin bathroom tissue commercials featuring Mr. Whipple can be viewed at youtube.com. On the home page simply search on the keywords "Mr. Whipple and Charmin."

Mr. Whipple is so famous that a faux photo of him squeezing Charmin appears on the cover of master copywriter Luke Wilson's 1998 book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. This entertaining and informative book is available on amazon.com in paperback for $17.95. A number of used copies are available at lesser cost.

Wilson devotes the first four pages of his book to the memorable Charmin campaign. According to Wilson, 504 different Charmin commercials aired on TV from 1964 through 1990. The campaign created buzz for over 26 years.