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Transparency
As hard
as marketers have to tried to generate genuine products
through buzz and viral marketing efforts, they haven’t
had much luck, Bubuwit squeaks, “because so many of
these efforts are obviously manipulative and often have
little, if anything, to do with the values of the
product itself. People are not stupid. And they hate to
be fooled.”
When the
buzz activity is clever and everybody knows the rules of
the game, however, it can add a little zip and awareness
to the brand. It’s not as if buzzing is a new idea. But
many companies, according to Bubuwit, have conducted
buzz campaigns in which the perfect target consumer does
not understand the game or only sees the rules after he
has been suckered. This can sometimes work, but more
often backfires.
Without
transparency, attempts to create word-of-mouth are
fruitless. Over time, the consumer gets hips to them and
is able to easily spot the phony endorser. Bubuwit warns
that the press finds it less and less interesting as a
new take on marketing, and will gradually find more news
value in the negative results.
TIDBITS
The
Creative Guild of the Philippines’ Kidlat Awards, slated
from May 5 to 7, 2009, in Boracay, has named David Droga
of Droga5 as jury head for broadcast and print and
Stefan Sagmeister as jury head for design and
interactive.
The
print fight is on! Enter your print ads to the
first-ever Philippine Press Awards, the Tinta Awards,
organized by the United Print Media Group.
Liane
Vergara is the new president of Adformatix. Vergara has
deep and extensive experience in marketing
communications. Her strategic know-how was honed over 25
years work in leading local and multinational agencies.
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