Product Description

As VP of marketing at online retailer Half.com, Mark Hughes didn’t have a huge budget for advertising. Yet he helped drive the number of Half.com users from zero to eight million in just three years. His secret? Making the company a magnet for media attention and word-of-mouth, by any means necessary. Most notoriously, he persuaded the town of Halfway, Oregon, to rename itself Half.com—called "one of the greatest publicity coups" in history by Time.

In this breakthrough book, Hughes offers a practical guide to the art of successful buzz marketing—which many people talk about these days but few truly understand. He draws on real-world examples of companies that got people to talk about their stuff— from Miller Lite during the "Tastes Great—Less Filling" era, to American Idol’s stunning use of buzz to become a global phenomenon, to current companies that find creative ways to break through the ad-glutted marketplace.

Buzzmarketing explores the six secrets of great word-of-mouth campaigns and shows how any company can thrive by pursuing a buzz-driven strategy rather than just hoping for a lucky break. Readers who have enjoyed books like The Tipping Point and Purple Cow will find Buzzmarketing to be the ideal guide to applying buzz to their real-world business needs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #368397 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781591840923
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Remember Half.com? Back in the days of the dotcom boom, the discount retail Web site drew headlines when it persuaded the town of Halfway, Ore., to change its name to Half.com for a year. The stunt helped the company gain millions of customers and position itself to be bought out by eBay for a handsome premium. Hughes, the brain behind Half.com's marketing ploy, extols the virtues of "buzz marketing," his name for the idea that companies can dramatically boost sales by attracting publicity and fueling widespread word-of-mouth. In this book, Hughes lays out the "principles" of buzz marketing, offering a list of dos and don'ts, plus numerous examples of businesses that outshined competitors by creating buzz. Anyone familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point will grasp the logic underlying some of Hughes's ideas. He advocates getting the attention of people who can spread the gospel about your product. This approach, he says, is not only more effective than traditional advertising, but far cheaper. Hughes's tales of companies that successfully harnessed buzz are the strongest part of the book, covering businesses as diverse as Pepsi, Ben and Jerry's and Rit Dye, which revived itself by sparking the tie-dye craze in the 1960s. How valuable readers find some of his other case studies will depend on whether they agree that Britney Spears and American Idol represent "great products" marketed shrewdly. Hughes, who worked for PepsiCo and Pep Boys before joining Half.com, now runs a consulting firm that teaches companies about buzz marketing, which no doubt explains why his writing sometimes seems as subtle as a PowerPoint presentation and as gung-ho as an infomercial. Still, Hughes's ideas are provocative and should interest business professionals frustrated with same-again advertising campaigns.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
A business book that’s entertaining and useful for big brands and start- ups alike. -- Steve Forbes, Editor in Chief, Forbes

There’s fake corporate marketing and then there’s real marketing. This is the real stuff for real people. -- Ben Cohen, cofounder, Ben and Jerry’s

Review
There’s fake corporate marketing and then there’s real marketing. This is the real stuff for real people. (Ben Cohen, cofounder, Ben and Jerry’s) A business book that’s entertaining and useful for big brands and start- ups alike. (Steve Forbes, Editor in Chief, Forbes)

Customer Reviews

How to Get People Talking and Buying
This book offers a practical guide to the art of creating buzz.

The author, Mark Hughes, was a vice president of marketing at online retailer Half.com. Using a small advertising budget he drove his company's number of users from zero to 8 million in three years. His secret: he transformed the company into a magnet to media attention. He accomplished this coup by persuading the town of Halfway, Ore. to rename itself [...]

According to the author there are six buttons to creating great word-of-mouth campaigns:

1. The taboo - sex, lies, and bathroom humor.
2. The unusual.
3. The outrageous.
4. The hilarious
5. The remarkable.
6. The secret - both the revealed and unrevealed.

Understanding that, the author says, there are six steps to creating a campaign:

1. Push the right button.
2. Capture the media.
3. Advertise for attention.
4. Climb the mountain.
5. Discover creativity.
6. Police your product.

If your company has millions of dollars to spend on advertising, this book will be of little use. However, if money is tight and everything to lose, time spent studying this well-written book could place you and your product in the forefront of your target buyer's mind.

Press Agentry in the 21st Century
What Mark Hughes calls "Buzz Marketing"- getting people to talk about your product- has been with us since people slipped the Town Crier a few extra quid to mention their nostrums in his mightly rounds. Call it flacking, press agentry or what have you, it's the art of getting people to do your advertising for you by creating a story that keeps your product in the public eye.

What Hughes has done in "Buzzmarketing" is to collect a number of stories about how various marketers, including himelf, have used ways other than direct advertising to get people talking about their products. It's not a manual of how to create a buzz, but rather just a selection of interesting stories about how other did it. Creative types will no doubt find inspiration here, but those looking for a how-to guide will be disappointed. An interesting read for anyone curious about marketing.

Excellent Book
This is an excellent book. If you want your marketing to truly grow, check it out. No matter what size your business is or how varied your market.

As the author points out in the introduction, the goal is to out-think instead of out-spend. Unfortunately, that has become just another buzzword for most companies. Kinda like "world class" has become -- nearly meaningless. Not so with this book. It really has some thought provoking approaches.

Many of us know little facts that the book points out, like the fact that word of mouth is ten time more effective than TV or print advertising. I don't want to give too much away (read the book!), but it is not buzzmarketing if people don't want to talk about it.

There were so many points that I agreed with the author. I kept nodding my head and wishing other marketers would have a clue. Like the author says "most people simply don't pay attention to advertising". How true.

I rarely mark in my books, at least since college, but this one got many notations in the side columns. One of the little secrets (well, it seems to be a secret) is that companies that treat their employees well often get much better buzzmarketing from their employees and their products sell better.

The book is easy to read and presents new information effortlessly. It passed a couple of my quick tests. One is whether I could finish it in a cross-country flight (yes). Another is whether I would WANT to finish it (yes). Another is whether I would recommend it to my friends (yes).

Even if you are not marketing your own wares or those of your company, this book will help you appreciate what really gets things going ... buzzmarketing.