The Failsafe Way to Create Buzz for a New Product Launch

Reviving the Buzz: How Inflatables Drive Viral Marketing and Boost Sales

Buzz.  First introduced as a - well - "buzzword" in about 1998, it faded from the marketing vocabulary a few years later. However, with the explosion of Web 2.0 in recent years, the catchphrase is back in full force.  What better way to describe the phenomenon of everyone chattering about your new product than "buzz”?

As major corporations and small businesses are finding - in the age of blogs, social networking sites, and video-sharing communities - creating a viral campaign has enormous potential for buzz. In fact, it has become such a vital component for marketing a new product that even companies like Nielsen offer "buzz tracking" services.

In fact, in a recent article by Nielsen on this same topic, the company states, "After analyzing blog buzz volume, ad spending, purchase intentions, and actual product sales, Nielsen found the best predictor of buzz for newly launched consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) is a large advertising budget." Did you think buzz came naturally? No, my friend. You have to create buzz.

Creating Buzz that Boosts Sales

But how? What does it take to get people talking these days? How do you manage to pull off a new product launch with the full support of the public?  Product distinctiveness is a definite plus, but the medium for the buzz is also important.

For instance, creating something that can be talked about and blogged about as well as captured and shared on video and in photos is the perfect scenario. But, what delivers that type of viral punch? Inflatables, for one thing.

Inflatables Create In-Person, Verbal, Print and Digital Buzz

When marketing a new product, what would turn people's heads as they were walking by? A 20-foot tall washer/dryer pair just might do it. How about a 15-foot high wine bottle or a 25-foot tall bag of dishwasher detergent? All are distinctive enough to capture attention right on the spot. These people magnets work equally well on adults and kids, so you get a broad spectrum of age groups. What's more, inflatables attract the press like flies to honey.

Taking a picture of a crowd of people is one thing.  Publishing a picture of a crowd of people looking intently at a 10-foot tall shrimp wearing a hula skirt is another thing entirely!

But, the curiosity generation doesn't stop there. In addition to still photos, inflatables have a nifty habit of winding up on YouTube and other video-sharing websites. Video camera-toting individuals capture everything from Tweety Bird's rear end sticking out of a billboard in Times Square to an inflatable Hulk that appears at movie premieres. Do you hear the buzz getting louder?

Their color, size and sheer attention-grabbing capacity give any new product launch distinctiveness by association. Even if the product itself isn't something innovative or unique, marketing a new product using inflatables can lend some ingeniousness to the campaign as a whole.

Making plans now to create a little buzz for your next new product launch? Consider carefully. When you weigh the cost against the impact and the potential for buzz in its most desirable forms, inflatables get the job done every time.

By Stephanie Meacham © 2008, All Rights Reserved