• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Marketing Tactics vs Marketing Strategy
  • Advertising and the Major Sale
  • Niche Marketing

Beyond Niche Marketing

When you focus upon a unique target market, you improve performance while reducing costs.

  • About the Author
    • About the Book
      • Beyond the Niche
  • Niche Marketing
    • How to Identify Your Niche Market

Hidden Secret to Buzz Marketing and Free PR: Offend Someone

July 25, 2008 by Kathryn Hendershot 3 Comments

Looking for a way to build a buzz marketing campaign and get a lot of free PR – be offensive. The secret to creating a buzz marketing campaign that generates BOATLOADS of free PR is to really p*ss in someone’s Cheerios.

If you’re like most advertisers, you’ve been wasting your time being “nice” and trying to get everyone to like you. You’ve been wasting your time trying to talk about your product’s features and benefits. That kind of advertising is for LOSERS who have something to say. You, your goal is to build a brand. You want to be edgy and cool.

Remember, there’s no such thing as BAD PUBLICITY and the BEST PUBLICITY is FREE!

One sure fire way to gain such publicity is to be as raunchy and offensive as possible.   If you don’t believe me, watch how CBS Radio promotes Don Imus.   When the ratings service Arbitron starts sending out their diaries, Don Imus starts making racists cracks.  If you don’t think that is an orchestrated way to get free PR and increase his ratings – well, I’ve got this great bridge in Brooklyn that’s for sale.

Empty talk about the solutions your business offers is  no way to generate BUZZ Marketing!   Creating BUZZ,  going viral, now that is COOL! You want your brand edgy and raw so that the bloggers will blog about it.  Cool is all about breaking the rules and doing it “your” way.  THAT’S the way the cool kids do it!

Creating great BUZZ MARKETING isn’t accomplished with soft talk about the things that really matter to prospective customers. Treating your prospective customers with respect well, that too  is for suckers.  After all, if you treat your prospective customers with respect when you’re inviting them to do business with you via your advertising,  they may come to expect respect AFTER the sale as well.  We wouldn’t want to get started going down THAT path now would we?

The path to creating a successful BUZZ MARKETING campaign is paved
with p*ssed off bloggers spreading the word about
your offensive campaign.

As is the case with all effective advertising campaigns, begin by choosing a tightly targeted audience.

If you choose  your audiencecorrectly and successfully target a nice sensitive “soft spot,” the reaction will be almost instantaneous. Like a match put to a pile of wadded up newspapers, your target audience will respond loudly and clearly to voice their displeasure, creating the BUZZ you so richly desire.

Remember, you wanted to be edgy and cool. This is how it’s done.

For example, take a recent print ad by BMW – Muse Communications began by giving press to the ad in her blog post Wanted: second-hand woman for sheer driving pleasure. The ad is so offensive to women that it’s hard to imagine it making it’s way into print without anyone along the way taking notice. No, this was a deliberate and willful act of trying to commit BUZZ MARKETING. Obviously, BMW wants to be a cool kid now.

Yvonne over at Lipstick Marketing picked up the baton and gave her take with her post BMW – No Woman’s Answer to Transportation: Please Leave the Dealership.

Ask Patty has also joined the chorus with BMW’s “Shameful” Greek Used Car Ad” and she references Andrea’s post on the Learned on Women blog who accurately describes the BMW Ad Campaign as “sleazy” and “lazy”.  (Good Call!)

It’s important to note that the ad, were it not so patently offensive, would get absolutely no attention from consumers and would be quickly (and easily) forgotten.  It wouldn’t be long before the campaign  would have abandoned for lack of interest and lack of results.  The sleazy execs who created it could toss their well used and stuck together pages into the waste bin and try, try again.

Which brings me to an important point when it comes to Buzz Marketing.  Remember when I described the reaction to the advertising campaign as being like putting a match to a pile of wadded up newspapers?  Well, that’s roughly the lifespan of this type of offensive buzz marketing.   Once the pages of GQ, Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated and Toupee Weekly are effectively glued together with BMW’s targeted audience’s “applause”, the buzz will die quickly.  Few if any cars will be sold as a result and BMW will have to step up its offensive factor a notch to get the next ad noticed at all.

“Here today, gone tomorrow” is a great way to characterize such offensive buzz marketing campaigns.   However, short sighted executives are usually pleased with such efforts simply because they’re getting tons of free PR and they honestly believe there’s no such thing as bad PR.

Filed Under: Beyond Marketing Tagged With: Advertising 2.0, advertising strategy, BMW Offensive Ad, building buzz, buzz words, free PR

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Alex says

    April 28, 2009 at 9:20 am

    […] the visual and if you’re a man, have a Kleenex ready.) The print ad is an obvious attempt at generating free PR for BMW. It’s got to be. There’s no redeeming value to the ad […]

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Sex Sells - But You Already Knew That : Virtual Impax says:
    July 25, 2008 at 7:22 am

    […] the visual and if you’re a man, have a Kleenex ready.) The print ad is an obvious attempt at generating free PR for BMW. It’s got to be. There’s no redeeming value to the ad […]

    Reply
  2. They Call Her Princess Chunk | Beyond Niche Marketing says:
    July 31, 2008 at 7:46 am

    […] Chunk is getting the kind of free PR most business owners are dying to achieve. In addition to traditional media outlets, Web 2.0 is […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

More to See

Branding as a bonding experience

How strongly are your customers bonded to your business?

September 14, 2006 By Kathryn Hendershot

Way Beyond Boring: Advertising as fashion

September 13, 2006 By Kathryn Hendershot

Tags

Advertising Advertising 2.0 advertising and marketing for small business owners advertising and the web Advertising Effectiveness Affordable Small Business Marketing Strategies Beyond Marketing blog blogging and branding branding branding and entrepreneurs building trust business building business marketing strategies business owner creating a product for a niche audience customer's reasons for buying Customer Service free PR major sale marketing campaign marketing magic marketing messages marketing plan marketing strategy niche market Niche Marketing niche marketing for small businesses niche marketing strategy niche marketing wisdom PR small business small business advertising small business advertising solution small business marketing small business marketing consultant Small Business Marketing Strategies Small Business Marketing Success Online social marketing target audience the long term value of a customer transparency viral marketing viral video word of mouth advertising

Footer

Text Widget

This is an example of a text widget which can be used to describe a particular service. You can also use other widgets in this location.

Examples of widgets that can be placed here in the footer are a calendar, latest tweets, recent comments, recent posts, search form, tag cloud or more.

Sample Link.

Recent

  • Finding Your Niche Market
  • Marketing is more than you think
  • Features vs Benefits
  • Why you need a niche marketing strategy for your business
  • Niche Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

Search

Tags

Advertising Advertising 2.0 advertising and marketing for small business owners advertising and the web Advertising Effectiveness Affordable Small Business Marketing Strategies Beyond Marketing blog blogging and branding branding branding and entrepreneurs building trust business building business marketing strategies business owner creating a product for a niche audience customer's reasons for buying Customer Service free PR major sale marketing campaign marketing magic marketing messages marketing plan marketing strategy niche market Niche Marketing niche marketing for small businesses niche marketing strategy niche marketing wisdom PR small business small business advertising small business advertising solution small business marketing small business marketing consultant Small Business Marketing Strategies Small Business Marketing Success Online social marketing target audience the long term value of a customer transparency viral marketing viral video word of mouth advertising

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in