Hidden Secret to Buzz Marketing and Free PR: Offend Someone

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.