The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing [Paperback]

Emanuel Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 16, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0385496680 | ISBN-13: 978-0385496681 | Edition: 1

The first guide to creating the word-of-mouth magic that breaks through the skepticism and information overload of today's consumers, and drive sales--and profits--to new heights.

As Newsweek recently proclaimed, "Buzz greases the great conveyor belt of culture and commerce, moving everything from movies to fashions of the body and mind faster and faster."

Now available in paperback, The Anatomy of Buzz, written by former marketing VP Emanuel Rosen, pinpoints the products and services that benefit the most from buzz and offers specific strategies for creating and sustaining effective word-of-mouth strategies. Drawing on interviews with more than 150 marketing executives who have successfully built buzz for major brands, Rosen describes the ins-and-outs of attracting the attention of influential first-users and "bigmouth" movers-and-shakers, and discusses proven techniques for stimulating customer-to-customer selling–including how companies can spread the word to new territories by taking advantage of customer hubs and networks on the Internet and elsewhere.

Recent surveys show that 74 percent of young people rely to some extent on others when selecting a car, that 56 percent of moviegoers follow the recommendations of friends, and that 65 percent of the people who bought a Palm Pilot were inspired by the enthusiasm of others. With The Anatomy of Buzz, business leaders have what they need to reignite excitement about an existing product or service or turbocharge the launch of a new product.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Palm Pilot. The novel Cold Mountain. The iMac. Hotmail. FedEx. The Blair Witch Project and There's Something About Mary. According to former marketing exec Emanuel Rosen, they all became successful not through traditional advertising or marketing routes, but through "buzz," that semitangible process through which information and commentary jump from one brain or mouth to another. Rosen also ascribes buzz to creating customer loyalty, which he says is built through the advice of friends, colleagues, or such trusted "mega-hubs" of information as Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell. Rosen has spent the past few years studying the routes, nodes, and clusters through which buzz passes and grows, and the result is this well-researched book. While it doesn't throw much new light on the mechanics of buzz, it is at least instructive and entertaining, offering minisagas of the successful buzz behind such marketing triumphs as the dELia's catalog for teenage girls, PowerBars, and the BMW Z3 roadster. Buzz seekers, be warned, however: with the exception of a short chapter at the end of the book called "Buzz Workshop," you won't find much of a blueprint for starting the gears of buzz for your product or service. What you do get is a trove of real-life stories that, if they don't inspire and guide you toward taking your first buzz-creating baby steps, probably mean you're the type of person who should stick with conventional advertising and PR. --Timothy Murphy --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Often generated within the hive of the Internet, "buzz" has become essential to a product's success in today's fast-paced business environment. As Rosen (a former marketing executive for Niles Software) explains, in pre-Internet days a new product would appear in stores; consumers would buy it or not; and the company would then take however long it wished to evaluate the launch. Today, however, consumers immediately voice their viewsAon message boards, review sites, company sites, complaint sites, via e-mail or on their own Web siteAand so have a strong and immediate influence on whether a launch succeeds. Covering the same territory as Seth Godin in Unleashing the Ideavirus (E-Publishing, Aug. 7), Rosen draws on his own experience with Niles Software's EndNoteAa computer program that converts bibliographic annotations from one form to anotherAto offer an overview of the mechanics of buzz. Topics range from how to seed the market at the grassroots to how to tantalize with scarcity and mystery, to how to accelerate natural contagion. The concluding "buzz workshop," complete with checklists and sidebars, is the most helpful, but marketers and inventors looking for concrete ideas may be disappointed by its brevity. Agent, Daniel Greenberg. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 303 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1 edition (April 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385496680
• ISBN-13: 978-0385496681
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Prior to writing my books about buzz, I was VP Marketing at Niles Software in Berkeley, California. There I was responsible for marketing EndNote, which spread to a large extent by word-of-mouth. This got me interested in buzz (and how it can be accelerated).

I started my marketing career as a copywriter in Israel. For my work in advertising, I won the Bronze Lion from the Cannes International Advertising Festival, as well as several national awards. I hold an MBA from the University of San Francisco and I live with my family in Menlo Park, California.

http://www.facebook.com/AnatomyOfBuzz

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Beef? November 6, 2000

By Randal Burgess

Format:Hardcover

I bought this book rather quickly after hearing about the author and the subject matter from Inc. Magazine. While the book is a fast read, is well-structured, and covers the topic of word-of-mouth marketing as advertised, I did not walk away with a sense that I had learned a tremendous amount from it. Most companies and their marketing efforts have used the tactics that Rosen talks about. I also judge books by how many notes I write down that give myself ideas and plans for my own business, and I had very few to speak of.

Rosen seems to have used quite a bit of reference material and put a lot of effort into this book, so I don't want to seem as though I am slamming him, but he seems to have "dumbed down" his presentation for the masses. I would have liked to have seen more stats and research results presented rather than a case study on yo-yos. The "beef" of the subject matter, namely "buzz," did not seem to be included between the covers of the book.

This is still a good book for a budding product marketer, but I'd wait for the paperback version.

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars This was a waste of my time January 1, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I really didn't like this book. I've read The Tipping Point, and Crossing the Chasm (and other Moore books), all the books by Ries and Trout books, and numerous other marketing/publicity articles and publications. This "Buzz" book didn't offer new thinking. And the "how" to create buzz that other readers liked, well, I found it trite. Many of the examples used by the author are either overdone, been done before, or simply not very interesting. There were a few parts of the book that were reasonable, but all in all, it was a waste of my time and money. Normally I wouldn't even bother spending one more minute with this book by posting a review, but I am hoping that I'll save some other reader from it. Blech.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bustling Buzzers Busily Boost Business October 25, 2000

By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is the first book I recall that looks at the word-of-mouth phenomenon as a management activity for modern marketing. While Edward Bernays often recounted fascinating tales of how public relations helped move products by setting fashion, he never focused on the face-to-face aspects of how new ideas spread. Robert Cialdini has done remarkable work on describing how influence is created, but does not squarely focus on the word-of-mouth aspects of that influence.

Mr. Rosen has done a sound job of providing a number of interesting, behind-the-scenes examples as well as a context for thinking about word-of-mouth marketing. (I actually ended up trying some products describe here that I probably wouldn't have otherwise, such as the novel, Cold Mountain). The book's main weakness is that it focuses on word-of-mouth about products rather the broader question of how word-of-mouth creates opinions in all areas of society.

Mr. Rosen defines buzz as "the sum of all comments about a certain product that are exchanged among people at any given time." Naturally, you can have either good buzz ("It's great!) or bad buzz ("Avoid at all costs.").

It is easy to us to underestimate the power of these comments before we consider our own experiences. For example, if audiences hate a new movie, the word soon gets out and ticket sales plunge. You have probably seen people waiting in line to buy tickets asking those leaving a theater how the movie was. Here you have an example of perfect strangers advising each other and making purchase decisions based on these interactions. Naturally, this occurs much more frequently with authority figures (like Oprah for books) and people we know well (our family, friends and neighbors). For example, I always ask my older son before seeing any movie. He will have already seen the movie and knows my tastes. I will always have a good experience if I follow his guidance.

The examples in the book formed the core of the interest for me. The concepts in the book were familiar to me from my days as an executive in the alcoholic beverage industry. Because of significant limitations on selling liquor with advertising, new brands are built almost totally through buzz aided by bar parties and other activities. I was surprised that there were no substantial stories from liquor or cigarettes (remember the cartoon of Joe Camel?), both of which depend heavily on creating buzz.

In addition to learning more about how buzz works, this book also offers guidance on how to encourage and accelerate that buzz.

The book is divided into three parts: The first looks at how buzz spreads (a small percentage of all the people do all of the connecting together of information networks); the second examines what makes for success with buzz (having things people want to talk about and encouraging that talking); and the third details how to stimulate buzz for your business (this is summarized in a workshop for you in chapter 16).

Publishers, book authors, music companies, companies that provide breakthrough technology (the Palm Pilot), and people who make exciting consumer goods (like the BMW) will get the most benefit from this book. The examples and lessons best apply in those markets. People with limited marketing budgets should consider the book also to help organize the questions to ask oneself for stimulating interest in a product.

I also suggest that you read up on Edward Bernays, Robert Cialdini (Influence), and Ernest Dichter. A recent book, Networlding, is a very helpful complement to this book in describing how to create more effective and meaningful relations with others to transfer information and assistance.

After you have finished reading this book, I suggest that you step back and consider how you could improve the value of what you make for your customers and potential customers, reprice it to make it more accessible, and reduce your costs so that you have more resources to share with your customers and other stakeholders. In that way, you will have something better to buzz about!

Provide great products first!