Consumer-Generated Online Buzz

Essay by odetonewgrassCollege, UndergraduateA, February 2012

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Consumer-Generated Online Buzz

Before the internet became the mecca of communication mediums, businesses and marketers relied on conventional methods of advertising to reel in consumers. As competition rose, progressively innovative and clever techniques were required to make an effective campaign, and a lot of funding was put into the development of mass distributing the end product. Although the variety of options were there, people were seemingly more passive in taking in whatever was shown to them in billboards, magazines, television and radio commercials; whatever they were inevitably bound to come across with. Spreading imagery rather than impacting influence was the main goal, since using repetition and engraving familiarity of a product seemed the most effective tool in the production of sales. Of course, face to face interactions and other forms of communication eventually allowed for negative or positive feedback of a product, and therefore, word-of-mouth became a huge variable in deciding where the product would go.

Word-of-mouth advertising, classified as the transfer of product information from one consumer to another, commonly referred to as generating buzz, has become a most invaluable tool to marketers dealing with the ever-increasing rise of the internet phenomenon in our culture. The world wide web has enhanced the impact of numbers and the rate of the spread of information to a degree that has marketers scrambling to keep up with the trends of today's society. This might seem like a favorable change in the choices we are making as consumers, arguably with minimal outside influence; unfortunately, big corporations are catching on quickly, and have deciphered that these changes are also favorable to them, as it is a less costly approach to their advertising. Now, more than ever, the internet generates product feedback at lightning speed and statistically significant numbers, especially with the proliferation of...