Word of MouthSpace
What space do gymnasts, cheerleaders, Fall Out Boy fans and gay guys share? http://www.myspace.com/stickitmovie.According to Reuters,ﾃつ Jessica Bendinger, the director of Stick It aﾃつ movie the opened April 18th from Disney’s Touchstone Pictures devised a word of mouth marketing campaign through niche outlets and a MySpace page.
Disney promoted the movie in a two week flight of TV advertising using 10 and 15 second spots on syndicated shows such as "America’s Next Top Model." The actress, Vanessa Lengies, one of the stars in the movie asked Bendinger is she could set up a MySpace page for the movie. Vanessa set up the page but after several weeks Bendinger hired a freelancer to build traffic on the site.
Bendinger identified the target audience, gymnasts, Fall Out Boys fans, cheerleaders who were familiar with Bring it On (a cheerleader movie from 2000) and gay guys.They built the site to 6000 "friends".ﾃつ Then Disney took over the MySpace site and upgraded the design and features which added another 4000 "friends."
Bendinger definitely gets the effect of the 10,000 MySpace friends as she recognizes that 10,000 friends who have anywhere from 50-3,000 friends can sell a lot of tickets to a movie. But, Bendinger also had a few other buzz building tactics. She sought out a gymnastics writer to draft press releases for college magazines and newspapers highlightingﾃつ all the NCAA gymnasts who are in the movie.
She also worked with Disney to package the movie’s trailer andﾃつ the Missy Elliotﾃつ music video to the 30,000 International Gymnast’s subscribers. Their subscribers gymnastic are gyms clubs…..there are 3000 clubs in the US and each club represents hundreds of gymnasts and gymnasts-to-be who are all high potential ticket buyers.
As Wired noted MySpace is a community site that converts electronic word of mouth into the hottest market strategy since MTV. Of course, it would have been interesting to have seen the impact of a blog strategy and to have seen what would have developed on the Stick It My Space site had Disney not taken it over.
And, yes, of course, you can see a clip of Stick It on YouTube. In fact there are several.
Tags: YouTube, MySpace, WOM, CGM, Marketing, Media, gymnastics, NCAA, Disney, Touchstone, MTV, Direct Mail
More on Buzz and Beta
Justice for buzzwords? There is a special place reserved for them according to Rich Ottum at The eStrategyOne Buzz . At the top of the "recently condemned" list is the word, beta which is on the condemned list according to Buzzword Hell because it is frequently misused as an excuse for product shortcomings, bugs or for products that will never work.
Beta is also frequently used as part of new product marketing, to create buzz or word of mouth. I have written about this before, maybe it was a beta post for a discussion about how beta creates buzz, then achieves buzzword status only to find itself condemned to buzzword hell. Actually, in my opinion, buzzword hell is just part of the buzz lifecycle. Buzzwords go to the graveyard when the buzz is over. They can go to buzzword heaven or they can go to buzzword hell. And if the buzz was about an exceptional experience, then positive word of mouth will continue to build and sustain the product or service even if hearing the buzzword makes you cringe.
In a sense, the buzz of passionate, evangelistic users surrounding an exceptional new product is the beta stage of a well executed word of mouth marketing campaign. The Ajaxian discusses the importance of a good beta in the same terms as one might discuss the importance of a truly great product that meets/exceeds the needs of its target and captures the hearts and minds of those able and willing to spread the word as the foundation of a successful word of mouth marketing campaign.
There are many interesting discussions in the blogosphere about what is real buzz marketing as opposed to stealth marketing and what is "good" word of mouth marketing. There are many discussions about what makes a good beta. They are similar discussions. Think Web 2.0…it’s a beta, it’s got buzz, it makes us cringe, it lives and grows.
Technorati Tags:
beta, buzz, buzz marketing, customer experience
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