Hitch Your Wagon to a Star

If changing the language is one proven approach to attract attention, another is to speak your customer’s language. In 2000, BusinessWeek inked the term “buzz marketing” across the cover of one of its April issues. The magazine was rolling the curtain back on a new technique that smart companies were using to get the style-conscious excited about their product. The idea is to get the admired or influential to talk up your brand, to make it cool and desirable.

Vespa, a kitschy European scooter company, did this with great flair. The company sent out beautiful, lanky models in droves for a drive (on scooters) through the scene-setting streets of Los Angeles. But beauties on bikes weren’t enough to make an impression. To notch up the style quotient, the models would pull up to outdoor caf s in small groups, park out front, and sit down for a cup of latte and conversation about the scooters that got them there.

Eavesdroppers and gawkers in earshot of the chai-sipping Vespa models not only sucked up the vision but their conversation, too. Instantly they saw the European scooters in the same beautiful light as they saw its drivers. Vespa knows the power of influence and those who wield it, and in this case, influence lay not with the media, but with the people whom the media follows. Vespa knew how to pick a hot location, too. For a fraction of the cost of one TV ad, they had people in the most trend-setting neighborhoods clamoring for their scooters. Be on the lookout for them everywhere!

There is one important thing to remember, though: Even hypereffective word of mouth can’t save a bad product. In 1995, Twentieth Century Fox was about to unwrap its latest big flick, Nine Months, in theaters across the country to much expected fanfare. Ironically, given the movie’s parenthood subject, its salient British star, Hugh Grant, was caught canoodling—not with his superstar girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, but with a prostitute, just days before the launch! The “talk” swirled out of control. Papers in America and Great Britain slapped his deer-in-the-headlights look on front pages, and the rumor mill kicked into high gear.

The following week, Grant appeared on the Tonight show in a much-hyped appearance to talk about the allegations, his relationship with Elizabeth, his unfortunate judgment, and of course, the movie. But now here’s the clincher. What Twentieth Century Fox must have chalked up as a celestial stroke of great luck turned out to have zero effect on its bottom line. Because the movie was dull and uninteresting, even the biggest gossip scandal of the year couldn’t bump the numbers up.

Movie studios are often more successful than that at using word of mouth to give movies a second wind. In 2000 Warner Studios saw strangely low numbers for Proof of Life, starring Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Its box office ranking was a disappointment, given the star power of the movie. But with the advent of digital video discs, movies now have a double life after the big screen.

Before the movie went on sale in DVD format, the studio’s internal press people leaked a rumor that chemistry had bubbled over between Ryan and Crowe during the shooting. The rumor created huge curiosity on the part of movie fans who wanted to see if the onscreen twinkle in their eyes seemed real, spiking sales of the flick. Or, as we heard many people say, “I had no desire to see the movie on pay-per-view or video, but then again, I did have to wonder … hmm.” That’s all you have to do: Get them to wonder.