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by ANGELO FERNANDO

Angelo Fernando is marketingcommunications director at ImperialCapital Bank, and a freelance writer

based in Tempe, Ariz., tJSA,covering business, marketing,

media and technology. He can bereached at angelo@swink.net.

YOU can tell that public relations is pullingahead of advertising as the architect of buzz.

How else to explain why Google and TiVo havebecome such well-known brands—and verbs—in such a short period of time? Companies areinvesting in "viral games" and "contextualmarketing" rather than primetime events. Soadding a few dollops of buzz as a PR tactic can'tpossibly hurt, even though some of it may bestealthy—there's a dark art called "astroturfing"that responsible PR pros won't touch—andexperimental. You know it's a different ballgamewhen sending a rubber duck to the "Live With Regisand Kelly" show creates more brand buzz forinsurance company AFLAC than a press conference!

Buzz, the modern variant of gossip, is acombination of marketing communication (whichis all about telling our commercial stories) andpublic relations (used to narrate particular anglesof a story) in a highly networked world. We'retalking about a world bypassing print media for itsfirst contact with news, where mobile phonecompanies handle more data traffic—essentiallytext messaging—than voice, and a world in whiche-mail-circulated stories and chat room postingstravel faster than a newsletter or a press release.Whether communicators agree with all of this ornot, a whole new set of communication tools hasquietly upstaged trusted old ones. You know:corporate video, the press briefing, the productlaunch, the employee handbook and the carefullystoryboarded TV commercial.

« Buzz, the modern variant of gossip,is a combination of marketing communication

(which is aii about telling our commercial stories)and public relations (used to narrate particular angles

of a story) in a highly networked world.»

The role of advertising is waning, points outLaura Ries, co-author of the 2002 book, "The Fallof Advertising and the Rise of PR." She citesAmazon, Starbucks and Krispy Kreme as examplesof companies that have leveraged PR to build theirbrands. "People do not necessarily believe, trustor even listen to advertising messages," she says.Agencies have been put on notice, and some havereinvented themselves.

CHANGING TECHNOLOGYAND ECONOMIC WORRIESTwo factors brought about this shift: a piece oftechnology and the struggling global economy. Thelittle black box, often referred to as a PVR (personalvideo recorder), introduced TV viewers to a newform of time shifting. Advertisers saw this as adangerous trend because viewers could "TiVo" aprogram—record it, skip past the commercials orstop a program in its tracks for a bathroom break.The other factor was economic. Mass marketerswere looking for smaller investments in marketingto a vastly segmented audience. TV commercialswere no longer cost effective. At an Association ofAccredited Advertising Agents media conferencethis past February, Procter & Gamble's chiefmarketing officer, Jim Stengel, announced that"there must be, and is, life beyond the 30-secondTV spot." He then declared that the company,which spent more than 70 percent of its US$2.5billion ad budget on TV in 2003, was replacing itsmedia planning account with something calledcommunications planning. Translated: P&G wouldhunt out new media venues.

In advertising circles, this shifting of tectonicplates is hard to miss as brands like Nike, Mazda,Burger King and adidas, as well as politicians, drugcompanies and activists look to new media venuesand new tactics. Call it "The New PR," or "GuerrillaMarketing Communication." Companies have ataste of the infinite possibilities of marketingprograms that inject passion into the near-obsolete"4Ps" model and truly involve customers. We'retalking viral marketing, communication campaignsinvolving text messaging, web sites and evenforms of "activism" promoting an idea, motivatingpeople or demonstrating brand values.

IN THE KNOW

"Word of mouth is the real secret weapon inbuilding a brand," says Ries. "But how do you getthe first mouth started? The media is a great placeto start. You don't need traditional media for that."

CREATING BUZZ IN REALTIMEThe shift away from mainstream media—a modelbased on "grabbing eyeballs"—challenges marketersto create their own media, i.e., a model based ongenerating buzz. Take the case of an adidas campaignin Asia that eschews advertising. The ad agencydesigned an "event" by building a 328-foot, eight-lane track in downtown Osaka. What's so unusualabout that? The track is built on the vertical face ofa skyscraper! Another one was built in Hong Kong.Extreme athletes compete in these events (timed tocoincide with the Olympics) and demonstrateadidas's campaign theme: "impossible is nothing."Check the Impossible World Records web site atwww.adidas.com/jp/impossible (click on the racetrack on the left).

Looking for buzz means being creative evenwhen using traditional media. In the pre-lnternetdays, the nearest thing to integrated marketingcommunications (IMC) was getting TV audiencesto call a toll-free number to enter a sweepstakes.In the TiVo and SMS era, the audience gets to voteusing text messaging, and then watch how itsvotes affect the outcome of the event. The bestexample of integrating the brand into the programcontent was Coca-Cola's role in the TV show"American Idol." Such "advertainment" is a brandmarketer's dream: buzz plus product placement,customer participation plus measurement. As MarkDempster of USWeb/CKS once observed, thebrand manager of the future is "like an air trafficcontroller...it's all happening in real time."

GOING VIRALThis new PR may sound rebellious and anarchic,but those who demand it are intensely focused onmeasurement, which can also happen in real time.Marketers who are looking for life beyond the 30-second commercial are monitoring clickthroughs,and the time spent on product pages.

BuzzMetrics, a company that pharmaceuticaland automotive marketers turn to, tracks the"naturally occurring conversations," aka buzz, on

message boards, blogs, review sites and gripe sites.It has tracked "passion" and "advocacy," for instance,to see what brand attributes might breed evangelists.Mitsubishi experimented with a cliffhanger TVspot during the last U.S. Super Bowl footballchampionship, encouraging viewers to visit aspecial web site (www.seewhathappens.com) tosee the dramatic ending of the commercial.Others are "seeding" URLs into commercials,leaving audiences to discover web sites forthemselves. Such viral marketing tactics haveincluded an odd companion web site for BurgerKing called Subservient Chicken (see sidebar) andlong-format commercials called "Webisodes" byBMW and American Express that never see thelight of day on TV.

Speaking of going viral, take the case of Ford,which unleashed two web-only commercials earlierthis year for a model called the "Ka" in the U.K.One "unapproved" version for the sports model(www. ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2633283)depicts the car's moon roof decapitating a cat.Yuck! But that's exactly why the ad got passed onin true viral fashion, generating more brandawareness in weeks than other ads get in months.The tagline for the Ford SportKa is "The Ka's eviltwin." Anyone willing to bet that Ford's ad agency,Ogiivy & Mather, was truly ignorant of it?

If all this looks experimental, it won't be for long.A newly formed Word Of Mouth Marketing Association(WOMMA) has plans to make what's now a guerillatactic into a legitimate practice. They are workingon metrics and ethics issues. The day can't be faroff when "creating buzz" is given the sameattention—and budget—that brand building oncereceived. Word of mouth is not a fuzzy mediumand can be integrated into a communication plan."PR firms are very good at building relationships,"says BuzzMetrics' President and CEO JonathanCarson. "A lot of the core competencies of PRplay right into what is necessary for successfulword-of-mouth marketing." BS3

BOOKS ON BUZZ> "Creating Customer Evangelists:How Loyal Customers Become aVolunteer Sales Force,"Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.> "Ttie Anatomy of Buzz:How to Create Word-of-MouthMarketing,"Emanue\ Rosen.> "Buzz: Harness the Power ofInfluence and Create Demand,"Marian Salzman, Ira Matathiaand Ann O'Reilly.

VIRAL WEB SITESTaco Bell's talking Chihuahuaads in the late 1990s createdwhat was then considered"buzz," but the AmericanKennel Club reported a 72percent increase in Chihuahuasales. More recently. BurgerKing experimented withquirky marketing through itshighly talked-up web site,www.subservientchicken.com.In a follow-up to promote theAngus beef burger, the companyintroduced the faux web site,www.AngusDiet.com. Such workis the creation of CrispinPorter + Bogusky, an advertisingagency notorious for viralmarketing and creating buzzfor BMW's Mini Cooper andMolson, the Canadian beer.

'ASTROTURFING'Astroturfing, as defined by theWikiPedia, {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) is "a campaigncrafted by politicians or otherprofessionals but carefullydesigned to appear likethe result of popular feelingrather than manipulation. Theastroturfing campaign attemptsto gain legitimacy by appearing tospring forth spontaneously from'the people.' If the campaign iswell executed, the planners hopethat the public at large willbelieve that 'all of theseindependent viewpoints couldnot have been faked.'"