• Were going back, back to basics

    Posted on January 6th, 2006 by and currently 5 commenting.

    I doubt many people remember the Producers or their song ‘Back to Basics’.  But that song popped into head on my long flight home last night. I have the pleasure of reading an  authors’ special edition of ‘Connected Marketing’ edited by Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden. As I started reading the section on Buzz marketing: the next chapter by Schuyler Brown of Buzz@Euro RSCG  he makes some brilliant points and awoke my childhood memories of products that have left a below the surface kinship to buzz marketing.  As Brown states in the chapter “In looking to appeal to everyone, marketers and companies ended up appealing to no one in particular. Marketers took the life out of the messages, and audiences started looking for ways to take us out of their lives.”

    So what did Brown say that took me back to a favorite song and to another time in my life. 1965.  He suggests that good buzz marketing is a back-to-basics approach to marketing. And mentions the famous to me the Jonny Quest/PF Flyers promotion. Damn I had one of those decoder rings. I checked the mailbox everyday waiting for that ring. Not to mention that I really believed that if I wore PF Flyers you could run faster and jump higher.

    It dawned on me that those marketing promotions of 1965, are playing a large role in the way I think about marketing today. I bought the Jonny Quest/P F Flyers decoder ring, hook, line and sinker.  It was more than just buying the product, I had a belief in the product. I still swear to this day I could outrun my dad in my PF’s.

    Showing off a decoder ring to your friends was a big deal in 1965. It created a lot of buzz, and sold a lot of PF Flyers. I believe that consumers today are looking for their own piece of Americana. What they eat, where they eat it. To what they wear, just look at the success of companies like American Apparel, Carhartt, even Polaroid.

    Do your self a favor and take a look back to those simple times of your youth. Captain Crunch, P F Flyers, The Banana Splits.  Good times, good marketing.

  • http://fromthemarketingtrenches.typepad.com/ Johnathan Dampier

    There are a couple of things the products you mentioned have in common. One, they were all marketed at a time when there were only 3 channels on TV and, therefore, much less clutter competing for the attention of children. A second point is they were all great products. Put these two together and you get buzz and word of mouth. What I struggle with is the concept of manipulating buzz and word of mouth. I know it’s the new, hot thing, but it doesn’t add up for me. People talk about products because they are great products. You tell your friends about a movie or a great place to eat because of the product. That cannot be manipulated. “Created” buzz simply can’t stand on its own two legs if the product isn’t worthy of the praise.

  • Olivier Blanchard

    JD stole the words right out of my… keyboard. Check this out instead. And this too.

  • Rachel Heym

    Thank you to olivier blanchard for the links…I am currently trying to convince my governing agency the importance of WOMM, those blog posts were most helpful. I encourage all to click and read!

  • m

    thanks for the PF flier memory….. do you know “the stones of Summer” by Dow Mossman….. fun book!

  • DJ

    Er, first Schuyler Brown ain’t a he but a she. In the interests of accuracy. She used to work in Verbal Branding at Landor San Francisco.

    IMHO, the all-time best giveaway was the Cap’n Crunch whistle, for rather unexpected reasons .

    (from Wikipedia):

    A blind friend of John Draper [Draper was later nicknamed Cap'n Crunch] named Joe Engressia (now known as Joybubbles) informed him that a toy whistle that was, at the time, packaged in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal could be easily modified to emit a tone at precisely 2600 hz—the same frequency that was used by AT&T long lines to indicate that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call. This would effectively disconnect one end of the trunk, allowing the still connected side to enter an operator mode. Experimenting with this whistle inspired Draper to build blue boxes: electronic devices capable of reproducing other tones used by the phone company.

    Before they turned to computers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made some cash by building these totally illegal blue boxes and selling them in the UC Berkeley dorms.

    Hence, there is a direct connection between the Cap’n Crunch whistle and that OTHER cult talisman you ALSO wear around your neck, known as the iPod.

    And now you know the REST of the story….