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Explains the concept of buzz marketing ‐ roughly, creating a stir ‐ and how it can be successfully applied to the teen market: its drivers are truth distorted, bad behaviour, and reality romanticised. Takes the shock value for buzz of the “South Park” TV show as a case study of bad behaviour, while Pop Rocks is an example of a product for which truth distorted created a rumour buzz; reality romanticised represents the practical idealism of teenagers. Outlines the requirements of a buzzable brand: invasive but invited, individualised, experiential, provocative, conspiratorial, connective and creative. Points out that buzz can also live in the adult world, with examples like a Mojito, a PDA, “Sex and the City”, and Viagra, while alcoholic drinks prosper through buzz. Lists the benefits that buzz brings to teenagers: they feel disenfranchised, are a subculture, seek stimulation, are engaged in selective identity formation, and aspire to be passionate people. Concludes with how a marketer could develop the drivers for a brand by creating an “alter ego” of what is the edge of the acceptable, the flipside of the brand’s persona.

The rise of arts and culture is transforming citizen politics. Though new to many social scientists, this is a commonplace for many policy makers. We seek to overcome this divide by joining culture and the arts with classic concepts of political analysis. We offer an analytical framework incorporating the politics of cultural policy alongside the typical political and economic concerns. Our framework synthesizes several research streams that combine in global factors driving the articulation of culture into political/economic processes. The contexts of Toronto and Chicago are explored as both enhanced the arts dramatically, but Toronto engaged artists qua citizens, while Chicago did not.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of buzz about the focal brand on competing brands’ attitudes.

Brand-related buzz can be defined as “a general sense of [positive or negative] excitement about or interest in [a brand], as reflected in or generated by word of mouth” (Oxford dictionary). The authors investigate the spillover effects of such positive and negative buzz on brand attitudes of 648 brands in 43 categories over five years.

The authors find that spillover effects are widespread across product categories and affect competing brands through (negative) halo effect and (unfavorable) preference substitution. The authors do not find evidence of positive spillover effects for non-focal brands.

The authors provide generalizable evidence that positive and negative buzz spills over competing brands’ attitudes for hundreds of brands across the largest sectors of the US economy. Interestingly, positive and negative buzz have asymmetric effects on consumer attitudes. These effects vary by consumer attitude metric and are moderated by brand news intensity, strength and similarity.

First, marketing managers should monitor the buzz of competing brands. Second, if managers are concerned with impressions, they should intervene when there is a negative buzz about competitors (halo effect). Third, managers should stimulate positive buzz to negatively affect their competitors’ purchases. Fourth, managing a smaller brand has advantages regarding impressions and recommendations, while news intensity can shield from negative spillover effects for impressions. Finally, brand similarity amplifies the spillover effects across the board.

This paper provides evidence that spillover effects are pervasive and urges marketing managers and academics to incorporate competing buzz in their frameworks and strategies.

This study aims to investigate teenagers'perceptions about buzz marketing and the issue of disclosure.

A structured focus group methodology was used in the study.

The paper finds that teenagers like being buzz agents, they view this role as a job, they usually conceal the fact that they are buzz agents, and they generally see no ethical dilemma in not revealing their status.

It is important to establish a relationship that encourages honesty and transparency in the marketing exchange process when teens are used as buzz agents.

The paper provides useful information on the marketing exchange process when teens are used as buzz agents.

This paper aims to investigate if product pre-announcement effects measured using stock market returns conform to the predictions of two competing consumer marketing theories. In particular, while buzz marketing theory indicates a direct positive effect, information asymmetry theory suggests an influence contingent upon evidence. The study also investigates whether a pecking order of performance effects exists across different signaling situations.

The final sample consists of 219 product-preannouncements reported in the Wall Street Journal between 2005 and 2015. The standard event study methodology was used to test for performance effects.

The results show that preannouncements with evidence alone significantly outperform those with buzz alone, and announcements containing buzz and evidence. Also, buzz acts as a salient moderator of the relationship between evidence and performance. In addition, company size also affects the evidence-performance relationship, with smaller firms benefiting more from evidence than larger firms.

The event study method assumes efficient markets and deals with publicly traded companies.

Managers can allocate resources wisely by deciding whether to invest in evidence or buzz in their pre-announcements.

In contrast to extant research that primarily investigates contingency effects, this study identifies how an important moderator, i.e. buzz affects performance.

In the US, the Super Bowl is annually the nation's highest-rated TV programme and the most watched single-day sporting event. But could the Super Bowl, like other sporting events that traditionally attracted millions of people, fall prey to competition? This case study argues that despite the increasing fragmentation of viewing audiences, Super Bowl is an event in itself. The case describes the marketing and social environment encompassing the Super Bowl, and addresses the metamorphosis that has helped it maintain its competitive edge. The study concludes with a discussion of buzz marketing as a complete solution for maintaining competitiveness in today's sporting environment.

This study aims to explore preadolescents' opinions of the social media marketing strategies hosted by libraries to promote collections.

An experimental Facebook page was created with posts containing interesting animations, games and book recommendations. A questionnaire survey was administered to 262 preadolescents between 11 and 13 years old to seek their opinions about the posts, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to measure their acceptance of the marketing strategies.

The authors examined the effects of five marketing strategies: word-of-mouth marketing, buzz marketing, event marketing, viral marketing and gamification marketing. In terms of sharing, word-of-mouth marketing proved the most popular, followed by buzz marketing. Participants were least accepting of viral marketing. The authors found that gamification marketing resulted in higher engagement than did event marketing. The preadolescent participants preferred engagement marketing strategies over information sharing strategies.

According to the uses and gratification theory, preadolescents seek, share and engage with information in ways that differ from other age groups. With specific reference to hedonic engagement by preadolescents, the authors built a two-fold model to describe the information-seeking behaviors of preadolescents from the perspective of marketing strategies. The study findings indicate that librarians who use Facebook to promote library collections should first employ gamification and word-of-mouth marketing to build trust with preadolescent users. Event and buzz marketing will then be more effective when applied within the context of this trust.

Social shopping relies on word-of-mouth, with marketers turning to social shopping rewards (SSRs) to generate social buzz. According to US regulatory bodies, these types of rewards, if considered endorsements, must be disclosed. Yet, little is known about the impact of disclosure of SSRs. To address this gap, this study aims to examine the impact of disclosure of SSRs on consumer responses.

Respondents were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions via an online survey. The “no disclosure” condition featured a hypothetical friend’s tweet of a product (n = 91). The “disclosure” conditions featured the same tweet, either with the words “Sponsored Tweet” in a boxed tweet (n = 50) or with a hashtag “#Sponsored” (n = 48). All respondents completed a questionnaire designed to address the hypotheses.

No differences between the disclosure conditions were found, thus they were combined and compared to the non-disclosure condition. Of the 13 hypotheses, 9 were sustained by significant correlations. Disclosure to consumers that a product review was sponsored by a marketer strengthens the relationships between certain model constructs, i.e. between dual source credibility and attitude toward the message and between attitude toward the message and attitude toward the brand.

This study is the first to empirically test the impact of disclosure of SSRs on consumer responses in a social shopping context. Findings provide marketers and practitioners with a solution to complying with regulatory requirements in ways that do not hurt consumer responses to social buzz.

This volume outlines a new framework for analysis of democratic participation and economic growth. The new framework joins two past traditions. Their background histories are clearly separate. Democratic participation ideas come mostly from Alexis de Tocqueville, while innovation/bohemian ideas driving the economy are largely inspired by Joseph Schumpeter and Jane Jacobs. New developments building on these core ideas are detailed in the first two sections of this volume. But these chapters in turn show that more detailed work within each tradition leads to an integration of the two: participation joins innovation. This is the main theme in the book’s third section, the buzz around arts and culture organizations, and how and why they are critical drivers for the new democratic politics and cutting edge economies. Buzz enters as a new resource, with new rules of the game. It does not dominate; it parallels other activities which continue.