FUTURE IMPACTS OF BUZZ BLOGS ON MARKETING

                            

Over the last decade, the Internet world has been undergoing a radical transformation. The Internet boom obviously diverted and renewed the marketing strategies. This trend has been emphasized by the transition from the Internet Web 1.0, which was driven by a “company-centric” model, to the Internet Web 2.0, a more “customer-centric” approach, which is considered as the new generation of the Internet.

Nowadays, we are observing a proliferation of community websites; more interactive or even user-generated. Giants such as Facebook and Wikipedia have been able to build collective community intelligence. As a matter of fact, Web 2.0 tools empower communities instead of institutions.

In this context, analysts have agreed to recognize that buzz marketing through blogs still has a bright future ahead in terms of influencing customers. The emergence of hundreds of “marketer bloggers” confirms this statement. Market surveys show a growing interest of web surfers for blogs. Reference website eMarketer predicts an increase in the percentage of “blog readers” within the Web community. The chart below shows that this percentage will evolve from 50% in 2007 to 67% in 2012. eMarketer also indicates that due to this positive development, advertising expenses allocated to blogs will boost from $283 million in 2007 to $746 million in 2012.

Chart 1

One might assume that, in the long run, the market shares of buzz marketing through blogs will increase at the expense of traditional advertising channels. Companies aiming to reach the new generation of consumers should invest in this type of marketing which will help them avoid a waste of time and money in classical media, such as radio and television, which are predicted to decline in the future.

Not only are we experiencing a change of channel distribution, but also a change of marketing approach that results from the use of blogs. Moreover, the beginning of the 21st century has been marked by the transition from a mass marketing to a more personalized marketing. Nowadays with the abundance of information, customers’ indifference to ads is strongly growing. A Yankelovich Partners study shows that 60% of U.S. customers find marketing to be irrelevant and that 70% are interested in products or services such as spam filters that would help block marketing attempts. This confirms the fact that there is a common feeling of ads’ overload. Companies reacted by seeking to involve customers in the process, trying to make marketing actors of them in order to fulfill their needs and to get their attention back. Similarly to the Internet, marketing is evolving from a “company-centric” model to a “customer-centric” model, favoring communities.

According to the latest news, it seems that the French President Nicolas Sarkozy would like to get rid of TV spots on the French Public Channels, exactly like the famous Brit Channel the BBC has already done. Perhaps other countries will follow, as lots of people are fed up with having their movies interrupted twice or more because of ads they are not fond of. As a result, public channels would have some difficulties in financing their programs and private channels’ interest would increase because advertisements on the latter would become quite expensive. This confirms the idea that marketers have to use other means to diffuse their marketing messages, among which blogs would be very interesting due to their low cost, and the deep impact they may induce. The reform will occur in 2009, which leads us to assume that the number of ads on blogs will consequently increase, as well as for the number of blogs themselves, as exposed earlier. This recent development allows us to be confident as far as the future of this trend is concerned.