In an LA Times article reprinted in the Seattle Times, writer Ann Powers makes some important observations about buzz. Focusing mostly on the music industry, she looks at what counts as buzz now, and more importantly, how it is created. A couple of key paragraphs:
The only criterion for buzz today often seems like buzz itself. "To me, 'buzz' was always about, something really great is happening, don't you want to check it out?" said Jay Babcock, editor of the Los Angeles-based magazine Arthur. "That's different than what I hear now, which is, this is going to be big, don't you want to check it out? That kind of industry-think has degraded the experience."
Then later in the article, in a section that strikes a nerve because it captures perfectly some of the ongoing evolution of blogs and media, this observation:
Digital media marketing firms focus entirely on servicing the Web. Bloggers need content, and often enjoy the recognition. "Bands such as Birdmonster, Cold War Kids and Sound Team are relentlessly marketed to bloggers, just this never-ending stream of e-mails from flacks," wrote New York-based writer Matthew Perpetua, who pioneered the MP3 blog with his Fluxblog, in an e-mail. "It's depressing that all you need to catch on among the newer MP3 blogs is to barrage them with PR e-mails."
The publicists feeding the machine don't disagree. "Are blogs really an independent medium to express a voice?" one pondered anonymously. "It's hard to know what's genuine, or what is being paid for. One of my employees was given a free phone from Virgin Mobile just as a 'gift,' because he blogs about music."
My observation is that it feels like in many cases "buzz" is the objective. Let's do a "buzz campaign," for example, is common language now. But that stands reality on its head. Instead of starting with buzz, start with the content, make sure a clear-eyed look shows that it can support the superlatives heaped on it. Then figure out who the audience is, who influences that audience, what they care about, then come up with a campaign. Of course, that's not as much fun as doing buzz. And, per my previous post, it's as damaging to create buzz that's not supported by the product as it is to create no buzz at all.
And i'm not even going to touch the idea of bribing bloggers for coverage...