Translating buzz to sales

BY: RYAN ANDERSON  |  General Rambling

In most cases when you launch a viral campaign, you’re looking to create buzz.  Success means different things in different situations, but to be as reductive as possible, in most cases lots of buzz = successful viral campaign.

That’s why I was very interested to read on Stephen Dubners Freakanomics Blog about Fox dramatically reducing the number of screens on which they were going to show Borat, possibly because of the low attendance of Snakes on a Plane, which was likely the most blogged about movie of all time.

As dubner writes:

But it turns out that Borat really did have an audience waiting for it. It opened to a huge $26 million, taking the No. 1 spot over Santa Clause 3, which opened on more than four times as many screens as Borat. Borat did great again this weekend, still holding the No. 1 spot even though its dollar-per-screen figure tumbled.

In all honesty, I don’t know if the Snakes experience was what prompted Fox to reduce the screens on which Borat would be shown, but it does raise an interesting question.  Can too much buzz affect a product negatively?  In this case, the buzz garnered by Borat was clearly nothing but good for the box office sales. 

I think the key takeaway from this is that when we live in a world filled with public conversations, the quality of the product will affect how much buzz translates into cold hard cash.  To put it in chemistry terms, buzz can be an amazing catalyst, but if the product is inert to begin with, it will never cause a reaction.