In this first of a four-part transcript, Buzz Marketing's Mark Hughes explains the Buzz Marketing Model.

This conversation took place as a breakout session at February's iMedia Brand Summit in Florida. Listen in:

Kevin Ryan: Welcome to this morning’s breakout session. I’m going to ask everybody to kind of slide forward here, if possible. Make it really cozy and really down-homey with warm and intimate conversations. If we could just pull everybody forward that would be great.

Well, again, good morning everyone. I’m Kevin Ryan. I am iMedia’s Search Editor and I am very pleased to be introducing Session A: Integrated Direct Marketing. You may know me from my weekly stuff. Also I’ll be starring in the upcoming Fox television reality series, “Yes, Mom, Search Engine Marketing is a Career: Stop Holding out for me to get a Real Job.” 

I have the pleasure of introducing two very good speakers this morning. Our first, over here on my right, is Mark Hughes who is the CEO of Buzz Marketing. He's also author of the book “Buzz Marketing” coming out in July from Penguin Press, which isn’t even out yet, but has gotten accolades from the likes of Steve Forbes, the former CMO of Pepsi Cola, and one of the founders of Ben and Jerry’s. So welcome Mark.

Also we have Maria Mandel who is now at Ogilvy Interactive, and leading digital innovation there. Her experience is with some big, everyday brands like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and Jose Cuervo -- yes, Jose Cuervo is an everyday brand for some of us.

So welcome both of you. And I’ll turn it over to Mr. Hughes.

Mark Hughes: All right, we’re going to start out by playing a little bit of a game here. So I’m going to need some audience participation. The game is called “The M Game” and it’s about marketing. It’s also about consumers. I’m going to need participation from people here on the right. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to call out a brand name that begins with “M”. I’m going to point to you and you’re going to raise your hand. Just keep your hand raised there. So when I say Marlboro you raise your hand. When I say Minolta you raise your hand. Keep them up high. Okay.

So, Mattel, Marriott, Minutemaid, Milkyway, Marlboro, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Mentos, Mastercard, Minolta, Mazda, Mercedes, Merrill Lynch, Maybelline, Michelob, Maxwell House, Mobil, MCI, MTV and Morgan Stanley.

All right, keep your hands raised. Now what’s going on with these brands? What do all these brands have in common? Any ideas? They do start with “M,” that’s a good guess. However, what they’re doing is they are vying for your attention. They are raising their hands saying “Mr. Consumer, please buy my product.” Microsoft wants you to buy a Microsoft product right now. Minolta wants you to buy that Minolta camera tonight. Maybelline wants you to buy that product on your way home. They all want you to make a purchase right now. 

What’s the other half of the equation? The other half of the equation is consumers. People, just like you and I, are consumers. And people -- consumers -- today are working harder. They are sleeping less. They have less time for themselves. They have less time for sex. And they have less time for ads.

So what’s going on here is we have these two opposing forces. We have a tug-of-war where marketers are wanting to pull the attention from consumers. They want them to look at their ads. And they want them to make a purchase, today.

On the other hand, we’ve got consumers who have the other side of the tug-of-war rope and they are wanting not to pay attention to marketers. They want more time for themselves. You all want more time for yourselves.

Let me tell a story. This was the exact same microcosm that was going on back in the year 2000. There was clutter, clutter everywhere. Let me ask you a question: Does the term “dot-com clutter” ring a bell for any of you? Dot-com clutter.

In the year 2000 -- this is my story -- I left the big brand world, I left Pepsi-Co, I left running $40,000,000 a year budgets and I went to be vice president of a small, yet to be launched brand called Half.com. At that time Half.com was about to launch. One of the roles in a pre-launch, you know, for VPs of Marketing, is to raise venture capital. One of the venture capital companies was Chase Capital. So I was sitting in New York City in the office of Chase Capital and I was basically presenting the plan that demonstrated that our plan, to use their funds for marketing, was sound; it was a sound marketing plan. I was up there, very much like I’m here, and I said, "Okay, we’re going to reach 813,000 registered users in the first year of operation." And one of the principals looked at me and said, "I don’t think you can do that." I said, "Well, why not?" They told me that they've seen hundreds and hundreds of marketing plans come their way, they’ve got a portfolio of about 30 ecommerce companies that are up and running now -- "We see the numbers; we know what you can do and there is no way you can get 813,000 registered users in the first year of operation."

Well, to a certain extent he was right. What happened? When we launched -- you only launch once so you better make it good -- the way we launched Half.com, the way I launched Half.com, was by convincing a small town in Southeastern Oregon, population 350, by the name of Halfway, Oregon, to change its name to Half.com, Oregon. Changing a name to Half.com, Oregon from Halfway, Oregon; we literally put the brand on the map.

What happened after that? Well, we were on "The Today Show" with Katie Couric with a five-minute segment. We were in the media spanning the globe from China to Germany, from Australia to Austin, Texas. We were everywhere.

We launched, and then what happened? Nineteen days later eBay gives us a call. And they said we’re kind of interested in buying your company. So we said, let’s talk. About five months later we sold the company for $300,000,000 to eBay. It was kind of a good year.

It continued to get better. What happened? We grew, we grew, we grew -- versus major well-established brands like Barnes&Noble.com, we were getting more traffic, and we were getting more transactions for one-tenth the budget. One-tenth the budget. Six months after we launched we were a top 10 internet retailer under the eBay domain name and things got better and better and better.

And they told me I couldn’t do it. They were really thinking in the world of traditional marketing. There are basically two models: There’s the traditional model and then there’s the Buzz Marketing model.

On one hand, you’ve got a brand in the middle, a company in the middle. They have a message. They buy media. They send that message out to consumers. And it pretty much ends right there. GRP sent, message accomplished, job done -- perhaps the Chase Capital view of marketing.

Now what we did is we followed a different path. We followed a different model, what I call the Buzz Marketing Model. It’s somewhat similar, in that you’ve got a brand in the middle, a company in the middle. They spend money to send messages out to people, but what happens is once it reaches those people it doesn’t end right there. Those people tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on. 

Buzz Marketing is capturing the attention of people -- consumers and the media -- to the point where talking about your brand becomes entertaining, fascinating and newsworthy. It is essentially starting conversations.

There are six secrets to this, and I don’t think I’m going to have time to go through all six, but if there are three key takeaways, here they are: 

First, you’ve got to be unusual. People don’t talk about the average. People don’t talk about the expected. What people do talk about is the unusual. They talk about the brand that had enough hutzpah to rename a town in Halfway, Oregon Half.com, Oregon. You don’t really want to talk about a website that sells books and CDs and DVDs. It’s not buzz-worthy, but changing the name of a town, that’s buzz-worthy.

Second key: Do not look corporate. And this is kind of a recent phenomenon. What’s going on today is we have Vioxx advertising, spending millions and millions and millions of dollars, for many years, only to discover that Vioxx is basically a sham. It’s off the market. Today we trust corporations less and less. They are the ones that lay off our neighbors. They are the ones that are called Enron. They are the ones that are called MCI. And they are the ones marketing Vioxx. Today the environment amongst consumers is a distrust of marketers. Do not look corporate. Embrace your marketing. Embrace your advertising with tons of personality. The more corporate you look, the less likely consumers are going to adopt your product. People trust people. They do not trust corporations.

Third takeaway is that this model only works if you give some people a ready-made story to talk about. And you have to give them a ready-made story. You have to basically give the story to them so it’s right on the tip of their tongues at that water cooler. Notice the word that I use -- “give.” You have to “give” consumers something to talk about. Most marketers, they want to take. They do not want to give. This model, the way this model works, is you give people something to talk about. It's very rare to hear the word “give.”

Tomorrow: Stats and more examples of Buzz Marketing