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Ordinary people create Penguin buzz

26.07.07 Anna Richardson

Penguin is one of the first publishers in the UK to use a new word-of-mouth marketing approach, buzz marketing, with help from agency BzzAgent.

To promote The Second Wife by Elizabeth Buchan, which is published on 2nd August, BzzAgent aims to generate anticipation through 1,000 of its "agents".They are ordinary people, encouraged to spread news about a title through book clubs, emails and online reviews, by carrying it around, discussing it at parties and blogging. They each receive a copy of the book and a "BzzGuide" that identifies key discussion points and potential readers. The campaign will run all summer, with feedback reported to Penguin in September.

Jane Rose, acting commercial marketing director at Penguin, said that buzz marketing was still a new concept in the UK. She added: "We are always looking for an alternative to [conventional] campaigns, and this is an extension of trying to get different communities interested in the book."

BzzAgent was created in the US to harness word-of-mouth for marketing and Penguin US was its first client. Together they developed the first ever word-of-mouth campaign for a book. The company launched its UK arm in March 2007, and The Second Wife is its first book campaign in the UK.

The marketing campaign for The Second Wife also included a deal with retailer Ocado, which saw 20,000 specially designed free promotional copies of its prequel Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman given away with weekly shopping deliveries.

"Ocado seemed a good fit with our target demographic," Rose explained. "As the book is a sequel, the best way to get interest in it is to get them reading the book before. It will be hard to quantify any sales uplift, but we tried to make it measurable, and we have made sure the new book is available on the site."

Book Media Anna Richardson Penguin

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