Convention on brand marketing held

Mumbai, Feb 14 (UNI) I believe traditional media especially print media as we know, will soon vanish. The speed and reach of virtual world via search engines, blogs and social networking sites like myspace and youtube are too pervasive, Founder CEO, mouthshut.com Faisal I Farooqui said at the ''Buzz Convention'' held here today.

The convention focussed on marketing brands through ''buzz'' or word of mouth recommendation for a product or a service by consumers, considered to be the most effective form of marketing.

''Buzz can be defined as a situation when the consumers themselves pull the product or services. In such circumstances, the consumers sell and propagate the brand without any or very little help from the media or marketing firms'', said Director MarketGate Consulting Shripad Nadkami, one of the participant.

The convention conducted panel discussions on various issues including building buzz for brands, impact of brand promotion, case studies on popular brands and the changing nature of word of mouth communication.

''Soon marketing will no longer be shaped by experts but by opinions and feedback of consumers. Internet has democratized marketing and buzz creation'', said COO bigadda.com Siddhartha Roy in a discussion on ''The changing nature of word of mouth'' at the convention. The panel agreed that though Asia and India were still receptive to traditional media, the next generation of net-savy young people will no longer be influenced by traditional media, and any attempt to manipulate the virtual world by marketers would backfire. However, the basics of creating a good buzz-simplicity, originality and novelty would still hold true, said the panel.

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