| Issue 84 |

Shoshi Brukner, CEO, Terraflex

• Lordan's website: www.terraflexhoses.com
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Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff / Mark Hughes / Portfolio Trade Publishers

Mark Hughes was the Marketing Manager at several companies, and is the CEO of Buzzmarketing, the online advertising agency that specializes in creating a buzz and word of mouth marketing. In his book, Buzzmarketing, he explains how you can turn products or services into interesting stories that people talk about with others and that journalists write about. You can market effectively this way, save expensive advertising fees, and systematically amass success stories and marketing hits.

Buzzmarketing was published in 2005 and was all the rage in its day because it exposed proven maxims of spreading rumors and stories about brands; maxims that were not commonly known or understood at the time. Now, with the spread of the social media and the rise of the bloggers, the maxims that the book teaches have become even more relevant and effective.

Among other things, Buzzmarketing describes six buttons for creating a buzz – six topics that prompt people to raise a subject and talk about it with each other. A buzz button can be pushed several ways, including by means of commercials. But, in contrast to regular commercials, these are commercials that generate interest and a conversation topic, and are therefore more effective. The six buzz buttons includ:

1. The taboo button: sex, lies, toilet humor. For example – commercials like this one, for Viagra.

2. The unusual button, such as an online dating site for overweight people (OverweightDate.com)

3. The outrageous button. For example, this Benetton commercial, where the Pope kisses a Muslim imam.

4. The hilarious button. For example, this commercial, that had several sequels (such as this).

5. The remarkable button. Making people talk about something they normally wouldn’t. For example, this commercial for Pep Boys brakes, which was also accompanied by an in-store commercial campaign where the employees wore pins with a picture of the moose from the commercial saying “Ask me about Raybestos brakes.”

6. The secret button: For example, the rumors that circulate each time Apple is about to announce a new product.

Later in the book, maxims to achieve a media buzz are also described. Articles published in a paper get 6 times more attention than ads published in the same newspaper, and they are also perceived as more reliable than the ads, states Mark Hughes. Therefore, grabbing the journalists’ attention is the main goal in creating a buzz. The book details how this can be done by creating and spreading a media story of the type that journalists love to write about: a David and Goliath story, a controversial story, a scandalous story, a story associated with a famous personality, or a story related to hot topics that are already in the media..

Buzzmarketing also contains plenty of fascinating examples and success stories of creating a buzz among potential customers and journalists, and exposes additional rules for achieving prominence in advertising, managing outstanding campaigns by taking risks, identifying creative ideas, and creating a buzz and esprit de corps inside your organization as well. If you want to market more effectively while saving marketing costs, don’t miss out on this book!.

I Made a Wee-Wee!
About the invention of disposable diapers

The first disposable diapers were developed by entrepreneurial women in the late 1940’s.

In 1946, An American inventor named Marion Donovan sewed a waterproof cover from her shower curtain to wear over the reusable cloth diapers that were so common during that period. The waterproof cover that Marion developed, called the Boater, began being sold in 1949 at the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York. In 1951, Marion wisely sold her patent for waterproofing diapers for one million dollars, an absolute fortune in those days.

In 1947, a British housewife named Valerie Hunter Gordon was fed up with the incessant laundering of her cloth diapers and developed a two-part system – a disposable absorbent pad (that contained a layer of absorbent paper and a layer of cloth padding), and a reusable external plastic cover (that she initially sewed from parachute nylon). The diaper that she developed was also adjustable at the legs/hips to ensure a better seal.

Valerie, who was 24 years old then, a mother of three and the wife of a military man, sewed 400 diapers by herself and gave many of them away to her friends – also army wives. Her collaboration with the Robinson company, a textile manufacturer that developed disposable diapers back in 1930 (but not waterproof), gave birth to Paddi – the first modern, commercially-produced disposable diaper. The Paddi, which was initially distributed at the British Boots The Chemist stores, was very successful in Britain, and later worldwide.

In the 1950’s, several other companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Playtex, began to manufacture disposable diapers. In the early 1960’s, Procter & Gamble began to market Pampers diapers, and Kimberly Clark launched the Huggies diaper. Diapers were now made from only one part that included a layer of padding, an absorbent layer, and a waterproof layer. The disposable diaper market boomed and the competition between these two companies, which lead the market to date, led to many improvements in diapers. Among other things, diapers were developed with several absorbent layers that contain polymers that can absorb a much larger volume of fluid, and flexible adhesive tabs that can be reopened and closed.

Additional innovations that were developed in diapers include diapers that change color when they are saturated with fluid, scented diapers, diapers with cream to prevent redness, and pull-ups, which closely resemble underwear.

Huggies recently launched sex-specific diapers for boys and girls that differ in the position of the absorbent centers (in front for boys and at the bottom for girls – according to their anatomical makeup). This is a classic example of adding a dimension, which elicits the question of “Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?”

It’s hard to believe that only 50 years ago most families still hand-washed cloth diapers, day in, day out. In fact, the invention of the disposable diaper was a huge step in women’s emancipation, enabling them to go out and work, take trips with their families, and free them from the dirty and time consuming labor that cloth diapers entailed. Valerie Hunter Gordon, the inventor of the Paddi – the first disposable, waterproof diaper, was interviewed on this topic, and she stated that thanks to her invention she could afford to expand her family, and ended up raising six children. And even though there is some controversy surrounding disposable diapers and the environmental damage that they cause, most of us would undoubtedly not want to go back in time. Progress, by nature, marches forward...

• Additional information about The History of Paddi
• Systematic Innovation workshops
• Adding a Dimension - Article