So who needs advertising? Creating buzz is a powerful approach to getting out the word about a product, generating interest, and getting sales. In preceding chapters, I've raved about products that did well with little or no traditional advertising—Trivial Pursuit, Cold Mountain, and Hotmail, to name a few. So it might seem that Madison Avenue's traditional approach to advertising no longer matters. The truth is that very few products can rely on buzz alone. When used correctly, advertising can help buzz. However, it's also worth noting that ads can sometimes hurt genuine word of mouth. So in this chapter I focus on answering three questions: Can advertising stimulate buzz? Can advertising simulate buzz? Can advertising kill buzz? The following excerpt focuses on the second question: can advertising simulate buzz through testimonial advertising?

An ad will never enjoy the credibility of buzz, but it can get closer by simulating buzz through testimonial advertising. The execution is challenging, however. Many ads are so bad that you wonder if they were meant as parody. Creating buzz successfully is all about authenticity. Think of ads that are supposed to show, for example, the broad range of "ordinary folks" who use that product. Often these types of commercials are victims of the advertisers' endless pursuit of political correctness. The ads feature conspicuously diverse people it's hard to believe were chosen at random: a black man, a white woman, a Latino man, and an Asian woman. Customers see through that. These commercials may still build awareness and even sales, but don't expect them to have nearly the impact of an ad that rings true.

Compare this to Budweiser's Whassup?! commercials that began airing at the end of 1999. Nothing fancy. Just some guys who greet each other repeatedly with that goofy phrase: Whassup?! But the commercials struck a cord. Sixteen years earlier Director Charles Stone III had used the greeting with his buddies. When Stone and Budweiser's ad agency DDB Chicago decided to turn this male bonding ritual into a beer commercial, they looked for people who'd be able to re-create the warm brotherhood atmosphere in an ad. After a long but unsuccessful search, they all agreed to have Stone's real-life friends and himself play in the commercials. The result? It felt right. Authentic. The greeting is being heard all around the United States. "You just can't fake the dialogue they have going on," Kent Kwaitt of DDB Chicago said.

Another company that has been effective in bringing real people into its advertising in a credible way is Saturn. John Yost, who managed Hal Riney, the agency that created the Saturn ad campaign, explains why he thinks it worked: "The testimonials were highly credible because they were customers. And not just customers, but customers that actually acted and behaved like real people, so there was this tremendous empathy and credibility that came from them."

Also in this chapter: • Advertising as Buzz • The Six Rules About Ads and Buzz