From Dream to Reality With Buzz Marketing Group

Client: PBS

Goal: Rebrand the broadband internet site that is target to tweens.

Plan:  Survey tweens to find out what kind of website would be most appealing.

Challenges: Buzz Marketing Group’s 28-year-old vice president of operations, Adrianne Washington, noted that the PBS campaign required intensive research. “For our in-person focus groups with the younger children, the six and seven year olds, we had to be careful to phrase our questions correctly because children are so impressionable. We were surprised to learn how internet savvy many of them were. They knew how to open the browser window and go to their favorite sites.”

The Work: Buzz Marketing group surveyed approximately 30,000 tweens for the PBS rebranding.  The work involved some in-person focus groups as well as online surveys and community outreach via various local organizations around the country.  “We had to make sure we reached diverse populations including varying income levels. We need to know if a child is watching PBS (and hence interested in the website) because he really likes the programming or just because his family can’t afford cable and he has no other options,” said Washington. During  the research, the team discovered that tweens like games and secret codes, so that is what was put on the rebranded website.  The marketing played to the tech savvy tweens by offering extras such as rubber bracelets with USB drives inside of them.