• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, April 1, 2011

When it comes to brands that build buzz with women, NBCU's Brand Power Index unveiled a distinct trend in its most recent data: Campaigns that put consumers in the spotlight --including Gatorade and L'Oreal -- saw big increases in chatter. Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP/trends and strategic insights for women at NBCU, tells Marketing Daily what it might mean.

Q: You call this trend "almost famous" -- why?

A: Increasingly, people think they're going to get their 15 minutes of fame. They know they're not going to be Julia Roberts or anything, but given the huge increase in new types of celebrities -- whether from reality TV, like Kim Kardashian, from the Web, like Justin Bieber, or from entrepreneurs -- they think they have a shot at that. Especially as more of TV shows target increasingly ordinary jobs and ordinary people in them, the idea that they would end up in the spotlight isn't so farfetched. So brands that use unknown regular people as the star -- not the product, not a celebrity, but someone like you or me -- really stand out. We think of it as sort of the "middle class" of fame.

Q: What are some of the campaigns that got women chatting?

A: The Gatorade "Everything to Prove" campaign is a good one -- it follows these college football players leading up to the NFL draft in a way that appeals to women. It's not about sports performance, the way the brand's mainstream "Is it in you?" ads are. It's about emotion. Gatorade jumped 46 spots to #109 on the Brand Power Index last month.

Q: How about the L'Oreal effort?

A: Well, it makes sense that this would get so much attention during Oscars month. But it's interesting that the company linked this campaign, where they send five women to the L'Oreal Paris Academy and then have them share their beauty secrets, to a red carpet the event that just oozes fame. So instead of hearing about tips from the experts on how they did the stars' looks, it was about getting these ordinary women glammed up. And women were definitely talking about it. L'Oreal jumped 81 spots to #116 -- it shows that brands that let their fan base have their moment in front of the camera can also see a bump in their own popularity.

Q: Sports, red carpets -- those are fairly typical venues for fame. What other kind of fame-buzz did you find?

b A: Cheerios gave do-gooders a shot at stardom with something it called "The Green Awards." Consumers submitted a video about how they make a difference in their community. Cheerios went up 69 spots through January and February to 113. At least in this arena, the campaign made green a status symbol.

Q: Explain what that means -- your methodology?

A: The Brand Power Index looks at 500 brands, and measures three things. The first component is based on online search data, which comes from Compete. The next is social media buzz, which we get from New Media Strategies. And then we use a measure of person-to-person conversations, which are tracked by Keller Fay Group.