• Miami Herald, Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12 PM

Buzz is becoming big business.  As marketers have discovered the power of buzz marketing, also known as word-of-mouth advertising, practitioners of the discipline are becoming important players on the national marketing scene and attracting not only big-name clients, but serious investors as well.  For example, BzzAgent of Boston, recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article, is raising $14 million from venture capitalists to expand its business.  Its clients include Volkswagen and Anheuser-Busch, and the company has trained 130,000 people to talk to other people about products. It's a growing, $100 million to $150 million advertising sector, with perhaps 85 percent of the U.S.’ top 1,000 marketers making some use of it. ''Word of mouth,'' one marketing honcho says, ''is the ultimate form of consumer engagement.''

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