Please answer to a short question: what’s the first word that comes to your mind when you hear “Africa” besides “vuvuzela”? I thought so. Vuvuzela is that damn horn that made your team lose the match because the players were too damn annoyed to focus on the ball. But think about it: how do you use the vuvuzela to boost your sells?

Since the first minute I heard about vuvuzela, I understood that this is the word of the moment. I had no idea what that was. I’m not a big fan of soccer, so I don’t watch any games. But the naming was brilliant and I was suddenly interested in what that thing is and what that thing can do. Only late I found out that it’s a pseudo-instrument, a horn that sounds like bees and annoys everyone.

Where to use

Vuvuzela is not actually a marketing tool, but more of a strategy. I bet 70 percent of those who have heard about this year’s World Cup have no idea who won two matches in a row, but they’ve definetly heard about the vuvuzela. That’s what marketing is actually all about and vuvuzela strategy is the best strategy you can use especially when you’re facing a communication crisis: take people’s focus of your crisis and move it onto another object of interest.

Vuvuzela describes best what “buzz” means in terms of online communication. Hell, South Africa never registered in it’s whole history such an advertising success as vuvuzelas did. So why not give a shot and start doing something similar?

How to use

What you can learn from 2010 World Cup experience is that marketing isn’t all about the products you sell, but about the way you promote your products. The World Cup product is soccer. Well, not really, World Cup is soccer’s product and matches are World Cup’s products, but who cares? What selled best this year? Vuvuzelas and a huge image boost for South Africa. Everyone knows now that South Africa is the home of vuvuzelas and vuvuzelas is what makes the mind connection between South Africa and tourism in such an exotic country (though this time of year is damn freezing).

What you have to remember is:

1. You can market everything else than your product and people will remeber your name
2. If you’re a guitar shop, you can market a bycicle horn and get new clients if you find a great idea to make a connection between the two of them

It’s kind of what Steve Jobs does: the iPhone 4 won’t work, hell!, it’s the people in the hall that use too many mobile internet connections. That’s the point. Now it’s up to you to actually sell your products using a great strategy example.