Whatever the opinion on Jean Marie Messier’s crazy adventure at the helm of Vivendi Universal, it’s obvious that the Buzz generated at the time perfectly played its role as a valorization tool in the evolution of the company’s value on the stock market.
It pleases me to compare Jean Marie Messier to Alexander the Great. All the comparison indicators are there: the challenge, the glory, the love of power, and the aim of world domination by finalizing the assault on Universal. The ex-emperor of digital media wrote the most beautiful story in modern conquests.
I am often asked to explain concrete buzz cases, and I clarify this phenomenon by explaining the Messier buzz. The media coverage was so huge that the value literally exploded thanks to Jean Marie Messier’s actions and charisma. The Internet bubble and the acquisitions also played a role, but a much more modest one.
On these two graphs, we can easily identify the buzz’s impact between 1998 and 2002…and especially discover what the value of Vivendi stocks would have been without Messier. Impressive…
Do you still think that « buzz » is a marginal marketing action ? Today, who is talking about Vivendi in the media and on the web? Not many people…
Vivendi stocks with the Messier buzz
Vivendi stocks without the Messier effect
