The OrangeSoda Around the World contest is now in full swing with our VP of Sales and Service, Jed Smith, hitting Costa Rica and giving the local Mahi-mahi population a taste of the OrangeSoda.
Let’s keep spreading the fizz to all corners of the world!
In case you haven’t heard, in the UK it will soon be illegal to talk about your own product or service under the guise of somebody else. The new UK law, which goes into effect May 26, requires companies that use fake word-of-mouth advertising to clearly identify who they are. The law even extends to bloggers who are paid to write reviews.
Because word-of-mouth advertising is so effective — consumers tend to trust other consumers the most — many advertisers have latched on to the idea of faking word-of-mouth advertising (known as “astroturfing” in the US) by pretending to be a consumer and giving themselves good reviews or dissing the competition.
At the most basic level, companies will use an alias to give themselves positive reviews on discussion boards, forums, and ratings sites such as ResellerRatings.com, PriceGrabber.com, and others. Many larger companies have started to get pretty elaborate though, as shown by Sony’s All I Want for Xmas is a PSP viral effort in 2006.
Wal-Mart also started a flog (fake blog) called Walmarting Across America, supposedly maintained by a couple of Wal-Mart junkies as they visited various stores across the nation. Turns out that the supposed Wal-Mart enthusiasts were actually getting paid by the retail giant.
Although Sony and Wal-Mart both got busted by the public, companies continue pushing the ethics boundaries. Because it’s so effective (and the new law difficult to enforce), you can expect to continue seeing fake postings from fake people on fake fansites. But you probably won’t even know that all the astroturfing and flogging is going on as advertisers get better at covering their tracks.
While the say-or-do-anything-to-make-the-sale attitude has long been the standard in marketing, it has caused considerable damage. Today’s consumers are more weary of company claims than ever before, choosing instead to place more trust in complete strangers they meet on the Internet.
With astroturfing, flogging, and other similar questionable tactics growing in use, even consumer-to-consumer trust is dying.
So the question arises, should you get into astroturfing while there is still something to be had from it? Personally, I say no. If you want to gain the trust of consumers, then be as transparent in your marketing as you possibly can. Being that it is in such short supply these days, consumers appreciate honesty in a company.
Both Sony and Wal-Mart’s flogs could still have been just as popular and effective had both companies simply told people up front that they were faking it.
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