| Home > Community thoughts > The Microsoft-Edelman-Acer-AMD-Blogger PR fiasco: lessons to be learnt from science and medicine |
| The Microsoft-Edelman-Acer-AMD-Blogger PR fiasco: lessons to be learnt from science and medicine | | Date Created: 31 Dec, 2006, 03:32 AM |
 What a strange ending to 2006!
This year is certainly not going out with a whimper but with a bang.
Two unelected Presidents dead, one of natural causes after a very full yet controversial life at 93, but not before saying he didn't want Iraq invaded (but don't tell anyone until after I've gone).
The other now-dead President also didn't want Iraq invaded, just so he could continue his nefarious ways, until he was captured, then trialled and hanged hastily. Now the conspiracy theories as to the haste will begin.
Over in Silicon Valley, questions of ethics are being asked. Firstly of Apple and benefits for its upper management and "what did Steve know and when did he know it", in addition to the business-as-usual accusations of iPod/iTunes monopolising digital music.
A former US Vice-President chaired a committee within Apple, assisted by forensic consultants, to draw the conclusion that Apple's CEO did not act improperly. The question of monopoly practice will be argued in court in 2007.
Speaking of monopolies, this leads me to think about the position Microsoft finds itself in with regard to the free distribution to those it has been advised are influential bloggers (as compared to mainstream media journalists) for reviewing Vista-flavoured Acer/AMD Ferrari notebooks.
Microsoft employs several PR firms, and it has apparently engaged one of the biggies, Edelman, to handle the Vista rollout. Google to see if this massive PR firm comes to this consultancy squeaky clean.
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 Now you may have learnt by now that this PR exercise of handing out laptops has turned into a comedy of errors.
Some of the bloggers have crowed "Yippee" to have been visited by Santa bearing $2000 laptops, perhaps unaware of the tax implications of actually keeping them. Others haven't declared how they obtained these new units, proclaiming they traded up to them, until others exposed their lack of transparency, leaving them to apologise for misleading their readers.
Others said nothing, owing their readers nothing, and clearly knowing nothing about issues of trust and respect. I guess they're hoping for even more goodies from Microsoft in the future. MS themselves, sensing a PR cockup, issued some bloggers with a "Please return after the review or give it away and at least declare you were given it" email.
Reading the comments section of some of these bloggers has of course been one of the most interesting aspects of the whole business. A huge proportion offer to be recipients of the reviewed item; some suggest the used item ought to handed over to a school or some unspecified charity, others have already placed their notebook on eBay with the offer to turn over the proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Some commenters clearly "dont get it" by writing that the reviewer ought to keep the notebook because they've worked hard on their blog for little return. Of course, this makes the blogger the perfect PR target - finally rewarded for all that unpaid labour via a $2000 laptop and public recognition by MS and its PR arm: blogger nirvana.
Let's be blunt here. If this was mainstream media receiving freebies - like so many believe is what happens all the time - we'd call that behaviour unethical, and would lose trust in that journalist's writings.
Some journalists are constantly keeping tabs on other journalists - often untrained writers who've come from a PR background - who clearly often step over the line in their articles by the frequency of writing about certain products and not mentioning competitors. This often occurs in so-called social pages of newspapers, where "journalists" attend social events, fundraisers, sponsored sporting carnivals, and the like, and where there are often plenty of goody bags for the asking, or taking.
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This of course has occurred at the Academy Awards for years now, with very expensive goodie baskets being given to already very wealthy people, much to the consternation of those whose sense of social equality is offended. iPods have been a frequent goody in these bags, but my understanding is that the 2007 Awards will not see these gifts offered.
Clearly, there are cases where reviewers must consume the thing they are reviewing, e.g. food and wine. But most self-respecting reviewers pay for the meal themselves, and attempt to hide their identity, so they are treated like a regular customer. After all, a restaurant reviewer is offering their readership guidance beyond the quality of the food and wine, but the whole dining-out experience.
From Business Traveller magazine, where reviewers buy airline tickets and describe the whole travel experience, to Consumer Reports where items are purchased and tested so as to offer the readership the fairest of comparisons, we are seeing new ways of reviewing products and services.
More websites are popping up in Web 2.0 fashion so as to give the internet community space to describe their views. Perhaps IMDB.com was one of the first to do this, bringing the rec.movie groups on Usenet together with professional movie reviewers in the one spot to offer more choices, given the subjectivity of the film medium.
What intending purchasers want is a fair, reliable review that mimics what their own experience will be, so as to save time, money and effort. If reviewers are unreliable or their tastes don't match - there are movie reviewers whose opinions I trust but negatively: if they like it, I know I won't and vice-versa - then I look past them for reviewers whose opinions are reliable.
I can't rely on reviewers who do not declare or even acknowledge the source of the product they are reviewing. It means they are unaware of some of the basic tenets of how PR works, and that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
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In the field of science, medicine and psychology, where advances in knowledge come about through a variety of means, the experimental method is one of the most important.
Two or more methods, interventions or products are compared using the same measures. To control for bias, the scientific method has evolved to blind both experimeter and subject to the treatment, and in some cases - the Gold Standard - the treatments are swapped half way along, again without the subjects knowing. In more recent years, especially with pharmaceutical interventions, "active" placebos are given rather than sugar pills because subjects know they are getting inactive placebos since they experience no side-effects.
These human biases are well-known by now. More recently however, scientific publications have demanded that authors of papers submit declarations of funding and pecuniary interest in the company whose products are being scrutinised.
Moreover, research is now unravelling the relationship between the prescribing practices of doctors and their attendance at freebie professional education sponsored functions as well as more lavish conferences and others perks. It seems there is a relationship between the two. |
Self-righteous bloggers should ask themselves if they would be happy to accept a prescription for a medication from a doctor who has just been taken to a slap-up lunch by that medication's cute drug representative, or if they would prefer the opinion of a doctor who has both read the latest research and has had years of prescribing practice.
As for Edelman and Microsoft, my guess is this is yet another failed experiment in trying to appear "cool" and keeping up with the latest social computing experiences. It shows they have a fundamental lack of understanding of what's going on, but a very good understanding of the basics of human behaviour: social reciprocity theory, splitting groups into those who are "in" and "out" (who's hot and who's not), and relying on enough bloggers to not know about basic ethical principles to get at least a few positive reviews for publication and ignore the rest.
Given their combined track record, I expect we'll see more of this kind of behaviour from Microsoft and Edelman respectively. Only this time, the blogosphere will be ready and waiting.
It's all about trust. Go read my blog about my fear of flying work to see how I declare up front that the books I carry in sidebar advertisements for Amazon.com are ones I bought myself, are on my bookshelves, I use in practice and recommend, and I declare that by clicking through and purchasing I get a small commission.
And it's also why I don't have Google ads there. I don't want "promise the earth" ads appearing on my website as if I'm promoting such disreputable and untested products (Google fear of flying to see for yourself) for the sake of a few cents each click.
With more and more opportunities for so-called endusers to become producers through social computing means, who do you trust will become the catchcry of 2007.
(For a fun and very risque - you've been warned - look at "Truth in Advertising" check out Tim Hamilton's short training video over on Glumbert.com here) |
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