I’m sure many of you have read or heard about the Microsoft blogger “scandal.” If not, click here to read an E-Week piece on it if you wish. To summarize, Microsoft and AMD sent some prominent bloggers a honking Vista based laptops for them to test out. Initially they said the folks receiving the machines could keep them, give them away, or send them back upon completion of the “testing.” The next day, after some public outcry, they requested the PCs back. Good marketing idea; bad execution. Or was it really a good marketing idea? I say it’s terrible especially because of the execution–it backfired completely!
What were Microsoft and AMD really attempting? They were hoping to buy a favorable review from a few influential bloggers and gain some word of mouth marketing. This isn’t uncommon, but it’s a delicate tightrope to walk in order to keep things pure. The key to word of mouth marketing is honesty and the natural progression of the message. Once the public gets a sniff of anything that smells remotely of dishonesty, the word of mouth suddenly turns against the offender. Why is that? You’ve made the people who thought they were spreading something natural and believable look foolish. You’ve jeopardized their reputations. Buying word of mouth won’t work–it’s unnatural, and it makes people feel sleazy for engaging in such tactics.
Microsoft has been a pretty good marketer over the years, but this is a misstep for them that is disappointing to say the least. What did they really think would happen? Did they think the people getting the souped up laptops would write completely honest reviews after receiving a “free” machine? Of course not. Receiving anything of value for free is always well received, and it’s a great way to initiate a word of mouth campaign. If the goal was to gain positive word of mouth, the machines should have been given to some random folks in some sort of drawing without any mention of a review or how the machine was to be used. Let people naturally decide what they wish to do with the thing and if they determine they wish to write a good or bad review, let it occur naturally without trying to influence it in any way. Imagine how much someone would talk up such a product if they “won” the thing fair and square in a drawing of some sort. By picking out people with popular review based blogs, the motivation behind such product placement is rather obvious so any reviews would likely be met with a heavy dose of skepticism unless the products were sent without any prompting whatsoever.
Imagine answering your door and seeing UPS there with a set of boxes that you had zero idea about before hand. Your first reaction would probably be “I didn’t order this” then you’d probably open the boxes, look for clues as to what was in the boxes, then you’d try to convince yourself that someone made a big mistake in your favor. Eventually you’d begin to use the goods in time or try to send them back to the sender. Unless of course there was a letter outlining expectations–that’s where Mr. Softy screwed up. They obviously engaged the review bloggers in some sort of sign up process prior to sending these laptops out so there were expectations implied. That ruined the whole thing.
If you’re hoping to initiate a word of mouth campaign, allow it to happen organically and surprise people by doing something out of the ordinary. Then back away and let things progress on their own. That’s the best bet if you want things to spread quickly and keep foul play suspicions out of the equation.