Astroturfing: Fake Reviews Hit Blogs
In these days when anyone and everyone can get online to share their opinions, with widely divergent degrees of honesty, manufacturers are recognizing that employees plugging their brands need to brand themselves.
According to the Financial Times, "several people" accepted an offer from someone at Belkin, the computer supplies maker, to pay for positive reviews on amazon.com, writing about products they had apparently not used. Once exposed, Belkin had to rescind the offer, apologize and find ways to grovel in the face of public humiliation.
Astroturfing, described as "the unsavory marketing practice of generating fake grassroots enthusiasm for a product," is now being countered by employers who recognize the harm it can do them. While encouraging staff to use the web to promote their products, voluntary codes of ethics are being simultaneously enacted.
Coca-Cola, for example, circulated a memo with guidelines that "emphasize the need for transparency." Employees are urged to "use common sense when discussing the brand online."
Coca-Cola's digital communications director, Adam Brown, said, "We've always had very diverse channels to reach consumers. Wherever they are, that's where we go. That's now evolved into the need for a social media policy."
IBM not only insists employees use their own names but say they must "make it clear they are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of IBM." Employees are not allowed to reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) published its ethics code in 2005, emphasizing honesty of relationship, opinion and identity for the viral and buzz marketing industry. Used as a model by other companies, WOMMA's vice president and head of its ethics project, Paul Rand, observed that "companies are learning every day that there is a right way and a wrong way to engage with social media."
Another code has been devised by the Blog Council, "an organization for heads of social media at big companies" and includes a "disclosure best practices toolkit." New laws in both the U.K. and U.S. address deceptive marketing practices but have not been enforced, according to Mr. Gelles. Hopefully concern about public exposure will be enough to motivate companies to enforce their own codes.
Discussion questions: Have you encountered "astroturfing" and what do you think of the practice? How do such campaigns impact the value of consumer blogs and online reviews? Will establishing codes of practice by companies help to prevent the practice?