Laziest social media campaign yet?
I used to work in Dubai.
Among the many corrupt things about the media there were the government-funded “awards” that incentivised journalists to write positive things about the emirate. You can read more about that at Fake Plastic Souks.
So I’m just delighted to see that Sydney agency Robot Meets Alien is adopting a similar approach by attempting to bribe incentivise bloggers with the chance of winning a grand if they write something nice about the video camera they’re promoting.
They’ve been writing to bloggers with the following message:
Hi,
I’m from Sydney based agency Robot Meets Alien. Briefly, our work here is about activating offline conversations via our online relationships. Right now we’re reaching out to the online media and marketing community for inspiration. We’re starting a conversation with Australian bloggers in the search of the most innovative social media campaign for the new Samsung U10 camcorder <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grHz0F7QaVk>.
The blogger with the best idea receives $1000 to spend on their blog to run the campaign. You’ll also gain exposure to our Facebook fans (5300+) and Twitter following (1200+).
How to enter:
1. Write a blog post about the U10 Camcorder <http://tinyurl.com/yk3qzks>.
2. Email us with your response to the question: “How would you market the U10 through your blog and social media network?” Your pitch could be made through a video, a text email, a blog post etc. The more creative the better!
3. Email the URL of your blog post about the U10 and your pitch to SamsungCapture@robotmeetsalien.com along with your name and contact number.
4. Wait for our confirmation email to ensure you have been entered.
Feel free to call or email anytime.
And they’ve even been including the blogs of rival agencies in that email.
Still, I think I’ll have a crack. Here’s my response to the question of how I’d market it… I’d go and find an agency with some good ideas. I’d avoid any agency with the word “robot” or “alien” in their name.
Do I win the money?
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
I avoid any agency that uses the phrase “start a conversation”. Most abused phrase of 2009.
User ID not verified.
Crowded sourced marketing isn’t such a bad idea if it’s well executed. Obviously their mailing list and prize money and execution in general is woeful.
User ID not verified.
Wow. Just. Wow…. That is indeed the most lazy & embarrasing effort in recent times from an ad agency regarding social media whoring oh sorry “marketing”.
If I was the client and they came back with this – which is effectively saying “we have no idea for your product, so we (your chosen creative agency) have NO creativity” I would show them the door….and then kick them through it.
User ID not verified.
You so, so miss the whole point
User ID not verified.
The previous was to Robot Meets Alien, sorry for any confusion
User ID not verified.
Ihad never heard of this product until now. The fact you wrote about this lazy campaign shows that it is already working.
User ID not verified.
Matt, I’ve never heard of you before so I guess your campaign is working.
User ID not verified.
Before we can even comment on the program, I have to ask: where are they getting the numbers of Facebook friends and Twitter followers from?
Near as I can tell, they have 754 followers on Twitter and their homepage links to a Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/.....089?ref=ts) with 177 fans.
Otherwise, I don’t know what I dislike most – the cheesy paid for content, or the classic “come up with our ideas for us!” idea.
User Generated Content – You’re Doing It Wrong.
User ID not verified.
And even their own content is “wrong”. What the frigging frigg is “activating offline conversations”? Oh, you mean “getting people to talk”.
Is that the robot talking, or the alien? ‘Cos it sure ain’t how actual humans talk. Sorry, how humans “activate their conversations”.
Crowdsourcing = expecting other people to do your work for you, for nothing. Bah.
User ID not verified.
Is this for real? I know that SOME agency staff simply have no idea. (I say ‘some’ because many are fantastic.) This backs up my thoughts there, what an incompetent so called ‘ creative’ agency. This is daylight robbery if Samsung are paying this Robot / Alien mob!?!!!!!
My advice to Samsung would be to: Sack them.
User ID not verified.
and the conversation has started…the wrong one.
User ID not verified.
I get it and agree that it’s lame ass campaign but I’m sick of people getting all uppity about the way people approach bloggers like they’re some kind of credible source of news – they aren’t.
By definition they’re just people about shit/stuff they like…they have no obligation or responsibility to get both sides of the story and present an unbiased factual report…
Yes, granted some bloggers are journalists but not all of them so why not incentivise them? or give them stuff? I don’t really care…it’s not bloggers I go to for an unbiased opinion/report is it?
The more parallels we draw between bloggers and journalists the more journalists feel like they can blur the line and go on rants about things rather than report the facts and at the same time we give more power & influence to some beligerant blogger…
User ID not verified.
Lou, I certainly wasn’t approaching this from a ‘bloggers are journalists of teh futures!!11!!1!” angle – there’s enough nut jobs to run with that line of thought, but this is a situation where the brands strategy is to secretly buy public opinion.
It is a difficult line to draw, but anything that doesn’t encourage anybody expressing their opinion online and exerting their influence to reveal any conflicts of interest, like a secret competition, is dodgy.
If they put it up on a site, where they actively invited anyone to partake, then it wouldn’t be nearly as dodgy. Still pretty pathetic and boring, though.
@Stilgherrian: I think you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure the old Batman show from the 60’s used to start with:
Robin: “Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed. Activating offline conversations.”
Batman: “Roger”
*nanananananananananananananananana… BATMAN!*
User ID not verified.
@Warlach: So what you’re saying is that you’re the alien?
User ID not verified.
If as a blogger you win this, and are therefore paid by a company (Samsung), or its agent (Robot Meets Alien), you would be required by new FTC regs to disclose this on your blog. Just saying.
User ID not verified.
So who’s to say that this isn’t one of those reverse psychology posts from Mumbrella that still engages with the audience?
User ID not verified.
@joel wrong jurisdiction buddy
User ID not verified.
What impresses me most is how quick this industry wants to shoot everybody else ideas down…because it wasn’t theirs. I suggest you take a good look at your own useless social marketing “team” and then throw stones. I am not the alien btw I personally hated this approach. So much hate.
User ID not verified.
@Stilgherrian No, I’m not the alien, sadly. It’s an interesting choice for agency name – probing or destroy mankind? The choices are limitless!
Then again, PR and marketing that abides by Asimov’s Three Laws is actually a fairly neat idea…
User ID not verified.
lame idea aside, i agree with Lou that for the line between editorial and advertising gets crossed much more in the blogosphere because the editor is also the head of sales….
User ID not verified.
We got this ‘opportunity’ to participate, but we don’t plan to do so. Personally I put this approach in the Nigerian email and Russian bride scam, only not quite so convincing or as well thought through.
User ID not verified.
Appalling as it is, is there even any kind of incentive to assist these hapless muppets? A free camera?
User ID not verified.
Klaatu barada nikto.
User ID not verified.
Another sad thing is they are an online marketing agency, and nobody has responded to this negative publicity….
Seriously guys, if you were a real online marketing group you would have picked up on this article and gone into damage control….
User ID not verified.
Maybe, Tom, but I reckon I might be hiding under the doona instead. 😉
User ID not verified.
LOL Tim
User ID not verified.
Perhaps next time you approach a 3rd party for your marketing don’t approach an alien!
Blimey, people talk about flying saucers and the like, but never give money to them…(Tom Cruise and John Travolta aside…)
Here is some advise for Samsung: Go to Youtube and search “I’m an alien – fast show” – That’s you that is.
User ID not verified.
This agency should change their name to Lazy Robot Meets Greedy Alien
Lazy or uncreative Robot can not come up with their own ideas for this campaign, but Greedy Alien wants to keep the client’s money and decides to offer up just $1,000 as a prize – and hey it’s not even a prize really, because you have to put it towards the promotion of the product they are supposed to be promoting.
At least the chip companies running competitions to make an ad or create a flavour are offering a decent $$ prize in addition to a portion of sales or producing the ad themselves.
User ID not verified.
I have to agree with Warlach – where are they getting their numbers from?
It reminds me of that PR agency I had a stoush with on another mUmBRELLA story about their ‘social media-led’ campaign for Cascade lager returning to the 375ml bottles. Their Cascade Facebook group had 153 people in it…no doubt most of them employees of Fosters…
Until you’re over 1000 fans/followers or whatever, I’d never blow your trumpet…
User ID not verified.
Since when is it new for an agency to ask someone else to come up with their creative? In the publishing world it happens all the time – and I don’t think there’s ever been an offer of payment – other than that they might actually potentially buy an ad? Maybe.
User ID not verified.
Thanks for the linky thing, Tim!
Lou – bloggers get audience. Doesn’t matter if they’re journalists or commentators, sharers of life experience or experts in their fields.
Which is why witless arseholes are starting to look at ways of ‘engaging’ them. Sadly, the thinking seems to be remove ‘media’ from the advertising/PR plan and replace with ‘bloggers’ as if the motivations, relationships and communication flows are the same.
So I’ve seen agencies that want to gather bloggers in a social event where the product in question is demo’d to them and agencies giving products to bloggers in the hope of securing ‘reviews’ or positive mentions.
Just for the record – as a journalist over 10 years, I only ever attended three press events. One company flew me to Lausanne to meet their CEO (lovely), one to Rome to a product gig (smashin’) and one to have breakfast at the Ritz in London (my ad manager shamed me by boshing Heinz ketchup out of the bottle all over their lovely scrambled eggs). That was as an editor. As someone who has a silly little blog as a hobby, the chances of you lot ever getting me in a room with a product are not only zero, I’ll bite anyone who tries.
Like the above example, this stuff doesn’t really work very well. Thank God the Middle East is still behind the curve on this and most bloggers are left untouched because many agencies and most clients still don’t see online as terribly relevant.
Halcyon days, eh?
User ID not verified.
Just to balance out the vitriolic posting from other agencies and Timbo. The following are Robot Meets Alien recent social media project stats:
1. Project Runway Australia (Facebook Fans: 6619/Twitter Followers: 2196)
2. Adore Midori (Facebook Fans: 4572 Fans/Twitter Followers: 735) Ongoing
3. Samsung Capture (Facebook Fans: 6256/Twitter Followers: 1330) Ongoing.
I like what they do and think you’ve all let yourselves get a little carried away.
User ID not verified.