Slashdot Mirror
Samsung's Happy Galaxy Tab Users Are Actors
harrymcc writes "At the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando this week, Samsung unveiled new Galaxy Tab tablets and showed videos of interviews with 'true-life' users who raved about the Tab, including a travel writer, a filmmaker, and a real-estate CEO. One problem: the writer and the CEO are actually New York stage actors."
Marketing = lies. Is anyone really surprised?
I never had a problem with Samsung, these companies are going to get worse with the bullshit if we just let them. Astrosurfing is something that needs to be fought back against. It needs to be made public.
Why isn't there are defamation website or the realdeal or cutthebullshit website? Or thetrangressions website?
Keep a history of all the bullshitty things a company has done to users. Apple and Microsoft would have reams of instance of screwing with the company. Something like fuckedcompany but more organized and has a specialized interface?
It would need legal protection or it might be sued for defamation, even if it is correct. Does western civilization not realise how strongly the foot is on our throats?
Bah.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Guess what? The people in ads are, well, actors.
And for the uber-naive, some online reviews are written by the product's manufactures!
Maybe the travel writer and real-estate CEO actors just told bullshit during the interview? Once during the GFC I was running a bit low on cash and told someone I really enjoyed .NET web development to pick up some interim work.
The "true-life" users might not be entirely suitable for sticking in front of a camera. Maybe they get nervous and clam up, or maybe they don't look or sound "right" for the video. Maybe there are issues with performing rights. It's far simpler to get the "true-life" user stories, write them up into something that flows, and get someone that can get a line out without sounding like a total idiot to perform them.
.. actually fooled by this??
They have no actual users...
I just watched the video. From the first 10s forward it was pretty clear that these aren't real people with genuine expressions. All of the three are obvious exaggerations of certain stereotypes/traits. They use phrases like "The possibilities are unlimited" or "It let's me get ahead of the competitors", etc. which are generally accepted to be the kind of language almost exclusively used by the marketing and... Just look at their facial expressions! If anything, they have been made too corny... But I guess it's intentional to drive home the point that they aren't real.
What I see is that a few characters (or mascots) have been created to explain different user stories of the product. It has been made obvious that they don't represent genuine people so even some idiot realized that they're actors... And blogged about it.
That people don't realise that marketing companies use actors.
The other day I saw an advertisement for a fast food establishment*, and there was a family there enjoying the food. I later learned that they weren't even related! The guy on the poster for haemorrhoid treatments doesn't actually have haemorrhoids either.
The point is that they're not deceiving you about anything that matters. A travel writer could use the galaxy for that purpose. Perhaps a travel writer even did, and they got an actress to explain why because it looks better. If you're going to choose something because its recommended by a pretty woman rather than a woman of more average appearance, then who are you to judge the marketing companies for taking advantage of this?
*Disclaimer - dramatisation only. I skip through the ads.
Actors with day jobs!
Look at the bio for the woman they link to. At the end, she actually is involved in some sort of travel "writing."
Samsung's twisting the truth, but of all the dirty, underhanded crap that the big boys pull, this ain't a big one.
I was under the impression that they were all actors. How is this something new?
Stop the presses!
Also, reality shows are scripted!
I was skeptical, but I have to admit it went beyond my expectations
OK. Yes. I understand that most of the time, people in ads are actors. But this pushes it too far. It apparently shows the actor's real name, and (real?) age, and fake profession. Then these actors are "interviewed" about their "reaction" to the Galaxy tab. I can understand putting comments like "it's just what I need!" in a fake ad. I can also understand using an actor to portray the testimonial of some other real person. But this appears to be 100% fabricated. When you start inventing "skeptical" people that turn believer about your product, you're stepping over the line.
(That said, I think the Galaxy Tab is freaking awesome and would love to have one.)
This is nothing compared to what I learned about Apple's Mac ads... Get this... the guy who says "I'm a mac..." he isn't actually a computer at all! Neither is PC! I couldn't believe it, but it was a pretty reliable source who told me this.
Tomorrow, the world!
Oh, wait...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
They're not ALL "historical documents?"
Marketing talking out of their ass? This threatens my entire understanding of the universe!!!!111eleventyone
To find that lying in order to sell a product is going on in here.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's not like anybody is gonna buy something besides an Ipad (for the best tablet experience) unless they're lied to or defrauded in some way or fashion. Samsung really has no other choice but to engage in the most crass form of commercialism, or they risk not being able to sell any of their wannabee "Ipad Killer" tablets. They have to engage in lies or their lame attempt at copying Apple will surely die. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Don't be so harsh...Actors are people too!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I think it's awesome that journalists are getting peeved because they are treated the same way everyone else is - as a dumb consumer. Welcome to the party, pal!
It isn't the astroturfing, marketing or advertising deception that irks me, it is the hypocrisy. I don't mind buying products on the recommendation of a shill just so long as I can use what _appear_ to be banknotes to pay for them.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
It's a commercial. With actors in it. Deal with it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, users in advertisement are called personas....
Thank god it has a name. That changes everything!
Okay, everyone. There's no lying going on here -- it just personas.
Everything's okay!
This is a totally useless story. What's important are the technical specs and the experience. Who actually cares that actors were used in a commercial?
Well yes, and also did you see the article where someone put the new "0.2 millimeter thinner than an iPad" next to an iPad and discovered that it was in fact thicker than an iPad?
And when the reporter asked to turn it on and use it, he was told he couldn't turn it on because it was just a "prototype". Uhm, no, prototypes generally do something, if it doesn't power up then it's a "mockup". So they claim they're going to make a tablet thinner than the iPad very soon now, but they can't even make a mockup to hand around that's actually thinner than the iPad???
So companies use actors in their commercials now?! The lies, the deception, oh the humanity!
New Media Strategies to sent armies of astroturfers here to post comments and disrupt our discussions on a daily basis? And by "armies" I mean most of the UIDs from 1900000 to 2000000
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Buy this expensive tablet device from us and we'll provide feature and/or security updates for the life of the product."
"These are real users of our products."
See, when you can't trust a company you're going to be less likely to do business with them.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
but some marketing pr rep for a galaxy tab competitor got a shallow smear astroturfed onto slashdot
isn't advertising grand?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
People speak on behalf of others all the time. Face it - some people are too butt-ugly to be put on TV to endorse a product. Maybe the writer was in a bad car accident and is scarred and has lost an eye. Perhaps the real estate CEO has a severe stutter, or is a redhead. It doesn't diminish what their message.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Maybe the writer was in a bad car accident and is scarred and has lost an eye. Perhaps the real estate CEO has a severe stutter, or is a redhead. It doesn't diminish what their message.
Exacty. Now contrast that with the situation where it's actually an actor who's only pretending to be a writer or a CEO; that does diminish the message.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Face it - some people are too butt-ugly to be put on TV to endorse a product
And some aren't, but simply give your company an image that may not be entirely desireable.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I am surprised to hear anyone confess to not seeing the video in question as staged within the first 5 seconds.
if marketing departments didn't care what we think, would they ever pay companies like New Media Strategies to sent armies of astroturfers here to post comments and disrupt our discussions on a daily basis? And by "armies" I mean most of the UIDs from 1900000 to 2000000. And according to my Texas Instruments programmable and graphic calculator, comes to about a hundred thousand astroturfers
If there really were armies of astroturfers raiding Slashdot, we should be seeing more than 120 responses to a story that presses all the right buttons.
News flash kids: There's nothing real about "reality TV." Even the most genuine moments are likely scripted to some degree and the scenario is contrived. When it comes to marketing, EVERYBODY IS AN ACTOR. The guy in the white coat is not a doctor. The mature lady with a perfect complexion is not a soccer mom--she doesn't even have kids.
Every time they say "we grabbed 10 real people off the street" -- No, they didn't. Do you really think that Dominos Pizza snuck people into a conference room on a farm without them knowing it and then dropped the walls and they were surprised to be in a tomato field? Really? This Samsung crap isn't any different.
Remember that a comedian always prefaces a bs story with "True story! This happened to me the other day..." Why would you be shocked that a TV commercial premise is a load of crap?
dude. i am all for it. will you pay me to write about and research the topic?
i can live on 16 grand a year. that's all i need.
A moderation system and editorial staff would definitely help, but to take a few examples:
- GeoHot: even though Sony was very heavy-handed here, I doubt most people would care, even when presented with all the facts. Geeks, on the other hand, still hold a grudge over the root-kit CDs.
- Nestle: I think more people would care if they knew, but not too many.
- Nike: this is well-known, and consumers have overwhelmingly voted with their dollars, saying they just don't really care enough. The same goes for the slave labor that makes Wal-Mart possible. We don't like it, but turn a blind eye, probably because there's not much we can do about it.
- VISA: some people actually support this. It's insane, but Fox News does have a sizable audience, and they've been trained to think Wikileaks wants to destroy America.
For most things like this, I just don't think people care enough even when something truly awful is going on, let alone would there be a solid consensus on the average corporate bullshit.
ok heres the plan.
step 1. download wikipedia
step 2. sift through it, keep only the articles about corporations and PR firms
(use the Securities and Exchange commission databases to help with this..
you can use name pattern searching, and also the SEC's categorization codes to isolate PR firms)
step 3. you install your own CMS (mediawiki or whatever), copy those articles to it
step 3.5 erase all the parts of those articles not having to do with astroturfing
step 4. hack your CMS to enable voting, 'alleged tags', etc etc etc.
step 5. figure out how to get access to digital archives of PR trade journals, like Jack ODwyer's PR newsletter.
scrape facts out of those, articles, integrate them into your wiki. this is legal because of court cases like Feist and
the Gerald Ford Biography case.
step 5.5. do the same for 'letters to the editor' pages of newspapers.
Step 6. hire people off of freelancer.com for $3/hour to help you with fact scraping, fact checking, editing, etc.
Step 7. non-profit!