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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!
The fraud is that they claim there's a particular real-estate CEO called X who believes Y about the Galaxy Tab, and in the way it's presented it's not unreasonable for someone to believe that that person actually exists. With movies there's a clear expectation going in that it's fiction.
However, if you go and make up fake reviews about your own movies such as calling them "another winner" and attributing them to non-existant movie critics, then that's also fraud.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm
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.
How convenient for Samsung, then, that they were able to find actors who had the exact same names as the characters they played! FTA:
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
She's worked for the Travel Channel. It wouldn't surprise me if she's done some magazine articles. At the very least, her statement in the ad jibes with her career. I wonder if Joseph Kolinski has sold real estate.
Honestly, if they were actors, being paid as actors to portray characters, wouldn't they be using character names? This kind of sounds like they may have picked a minor side job they do when they can't find acting work and used that as their career. Otherwise, why use their real names if they are playing wholly fictitious characters? It's not exactly like they would balk at playing a part using a character name.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
It's not the end of the world, but they're implying them as an endorsement by people in the field. The fact that the video says it's an "interview project" and list actual real names and but stretched or faked occupations, is pretty shady in my opinion.
That was exactly my point when I commented on this article yesterday on the site itself.
People are coming out of the woodwork screaming about fraud and astroturfing. No. Pretty much every single person who you'll find for this kind of gig is going to have an acting background on top of their day job. This is how the acting communities work. A handful of people out a hundred can make ends meet just by acting. The rest have to make ends meet by working day jobs. The overwhelming majority don't make much money at. Most move on after a period of time, but some of them plug away.
One of my best friends had (and still has) the acting bug. She lived in New York for a while after graduating. and managed to get quite a few small roles while waiting tables and tending bar. Eventually, she gave up it as a vocation (I think her parents bribed her) and now she's a lawyer. Still participates in community theater, still loves getting in front of the camera whenever she's given the opportunity. Just like every other actor who never made it as a professional actor.
And this is NYC we're talking about, for Taco's sake. CEO of a real estate company could describe a half dozen types of businesses that simply don't exist in most of the world.
Oh yeah, and those shows like Blind Date and their ilk? Half those people are actors, too. They're not acting in a role other than themselves for Blind Date. They're trying to get "exposure" or just jumped at the chance to get in front of a camera.
Of all the cockamamie REAL underhanded bullshit marketing tactics that big corporations pull every day, this is the one people are going to freak out about? GTFO.
Yeah, it's just as well that Christopher Nolan put something at the bottom of the screen saying Christian Bale is an actor, and Batman doesn't actually exist, or he'd be doing hard time for fraud right now.
Try watching the credits until a message similar to this one comes along :
"The events depicted in this movie are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental."
It's in every friggin' movie.
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!