Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Offered StackOverflow Users $500 For "Organic" Publicity
First time accepted submitter rjmarvin writes "Digital marketing company FLLU, hired by Samsung to promote SSAC, offered $500 to StackOverflow users to pose 'casual and organic' questions over the next month about the 2013 Challenge. Android developer Delyan Kratunov turned them down, then posted the whole exchange on his blog. Outrage, of course, ensued." Sorry, no bounty on the comments below.
Dice.
Ads posing as content. Samsung probably felt left out.
Hey baby, if you're casual, I'm organic.
Samsung, Apple, Phhft. All the same
Apple do this via exclusive pre-launch access to iThing +=1 and exclusive interviews. It works very well for both parties. The reporter gets to hype their site/blog and get a lot of indirect money from ad impressions. Apple also win, it cost them nothing, other than monitoring these people to ensure all articles are +ve. As soon as they're not, the person concerned is blacklisted.
Samsung are more honest, it appears immediately on your tax filings, unlike Apple's. And we all know what lengths they'll go to to avoid paying anything for the infrastructures and laws that support their business.
So I read the article, seems there was no scamming involved just hiring people to do a little publicity. Seems for some people getting paid to do a job is now a reason for outrage! Guess most of these people don't like working.
Very strange thing for Samsung (or their marketing company) to do, since on StackOverflow any user can post a question, and questions do not receive more attention based on who posted them. They could have simply had one guy make a bunch of accounts and post the questions himself (also upvoting his questions from his other accounts).
This would not be particularly hard to do, so the whole idea of hiring bloggers to do this is really really stupid, especially considering that bloggers would love nothing more than to get attention for themselves by publishing the story.
That's a good idea since the last time someone from Samsung offered $500 for Orgasmic publicity, they got arrested.
Samsung and every other company on earth do lousy border-line sleazy marketing on our holy grails of developer purity, but in reality this happens all the time pretty much everywhere, so the question is:
1. Fix humanity
2. Deal with it
If you trust people's opinions, make sure its for a good reason, and if you don't then keep scepticism in the back of your mind that this could be intentional. Some marketing is so pervasive that idiots do it for you (shirt logo's) and some are so ingrained that you never know it exists, like half of Slashdot's articles =-)
Bye!
Isn't that like, the stupidest shit you've ever heard of?
I must admit, seeing this article made me go check out their site. They made this massive organic publicity through the Streisand effect.
Good publicity is worth millions. Next time pay the market rate.
How about a direct link to the blog post? http://www.delyan.me/08-01-2013/samsung-agency-is-buying-off-stackoverflow-users/
Just another payola scam, nothing to see here folks...
Here is how it would have gone down:
Question: "Need some feedback on the app I am about to enter for the Samsung Smart App Challenge." (yes, that is an actual quote from the email)
Response: "Welcome to StackOverflow! Please read what this site is about, and "How to ask" before asking a question."
Aaaaand... closed for off-topic within 60 seconds.
StackOverflow has one of the most diligent communities I've ever seen. They wouldn't tolerate this shit.
seems like this is worth more than $500 in advertising
I don't think there is any large company that goes without doing this.
Review sites especially are filled with SO many paid people.
Given the publicity he gave Samsung, did they pay him the $500 in the end?
John Yoon should get a raise. He got this Samsung App Challenge mentioned on slashdot and he didn't have to pay anyone (presumably) $500.
I must admit, seeing this article made me go check out their site. They made this massive organic publicity through the Streisand effect.
Hmm..
I agree I too checked out their site. It indeed added value to my life and would recommend casually to a friend or fellow slash dot user to join me there
I am about to enter for the Samsung Smart App Challenge. Anyone know have any experience with this?
On a totally unrelated subject, I just casually signed up for the Slashdot Newsletter. It seems like a pretty organic publication. Anyone know of any cool gadgets I can buy for $500?
Editors: Please link to the real article rather than an ad-infested copy.
Site owners: Please adjust contrast so your site is readable.
Thanks, and sorry for the interruption
It's hilarious to see an Android apologists like yourself struggle to tie this back to Apple somehow.
How in any way is offering a review unit to someone who may write about a device with every reader knowing they got a review unit, the same as having technical people pretend they were naturally interested in Samsung on a pure technical site and not divulging they were paid to express interest? Can you honestly detect zero difference in the morality of open vs hidden action?
I can imagine you would have quite a different message posted if the name of the company offering money to game technical sites was Apple and not Samsung.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is all a conspiracy, it is much cheaper to make up a story like this than to pay several users $500. Think about it, I had never heard of the evil "Samsung Smart App Challenge" until I read this post and I am sure I wouldn't have noticed it in the comments. Well played Samsung.
Anveto
I am willing to bet that there are a number of SlashDotters wondering, "Where's my $500?" While the mathematically inclined among us are nodding knowingly that with every offer they make they have a certain percentage probability of hitting a whistle blower. The question is will they be able to hit the threshold of having enough people to have an impact before they are approaching a near 100% chance of getting busted?
Even if only 1 in 50 would blow the whistle the odds still stack up against you pretty quickly. Plus now we are all going to jump on anyone being a Samsung fanboy. If their next product has a mobile quantum processor we will all be screaming "SHILL! SHILL!" at the poster.
Does the Samsung SSAC have a sheet metal cock?
...mean grown in bullshit right?
Because you can - or because you should?
So large in fact that I call it "big cock" to my many wives. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
- Angry South-Korean CEO
Speaking for I assume most of us, it's "a fair amount of cash" - but not life changing. You'll weigh up the pros and cons, yadda yadda
*If* you want to bribe somebody you need to go straight in with "shock and awe". No negotiations.
So, apparently Samsung has been contacted, and should make sure this doesn't repeat
> 'casual and organic' questions
"So, ya wanna go root around in each others' funk?"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I dare them to offer me $500 for publicity. I'll give them some publicity.
Samsung = phoney
Apple = phoney
phones are tracking devices for slaves.
That I didn't get offered $500 to astroturf for them, hell I'd have done it for a new GS4.
If you sell your services as far as writing fake ads, are you an ad ho?
So, what exactly is SSAC? anything interesting?
There is no such thing as bad publicity. Their act led to this article posted on Slashdot and may be of other tech forums. I am sure the number of people who know what is SSAC has increased many fold after FLLU's action. Mission accomplished.
OK... so the developer refused, but Slashdot accepted...
Arguably, a front page article on Slashdot referencing the contest/promotion is worth 20 to 30 times more than some question on Stackoverflow. If the author of this article doesn't get at least $10,000 for that, then they're getting ripped off.
Yes, because one man said so, it is true...
Don't believe everything you read on the internet, or until you know the whole story.. If it's real, it's also possible that Samsung doesn't even know about it..
And even if it's true, who cares, it's marketing..
Samsung Offered StackOverflow Users $500 For "Organic" Publicity
Digital marketing company FLLU, hired by Samsung to promote SSAC, offered $500...
That does make a difference. Not saying it's a big one, but it's a difference.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Either way, the old saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity" comes true, and some marketer who was called out is probably walking all the way to the bank.
Not... necessarily. There is such a thing as bad publicity, as amply demonstrated by MS recently with regards to the XboxOne DRM and other issues. That bought them a lot of ill-will from their ex-fans. Sure, they did a 180, retracted their position and maybe clawed back some of their hard core fans. But everything they've been doing since is to make up for lost traction for their new console. Worse still, they publicly boosted their strongest competitor at a very crucial time, when the new consoles were being unveiled and the publicity machine was gearing up to create hype.
Hell, it was basically win-win. If he wasn't found out, great, more entries. If he was called out, even more publicity. Either way, more people know about it and that was the entire point.
Except... thats not the point. The point from a marketing perspective is to close sales for your client. There is no point spamming a million eyeballs if none of them are potential customers. Thats the reason why Google Adwords commands premium rates- because they can deliver ads to people who are most likely to buy the product (i.e. those searching for "ipad sale" etc).
On this issue, there is no guarantee that this stunt will increase participation in the Samsung Smart App Contest. Those people checking it out may still go "meh" and pass on it.
More importantly, if this thing blows up, it has the potential to damage Samsung's brand. Samsung is a billion dollar company and Samsung Smart App is in comparison a piddly portion of the whole. If however, Samsung gains a reputation for astroturfing, it could seriously damage the brand. Just look at what is happening to MS now, I have seen numerous posts supportive of MS products on many tech forums being derided as being from paid shills, and rightly so since they were outed. Once the brand is poisoned, it is extremely difficult to repair .
First, a bit of background on the "father of spin"
In other words, advertising/publicity is simply a means to brainwash the masses into doing what the advertisers want. The word 'Machiavellian' comes to mind.
As far as I'm concerned, the Samsung Galaxy S and Note series blow the competition out of the water for value for money. They are currently well ahead of the pack. The risk/reward of a stunt like this simply isn't worth it. If they want to attract people to their platform, unlock their phones and spend that money on giving out prizes for xda developers for adding cute new features to custom roms.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Most popular benchmarks confirm it: the performance of Samsung Galaxy phones is unmatched!
n/t
Samsung has responded to us with an official comment on the story: check the story for their statement or read it via this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/l/61968
What the hell is an "Organic Question" ?
This word "Organic" has become like "Cloud", people just use it anywhere they want.