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LG Will Lend You a Free Phone If You Talk About It On Social Media

Posted by samzenpus on from the phones-for-flattery dept.

jfruh writes LG will let people in a host of countries use its G4 free for 30 days — with the hope that this will result in positive buzz on social media sites. From the article: "By offering 4,000 people a G4 for 30 days, the company hopes to create some buzz around its new device as flagship devices from its rivals Samsung Electronics and HTC go on sale. The Consumer Experience Campaign kicks off in South Korea on Wednesday, and will then expand to Turkey, Indonesia, Singapore, U.S., China, India, Brazil, Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, Japan and Hong Kong, LG said."

22 comments

  1. Cheap is cheap. by Needs2BeSaid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Free for 30 days? Why bother giving free advertisement that, based on Internet standards, last for eternity just to get a 30 day trial? Is the company doing so poorly that they can't sacrifice 4,000 phones? Also, when they take them back, do they repackage them as new? What do they do with the used phones?

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    Some things need to be said...
    1. Re:Cheap is cheap. by Macrat · · Score: 1

      Is the company doing so poorly that they can't sacrifice 4,000 phones?

      A self answering question.

    2. Re:Cheap is cheap. by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Is the company doing so poorly that they can't sacrifice 4,000 phones?

      You do realize that @ $1k each that this is $4 Million dollars right? Where they might be able to write that off as marketing, that's a serious chunk of change even for LG electronics. They may have BILLIONS in revenue, 4 million would be quite the bite out of the profits in an already competitive market segment. They may not have the room jus to eat that cost.

      But I do share your questions about what they are going to do with the returned devices.... Or, a more important question is, how are they going to force 4,000 people to actually return these devices? Somehow I'm guessing they may not get them all back, and then whatchagona do?

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    3. Re:Cheap is cheap. by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      This phone will self-destruct in 30 days.

      Da, da, da-da...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Cheap is cheap. by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Why bother giving free advertisement that, based on Internet standards, last for eternity just to get a 30 day trial? Is the company doing so poorly that they can't sacrifice 4,000 phones? Also, when they take them back, do they repackage them as new? What do they do with the used phones?

      The returned devices could just be used as loaners for developer testing and device lab testing.

      Or they may just do like Intel and require that you sign a piece of paper saying that you'll destroy the device yourself after the time is up. If the device gets supposedly "destroyed", or even purchased after the fact, then LG Electronics can avoid paying the full retail gift tax rate that some governments may require them to pay.

    5. Re:Cheap is cheap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oops mine got "stolen" I think and I cant find mine, LG. sorry not my fault!

    6. Re:Cheap is cheap. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Or they could just reset them and then give them to participants in the next country. There's enough countries out there that by the time they're scraping the bottom of the barrel, the phone will be obsolete.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    7. Re:Cheap is cheap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right. You can use it for a few days if you give them free publicity. Fuck that! At least they're not sabotaging Sumsung phones at CES at least...

    8. Re:Cheap is cheap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The phones probably don't cost LG $1k each. Maybe $200 each? Who knows?

      Plus, I assume in order to get the phone, you sign up for service and get it free for one month. After that, if you continue to use it (or simply don't return it), you will be charged as if the contract started normally.

    9. Re:Cheap is cheap. by ruir · · Score: 1

      The "force" part is easy, the devices locks itself after 30 days. Next...

    10. Re:Cheap is cheap. by nmr_andrew · · Score: 1

      More likely, they either require a credit card upfront with the understanding that you won't be charged if you return the device within, say, 45 days, or given that a phone is kind of useless without service, you'll sign an agreement with your carrier that the full cost will be added to your bill if it's not returned.

  2. Re:Where have I heard about that before... by sribe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems like Apple did invent everything before Android makers did ;)

    I have no idea what you're talking about, and it seems I will remain clueless, since you didn't bother to make sure the link was correct ;-)

  3. Re:Where have I heard about that before... by Minwee · · Score: 1

    And had just about as much success with it too.

  4. been there by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just got a brand new LG phone and I'd be talking about it on social media constantly with it except it KEEPS FREAKING BREAKING. It's a freezing, glitchy piece of crap.

    1. Re:been there by Venerable+Vegetable · · Score: 2

      I just got an LG phone (a budget model) and it works fine. However, it keeps nagging me to agree to a privacy agreement, which says LG will collect ALL my data and use it for ANYTHING they like including selling personally identifiable data to third parties and using it for advertising. I don't even want to use the preinstalled LG apps but the privacy agreement keeps coming up anyway.

      Additionally it wants to do a system update which "will improve my experience". That's literally all it says. No details on what it will actually improve and no version number.

      This annoys and worries me enough to skip LG next time I buy a phone.

  5. nothing new.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    companies have been giving people free stuff for (the higher chance of) favorable reviews and posts for ages....

  6. No such requirement? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

    The article says nothing about a requirement to talk about the phone on social media. Obviously any company hopes to get good word of mouth from freebies, but that's a very very different thing than requiring positive reviews in order to get the freebie. Is the headline just attempting to slander LG or is there any source that says there's a positive review requirement?

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  7. Pfffft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LG? Please. I just got this wonderful new Samsung galaxy XII and it simply just rocks, from the gentle curved lines that in a very sensual fashion almost kisses your hand and ear to its powerful 4,9 ghz Triniton processor with dual memory pipe paths.
    But why not try it out for yourself? They are available anywhere, where premium quality smartphones are sold.

  8. Pfft by Vlijmen+Fileer · · Score: 1

    "Lend", that's a burden, not a gift.

  9. Do I Have To Facebook? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    Do I have to sign up for Facebook to get the free phone?

    If so, no thanks.

    I probably was only going to use it with WiFi anyway. But Slashdot is a social network, right?

  10. And what about us? by suso · · Score: 1

    Are we going to get phones too for having to read this Slashvertisement?