Responding To Negative Blog Postings

I usually try to give out the ‘this is what you should do’ kind of advice, but today I want to share with you today, an example of what NOT to do when your company is challenged on a blog.

Here’s an article I wrote a few weeks ago on Sony’s and Zipatoni’s ridiculous advertising flog (fake+blog) and the reaction of the community they were attempting to reach. (see here for the full article)

While Sony seems to think they will brush this under the rug, most of us understand that this is only one in a series of marketing missteps from Sony. In fact, even with Zipatoni’s moronic website and clearly out-of-touch atmosphere, I wonder if this whole thing was Zipatoni’s idea, or something that Sony masterminded and put the marketing agency up to doing. This reeks of the same poorly imagined and executed fake graffiti debacle that came with their previous system launch, the PSP.

If they think that this is the way to encourage reluctant buyers into spending $600 on their PS3, when compared to a much cheaper XBox 360 which offers very, very little observable difference in gameplay (some would say it’s better, actually) or compared to a much, much cheaper Wii which is innovative and fun, then they need to make a tremendous shift in their talent.

I really hope they can buy a clue at some point, before they risk alienating the base they are banking on…

Zipatoni may suffer worse, though. Because they are the perpetrators and surely the ones that Sony will blame in this, and because they have much more shallow pockets, I’d not be surprised if they aren’t blacklisted for a time. Such a move could cripple the smaller company and force a drastic end to this already dismal story.

More important, though, is how the post was received by either someone who has quite a crush on Zipatoni or an employee, it’s difficult to tell…

Zipatoni is one of the most creative and successful sales promotion agencies in the world. The talent in their offices would make most video gamers squirm with envy. God forbid that someone would actually try to enter the sacred innersphere of youtube, or some popular blog, with a marketing message that wasn’t 100% real, aimed at people who spend most of their days playing frivolous fantasy games. The horror!

What would your sales promotion agency do in a similar situation? Try to reach the gamers on their way to a college football game? The idea was to reach em where they live and entertain them. Since when is advertising journalism? I’m sure that in-between killing hundreds of people in a fantasy game death match, gamers around the nation paused to vilify Zipatoni. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You’re writing reads like you got the first scoop on Watergate. Well, not exactly my friend. It sounds more like the whinings of a kid with a sense of adolescent entitlement. It’s nothing more than a game! Now, go do something important and go cut your mother’s lawn.

My response here:

Steve, I’m a 31 year old mother of four…

You ask what I would do? I would emulate Major Nelson and put up a blog that actually required real attention to the demographic rather than a one-time spam-slam campaign.

I think you don’t get it, and that’s the whole point. Care enough about your customers to actually try to find out what they are interested in, not what you want to feed them.

And, by the way, are you from Zipatoni? I hope not with that attitude about gamers. That’s exactly the attitude that came across from the ridiculous campaign…

I don’t think the person in question is directly employed by Zipatoni. I did some DNS lookups and it appears to be someone in Wisconsin (Zipatoni is located in St Louis, MO), but it begs the question, is this how you’d respond were a company you liked negatively implicated in a story on a blog?

Remember that once your words are online, they are forever. Because the company email address that this fellow used to make the comment is probably not web savvy enough to know this (though they are SEO/SEM purveyors), I’m not going to post his company’s name here. Although I am considering it since his company is actually in the business (online marketing).

Most people aren’t so nice. Take that to mind when your company (or a pal’s company) is attacked and you want to lash out. Were I the PR firm handling this fiasco for Zipatoni, I’d have said something like this:

Thank you for your honest assessment. We are listening. Our objective was to reach bloggers and gamers where they were and to entertain them. If this was not seen toungue-in-cheek, then clearly we went in the wrong direction. Our aim was to make gamers realize that we cared enough to go into the realm where they live. I can assure you that your voices were heard and our next campaign will take your opinions into consideration. We will not forget that, in the end, we work for you.