Greenpeace's New Apple Campaign: User Generated Content
For an organization normally so agressive, their campaign to get Apple to lose some of their toxic manufacturing materials is unusually supportive of its target.
They’re encouraging Mac owners to use their creative tools to build grassroots media that urges Apple to make some changes. Is Greenpeace trying a new approach or just high on the Steve Job’s kool aid? I’m anxious to see if they attract more flies with honey and user generate content than vinegar.
Found via Creating Passionate Users.
Manufactured buzz doesn't work
Steven Levitt (coauthor of Freakonomics) commented on faking user-generated content (which I discussed here). Found via Emergence Marketing:
One conclusion which Steven Levitt at Freakonomics comes to when answering the question “what does or does not make Internet buzz translate into commercial success” is “One reasonable answer to that question may be that when the buzz is faked/manufactured, commercial success will not follow.”
Whether intentional or not, “manufactured buzz,” along with other viral “gaming-the-system” marketing strategies are just another threat to the future credibility of word of mouth marketing – another one being the lack of disclosure policy which some companies refuse to endorse.
Don't fake user-generated content
The Brains on Fire Blog has a good overview on the Al Gore’s Penguin Army video.
Essentially, DCI Group, a PR firm that holds Exxon Mobil as an account, released an ostensibly funny video on YouTube mocking An Inconvenient Truth (and misusing the Linux penguin).
If their purpose was to send up a little flack on behalf of Exxon, they failed. The film wasn’t funny, didn’t make an effective point, and won’t appeal to anyone that doesn’t disbelieve in climate change.
Add some penguin egg on their faces for faking grassroots media. The lesson we can all learn is that falsifying user-generated content will backfire early and often.