Samsung could have paid students for online smear campaign against HTC
Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission investigating Samsung for employing students to write negative online comments about HTC products.
We often talk about ‘the smartphone wars’ but we ignore how often those ‘wars’ tend to be fought dirty. Apart from just fighting out in stores, most mobile companies want to launch preemptive strikes against the competition through measures like patent litigation and negative ad campaigns. While it is an open secret that these companies also do employ bloggers and online commenters to raise awareness of their products, Samsung may have just crossed the line when it comes to irresponsible (and maybe even nefarious) marketing by employing students to actually post negative comments online about HTC products. The Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan has initiated an investigation against Samsung for the same and if the Korean handset manufacturer is found guilty, then it may have to pay a fine of up to $835,000 (Rs. 4.5 crores approx), which is, frankly- and unfortunately, chump change for a company like Samsung that made $52.4 billion in just the last three months of 2012.
To its credit, Samsung has not denied these accusations but has, predictably, responded with obtuse marketing speak. In a statement sent to CNET, the Korean company deemed the incident ‘unfortunate’ and blamed it on employees who had ‘insufficient understanding’ of Samsung’s principles. Samsung continues the apology by actually apologizing, but then hilariously states that it has stopped all marketing campaigns that relied on posting ‘anonymous comments.’
Okay, hold up. I think it’s great that Samsung managed to ooze out some kind of apology to begin with, but isn’t the fact that it had okayed a marketing campaign that involved anonymous comments, worth mulling over? Is there any scenario where a marketing campaign that involves anonymous comments is fine? We can’t deny the immediate power that comments on a story have on readers, especially if the story is a review and the reader is a seriously interested buyer. Even if the majority of the comments on a mobile phone review are positive, one single comment by someone complaining about some aspect of the phone, will make the reader stop and think. And if Samsung is actually employing students to make less than accurate comments about HTC phones, which is likely because these comments are of the ‘anonymous’ variety, then the investigation could have more serious repercussions for Samsung than just an inconsequential fine.
At least, HTC should be somewhat glad. All this negative attention from Samsung proves that in spite of the massive sales numbers for its Galaxy handsets, the Korean phone maker is actually threatened by HTC.
Source: CNET