public relations disaster
Imagine you work for a New Zealand company with an entrenched monopoly. You think your website is pretty good, and you do a lot of business that way. But maybe you want to know what people really think. Perhaps you worry that your customers don’t like you as much as they should.
So you do some googling. It turns up a blog posting on an insignificant website that is critical of your company. You tell your co-workers about this site, instructing them how to search on Google to find it. Pretty soon even the Australian office is checking out the page.
But actually, you find the page a bit irritating and whiny. And other people have added to it over time, so that the page starts to resemble a bitch fest. What is it with these people?
So you take action. You decide to post a comment defending your company, but pretending to be from one of your happy customers. No-one will ever know, and it will help even up the balance a bit. Perhaps you even feign illiteracy in your “happy customer”. You think your customers are a herd of illiterate sheep after all.
But you forget two important things.
- You are not completely anonymous when you surf from work.
- You are a complete idiot.
Dramatis Personae:
The company: Ticketek.
The blog posting: http://halfpie.net/article/238/ticketek
The Idiot: “Simone”
stephen
12 August 2004, 08:10 #
Busted! Naturally, I'll be linking to this to ensure Googlejuice.
Alan
12 August 2004, 13:58 #
Yeah - I couldn't believe that they would be so dumb ...!
Sam
13 August 2004, 00:32 #
Holy crap. Thats.... sad.
Sam
13 August 2004, 11:34 #
And yeah, I did get that job. :D
Sarah
13 August 2004, 13:11 #
I had a similar thing happen on a post I made about TVNZ. Some genius posted a comment in reply defending TVNZ from a TVNZ server. There just aren't enough stupid people in the world.
Alan
13 August 2004, 13:38 #
Sam: congratulations - with luck you'll land some more lucrative gigs over time, build networks etc and all that soul-destroying stuff. Sarah: you're back? Is Jemima better now?
Jessie
18 August 2004, 14:02 #
I read about this on noizyblog - pretty funny. But it does raise an interesting point - I for one assume I have a lot more anonymity than it appears I do on the net!
Justin
19 August 2004, 03:16 #
You are about to go nova. This is up on boing boing Good luck with the ISP!
Alan
19 August 2004, 08:54 #
Thanks Justin. Someone alerted me not long after the post went on to BoingBoing. And it turns out that my host, a bunch of cooler people it would be hard to find, are perfectly relaxed about it.
Simon
19 August 2004, 10:21 #
Fantastic! Only problem is, what can we do about it? Because Ticketek *are* awful. (Sorry, I should have made some spelling mistakes seeing as all us ppl who use the net r illiterate and talk in txt spk, right?).
Alan
19 August 2004, 11:29 #
Bit tricky given Ticketek's more or less monopoly position in the New Zealand marketplace. There are a few alternatives, but none of them seem to get the events that Ticketek does. However, promoters of events can and should do something about it. If there are any reading this, how about trying some of the alternatives (which also have online presences) such as TicketDirect and RedTickets?
Flow
20 August 2004, 23:01 #
It's funny but it's probably some staff member thinking they're being defamed rather than a company sponsored effort. I work for Telstra (Australian Telco) and I never comment on any stick we get because of this exact thing - even my personal sites. Silly - that's what PR people are for. ƒ.
Alan
21 August 2004, 07:31 #
Flow - you are probably right, much as I would like to see evidence of astroturfing. Today's story in the NZ Herald almost confirms your view - it (obviously) wasn't an officially sanctioned act, and apparently no staffer at Ticketek will own up to doing it...
Marie
21 August 2004, 20:39 #
What's URL? I'm new to blogging. Just read the article in the Herald today and can't even get into www.ticketek tonight - apparently great new show available. I'll have to rely on the trusty old newspapers for info about shows coming.
Alan
21 August 2004, 22:42 #
Sorry Marie, URL here on the comment form just means the address of your homepage, if you have one. I should really change the template of this page to make that clearer. I'm not surprised that you can't get in to Ticketek - it seems to be a regular occurrence. Ever noticed the first few results on Google if you search for Ticketek? There's always an "Unavailable" page, and a "Busy" page listed, which tells you a lot about the state of their site.
Glyn
13 March 2005, 21:49 #
Just saw this issue on Frontseat. I guess you’ve got to give some consideration to editing, but man, was Ticketek’s response l-a-m-e?!? Suggesting that their extortionate booking fee allows you to “buy fifty tickets but pay the booking fee just once”—who the hell buys fifty tickets at a time!? Sigh. Monopolistic companies like Ticketek continue to make NZ seem like a sleepy little backwater where “thuh only way to get them there tickets fo’ the monster truck rally is to talk to cousin Seth down at thuh feed store, y’all…”
Alan
14 March 2005, 08:47 #
And they never adequately explained why they require you to sign up and collect all that info from people online, but it’s not a requirement f2f…