It appears that the ongoing war between Facebook and Google is threatening to boil over yet again. Fresh from the embarrassing smear campaign that Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller to conduct in the media against Google in May this year, it looks like Brin and Co. may be taking the PR offensive this go around. Black hat style.
Much has been made in the media on the impending migration of internet A-listers from Facebook to Google+. According to a TechCrunch report, web developer Michael Lee Johnson ran an ad in Facebook in an effort to get people to add him to their Circles in Google+. His ad was subsequently suspended presumably for violating Facebook’s Terms of Service. This action has prompted lively debate on the wisdom of Facebook’s actions. But more interesting is a comment about Google’s possible involvement in this incident. Some speculate that Google has indirectly hired individuals like Johnson to run ads in their competitor platform to provoke Facebook to go into hyper-drive which would in turn make great media fodder.
If this scheme really existed, it is playing out wonderfully for Google. With the story running on TechCrunch, a top tech blog and being spread via Twitter and Facebook, Facebook is not exactly being portrayed in the best light. But these types of “black hat” PR tactics aren’t new. This is just another blip in the long list of PR transgressions that companies are willing to commit in the name of winning.
The Redner Group, a PR firm specializing in the video gaming industry was recently in the middle of a PR firestorm of its own. Keeping a private media blacklist is not new in the competitive product/game reviews arena. But in reaction to the overwhelmingly bad reviews of the long-awaited Duke Nukem Forever title (fans waited a decade for the game), Jim Redner alluded to the dreaded blacklist for any reviewer who published a bad reviewer on his client’s title in a tweet from his company’s Twitter account.
This triggered a wave of media coverage and commentary that ultimately resulted in the Redner Group resigning from the account. Fortunately, all this publicity didn’t hurt Duke Nukem Forever sales. It was the second highest grossing game title across all platforms in June!
And finally, there is Reverb Communications and the infamous App Store reviews scandal. Writing fake reviews is hardly a new practice among the more ethically challenged in the PR profession. Developers have been known to have their friends and family write a review or two in the App Store. But Reverb simply institutionalized it and brought the practice into a whole new level if reports are accurate. They allegedly hired a team of interns to write positive reviews for their clients’ apps in the App Store and online forums without disclosing the financial relationship between the reviewers and the app developers. The firm has since settled charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission, the body that oversees these types of matters.
So as an entrepreneur, how far would you go to win? If you are a PR consultant, what outrageous PR schemes have you been asked to get involved in?
Image by Amada44, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
