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Samsung is in news for all wrong reasons. Recently they lost a much discussed legal battle to their arch rival Apple. Now once again Samsung in news for wrong reason. They reportedly flew two bloggers from India as reporters and later asked them to work as promoters at IFA Conference, Berlin. (IFA is one of the largest Electronics/Gadgets related exhibition). When they rejected company's demand, Samsung threatened them saying that company will cancel their return tickets and hotel stay facility.
Finally, Nokia, stepped in to the situation and provided the blogger return ticket and hotel accommodation. The other blogger agreed to promote Samsung products at the venue.:Frustrati
Here is the link to read the full story (
Link ).
The first thing came to my mind while reading this story was Team-BHP's disclosure statement during car reviews and events. I would like to hear our fellow BHPian's take on this incident. I feel this practice will be present in Auto Industry as well. Anyways the whole episode is being discussed on social media so thought sharing.
Just sad - they seem to have no ethics whatsoever.
Two points: -
- Companies covering travel and stay expenses of bloggers and other journalists of various hues, and,
- Samsung, in this particular incident, threatening to leave the individuals stranded in a foreign country after flying them out without making it 100% clear beforehand what was expected of them.
Point (1) happens a lot these days and though it sounds and stands in contradiction to traditional journalistic values, it is quite the norm these days. It is better to think of this as "courtesy extended in return for your presence and time for reviewing our products". We may try to make that sound like fair practice, but really, it can never be safeguarded against criticism. If bloggers/journalists accept "courtesies" from the very company whose products they intend to review, they leave a questionable loophole for others to point fingers at them,
even though their review may be 100% impartial, unbiased and accurate. I'm only making an observation and am NOT saying that the bloggers involved or any other bloggers/journalists are biased towards or against any brand/company. This too carries markedly different implications in different scenarios: - for example it seems to be more acceptable when companies are flying out reporters to their own exclusive events, however it sounds remarkably less acceptable if they are paying to fly them out to a multi-brand or brand-neutral event like IFA where reporters would be expected to review/cover other brands too.
Point (2) - Samsung screwed up. There is no other way to say this. This will be discussed worldwide and Samsung will gain notoriety and infamy. Now we all know that realistically it is the mistake of probably one single individual or a couple of people working at Samsung India who didn't handle the proceedings well prior to sending those guys out to Berlin. He/she should have made it amply clear
beforehand what they wanted those guys to do. It really is an individual's wrong approach to planning things out. However, Samsung will have to take the blame and deal with all the negativity. I would expect the employees involved to be fired within a couple of months. These guys gave a global conglomerate bad press worldwide which will gain as much coverage as their product announcements, and all this while the company is already going through a massive defeat in court - well, good luck with that.
Samsung should have told them clearly before the event about what the bloggers were supposed to do instead of keeping them in the dark. If they had refused, they could have contacted other bloggers who would be willing to do what Samsung had asked them to do. Samsung is at fault here.
I appreciate Team-BHP's disclaimer that is mentioned in every review. No other Review I've seen carries a disclosure and yet, Team-BHP's Reviews are the ones that are the most critical of the car's various shortcomings. If they don't invite Team-BHP, our mods get hold of a car from a fellow Team-BHPian and do the review. It's like we don't care if you invite us or not, your car will be reviewed anyway. :D
But, with other media outlets and bloggers, it's a different thing. I haven't seen a recent review which has come down on a car's weakness. In fact many times all the cars in a comparison are deemed winner due to this thing or that. Many times these so called "experts" even suggest an entirely different car to a viewer rather than from the choices mentioned in the question.
In the Tech/Gadgets Space, it's even worse. I can't help but notice that Clinton Jeff has "reported" a lot about Nokia Headphones, Speakers and other stuff from IFA 2012 even though Nokia did not officially take part in the event. It seemed a little weird to me at first but after knowing that Nokia took care of their return flights and hotel accommodation, the reason is pretty clear to me now.
There are no free lunches in this world and companies who shell out considerable sums of money to fly and accommodate journalists and bloggers in hotels surely want as much Positive Publicity as possible in return. Not everyone is like Team-BHP. Kudos to you guys for being unbiased to the core. :)
I saw this article on the net and everyone is going hammer and tongs against Samsung for their behaviour and handling of the case.
I am not for a moment condoning what Samsung has done (by threatening them to wear their Tshirts or else..), but the Bloggers have not used their brains to realise that there is no free lunch. Why would a multi billion dollar conglomerate fly you for free to a tech conference and pay for your stay if they are not expecting anything in return.
In the other article by Amit Bhawani, it clearly shows that the emails also had schedules and definitions of the Promoter and Reporter.
Looks like these bloggers were greedy and opted a seven days stay for the Promoter instead of three days stay for reporter and paid the price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxTorque
(Post 2891630)
The first thing came to my mind while reading this story was Team-BHP's disclosure statement during car reviews and events.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger
(Post 2891782)
I appreciate Team-BHP's disclaimer that is mentioned in every review. No other Review I've seen carries a disclosure and yet, Team-BHP's Reviews are the ones that are the most critical of the car's various shortcomings. If they don't invite Team-BHP, our mods get hold of a car from a fellow Team-BHPian and do the review. It's like we don't care if you invite us or not, your car will be reviewed anyway.
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Thank You. My personal preference is to have the cars given to me in my home city, instead of wasting time travelling & spending the night at a hotel. Reason = I get more time with the car and can test it at my own pace. Also, testing in Mumbai doesn't affect my work schedule as much.
As Turbo Charger rightly mentioned, if & when a manufacturer refuses to lend us a car for a test, we have this wonderful community & its rich memberbase to count on. Example :
Maruti Swift Review. The entire review was performed on a fellow BHPian's car.
Do also keep in mind that Team-BHP does NOT accept advertising of any car model on our website, whether its a Hyundai or a Rolls Royce. In that way, we are the most unique source of authentic information on the Indian Car Scene.
Sorry about going off-topic : You guys can continue discussing my favourite phone company now :D
I dont know how much Samsung had a say in this, but it seems to be an overzealous and overconfident person who tried to bully them into doing this. By threatening them. I hope we get to know what action is taken against such people. This can act as a deterrent to such characters who also exist in other fields.
The best part of this incident for me?
"In the end, Nokia ended up offering to take care of their hotel and flights, ensuring that they would be able to stay in Berlin and cover the event in greater detail."
Now I wonder which phones these bloggers would recommend. if their blog posts remain unbiased in the future, hats off to them!
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