More fake reviews at Amazon…

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We have talked about the “Gray World of Online Reviews” here at Teach the 4 Ps several times in the past few years–and of course in Essentials of Marketing. I am still shocked at the different unethical techniques used to continue this misleading practice. I am also surprised that Amazon and others that rely on their reviews to (in part) drive traffic have not figured out how to better police such behavior. With all that in mind, here is one more example, “Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake,” Buzz Feed News, November 20, 2019.

From a personal standpoint, I used to just assume that a product with a few dozen reviews and a 4.5 star (or higher) average was worth buying. I still trust reviews, but I am much more likely to check out a few of the one-start and two-star reviews to see if they are the few honest ones. I also believe that fake reviews are eventually sorted out. If those five-start reviews attract buyers — they will also attract frustrated critics who shower the product with one-star reviews.

“Buy one give one” business models — marketing for a better world (#M4BW) or not?

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The buy one give one business model has been around for many years. One of the early advocates was Tom’s Shoes which donates a pair of shoes for someone in need for each pair it sells. Warby Parker does the same for eyeglasses and Bombas for socks. In fact, you can find 16 examples in this article and slideshow at Refinery 29. This sounds like a great example of Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW).

I thought so, and then I read “Beware companies that promote ‘buy one, give one’ charity,” Vox, October 31, 2019). After thinking about this counterpoint, I wondered if the author had perhaps overstated her case — and I will still feel good that my purchase of Bombas helped put socks on a homeless person’s feet, my All Birds helped someone get shoes, and I still think Cotopaxi is a cool company with a powerful mission. But the Vox article does raise an important question and useful point of debate for the idea of marketing for a better world. It isn’t always clear when a company makes the world a better place. And if they make some people better off at the expense of others, how do we evaluate those tradeoffs? These examples and the article might prepare you for a class debate on this topic.

Skin care brand Sunday Riley wrote fake Sephora reviews…

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We have all worried about it. I love reviews for helping me make buying decisions. It is great to have information from real customers who have experience with a product. But are those reviews real? We have written about it before right here in Teach the 4 Ps. We also have an Ethical Dilemma on fake reviews in Essentials of Marketing.

It came up again recently when it was reported that “Skin care brand Sunday Riley wrote fake Sephora reviews for almost two years, FTC says.” (CNN, October 23, 2019. As consumers increasingly rely on reviews as a source of buying information, there is a growing incentive for sellers to add more information. This story about Sunday Riley is particularly egregious.

This is a major concern for retailers or other intermediaries that add value by providing reviews. For Amazon, good and bad reviews provide valuable information to consumers — but fake reviews threaten trust in the system. Consider, a study by a British consumer education group which found “Many popular tech products on Amazon are boosted by fake reviews, an investigation finds,” (CNN, April 16, 2019). Even travel site like TripAdvisor faces the same concerns, “TripAdvisor defends itself against claim that up to one in seven reviews might be fake,” (CNN, September 6, 2019). For Amazon and TripAdvisor their business models rely heavily on reviews. These intermediaries do not pay customers to provide this information — so it is low-cost to add — but it is one of the main reasons many customers use the sites. Consequently, Amazon and TripAdvisor use artificial intelligence technology to try to weed out fake reviews.

We cover online reviews and related ethical and legal issues in Chapters 13 and 16 in Essentials of Marketing. 

China Airlines creates some funny advertising…

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It is always fun to bring students some clever, funny advertising. They enjoy the laugh. But you can also ask them who they think is being targeted. I enjoyed two recent ads from China Airlines that are conveniently discussed and shown with English subtitles in this article in AdWeek.

Reebok’s Digital Strategy Change

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Marketing Dive published an article based on an interview they did with Matt Blonder, Reebok’s global head of digital, talking about a major digital facelift and loyalty program revamp he spearheaded over the past year.  In the article, Blonder cites numerous issues with the previous strategy and calls their website an embarrassment.  One of the issues was the fact that their website essentially hadn’t been touched in years.  Another was what he called a “hyper masculine” design.  Blonder said the new strategy includes a major overhaul of the site to make it faster than the previous site, include user generated content, and will incorporate a personalized e-commerce experience.  They’re also launching a new loyalty program and hope the data from that program can feed into their personalized e-commerce engine.  The article talks about how Reebok’s previous decisions had unintentionally excluded women and led to defection to competitors Nike and Lululemon.