Ask HN: What if the Ocean Marketing fail was actually a brilliant move?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3405031

by jchung • 15 years ago

4 8 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

While the Ocean marketing debacle was clearly bad publicity for Ocean, I'd like to ask HN to consider what the effect was for N-Control - maker of the Avenger game controller. How many of you even knew what the Avenger game controller was before the Ocean blowup? Now, thanks to the enthusiastic words of Dave-the-excited-customer, we know not only what the Avenger is, but how thrilled Dave was to get two, how it will help disabled students all over the world, and that thousands of units have just arrived, presumably ready for your purchase.

I'm not literally suggesting that the Ocean fail was intentional, but consider the world where it was... In that world, I'd suggest the "fake fail" was executed PERFECTLY. The victim was outspokenly positive about the product, the fall-guy was disposable, and the whole story went viral. Everyone hates Ocean, feels a little bad for N-Control, and now knows about the Avenger.

Thoughts?

gjvc• 15 years ago

nah. the victim was keen like a gamer (not over-keen).

jchung3• 15 years ago

I think that's fair. I don't think it was intentional either. But my question is what the implications are for other companies looking for publicity. Is there a strategy there to emulate? (e.g., find some fool willing to be the fall-guy like Paul from Ocean)

For the record, I'm not condoning such behavior - if anything, I'm interested in exposing such intentional strategies as dishonest. But awareness must come before defense.

pensiveye• 15 years ago

I think you will find most people don't walk away from this with a full understanding of who is to blame. Instead, many may create a sub-conscious linkage with the Avenger and a bad customer service story. It's easy to create perceptions and difficult to remake them.

Maybe it does work well for N-Control this time....but a strategy? I'd like to hear what marketing professionals would say, but it sounds much too risky for me.

kls• 15 years ago

DecorateMyEyes does this and is very effective at it, the article is here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pag... . The owner manipulates his rank on Google via bad publicity. So there are people gaming the system like this, there is precedence that this behavior works.

The fact is, in gaming customers will take a lot of abuse, it is evident in the email exchange where the customer Dave I think his name was does not cancel his order. So the risk of driving away customers that want this product is probably small, given that the recipient of the abuse still wanted the merchandise. Where in most other industries a customer would say you know what cancel my order. Sony's antics are further proof that some gamers have a high threshold for abuse. So given that there is a high upside for publicity with a low downside of canceled orders over the fiasco. Given that it is a third party, they can dispose of them and claim that they are innocent. I am not saying this is what happened but it cannot be ruled out.

jchung3• 15 years ago

Interesting. I wonder if there's a way to assess the "pliability" of my customer base. To borrow your phrase: how much "abuse" will a certain customer segment take?

a_a_r_o_n• 15 years ago

Probably related to how unique your product is.

coryl• 15 years ago

Also consider that their listing on Amazon has been flooded with "bad" reviews

jchung3• 15 years ago

That's true. Would likely negate the upside of customer awareness if the first thing they learn upon researching the product is that it has 1 star.

Ask HN: What if the Ocean Marketing fail was actually a brilliant move?

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