Appliances Online sacks agency after bloggers lodge complaints of ‘content theft’
Web retailer Appliances Online has sacked its digital agency after discovering it had ripped off content from bloggers and passed it off as its own.
The electrical goods firm told Mumbrella it terminated the contract with Sydney-based Stencil HQ yesterday with immediate effect, after bloggers posted on its Facebook page accusing it of populating its social media with other people’s content without credit.
One blogger, Nagi Maehashi, said she reported the behaviour to Facebook.
Stencil HQ confirmed today that an investigation had revealed third party content had been used and a member of staff fired as a result.
Yet another use of the “juniors did it” defence.
DB
“They apologised and told us two juniors had been managing our account at the time”… of course they told you that. So sick of companies throwing juniors under the bus. Even if it were true, why the hell would you put juniors in charge of a major clients FB page?
SEO white labelling or offshoring solutions gone awry.
Well given the huge trashing of experienced silver heads over the last 5years it has to be the juniors, cause that’s who staff agencies and newsrooms, and run SM campaigns (I’m looking at you, Mortein)… This is the generation that did its homework with Google and cut and paste. They actually have no clue they are doing anything wrong… “Original research” means “Google it” to many, many people.
CJ’s blog confirms to me that I would keep my IP in-house …
http://www.stencilhq.com/blog/.....f-facebook
The problem is, agencies don’t respect blogging enough to pay decent money for it. They offer it, but they don’t understand it yet.
They think it’s as simple as whacking a few words together and sending it off to a magical place called the blogosphere to watch the awards roll in. No regard for SEO and content marketing, let alone attribution versus plagarism.
What I want to know is, if you’re going to do the dodgy brothers version of real work, aren’t you going to be smart enough to use Copyscrape or something similar to make sure your intern hasn’t screwed the pooch?
Stop giving so much power to Juniors, you money hungry selfisish people.
Pay appropriate people, appropriate wages and get appropriate work
so Stenciled Pulled their website? It is really their junior? What’s going on there. Anyone have an archived version of the site? Their frontend got pulled but you can still see stuff that’s live
http://www.stencilhq.com/blog/.....cebook-ads
Well handled by Winning. There are a lot of big-name execs who could learn from his prompt and effective response (and maybe his former agency might learn as well)
What a load of handwringing cobblers…
A new law of physics: nothing moves faster than a social media agency taking down its website after a public disaster.
http://www.stencilhq.com/
@Cannes
“They actually have no clue they are doing anything wrong… “Original research” means “Google it” to many, many people.”
Absolutely false and sensational. The skill and value of professional and academic research is taught consistently in schools and higher education, and heavily monitored thanks to technologies that easily detect plagiarism.
Why are juniors always getting the blame? Have some balls Stencil HQ and take responsibility. Someone senior in your company approved it. And do the right thing and compensate the bloggers who were ripped off.
So, you could have “Credit” or they’d pull the pieces they’d stolen.
No offer of actual recompense for the value that the content they’ve pulled that’s already been added, though?
Have a look at the company culture and incentives that would make a junior think ripping off another website was OK. Time pressure and low pay, anyone? Not excusing their behaviour but these things don’t happen in a vacuum.
I’m a blogger and a social media marketer which means I am also responsible for other people’s posts. I take as much care with their social media as my own. So it’s always stop and think twice before posting anything.
Sorry but its the CEO’s ultimate responsibility, not the Juniors for this stuff up.
Isn’t this just another version of piracy – something many commenters on Mumbrella seem to be completely at ease with?
“had not been appropriately credited”???
No it had in fact been stolen, had the original creators watermarks cropped out and replaced with the clients watermark to make it look like original content then charged the client for it. Morally bankrupt. Let’s hope the rest of their clients follow Winning’s lead.
Sacking seems a bit harsh. Appliances Online clearly didn’t value the relationship very highly and it could have been handled better by building processes around source checking. All I’m reading is “looking for short term options”, “doing a reasonable job”, and since when is client “happy enough”?
Yeah, agencies have gotta stop offloading social media pages to juniors and interns – it’s really bad management practices. I was handed 6 big brand pages to write for and manage as an intern a couple of years ago. I was given no guidance and no help. When it came time to write reports and what not, I had no idea what to do and I was met with frustration! Dispicable
Pay peanuts, get juniors.
How on earth is it the CEO’s responsibility? He’s got bigger things to worry about and hires a team to look after this side of the business? Sorry – but agency purely to blame here. You wouldn’t expect your agency to rip off other people’s work and I guarantee that not every in-house manager would double check it – you’d take it as a given.
Also…not all juniors are this incompetent. A little bit of Business 101 would tell you that it’s not right to steal other people’s content…
Who at the agency approved the content to go ahead which was produced by the ‘juniors’
My best guess? Stencil HQ is one of those “content” agencies which is happy to take clients’ money then outsource to some poor sod in the Philipines for a 10th (or more) of the price, making a hefty profit…Not only is this practice rife in the industry, it’s also been suggested to me (a copywriter) as the best way I can make money in this business. Um, no, not when my clients expect original, quality work….
Blaming the juniors makes everyone look like amaeteurs
what are the chances of the above comments being knee jerk and from a bias point of view? RJ above seems the only objective one above to read into Mr.Winning’s absence of conviction and leadership when it mattered. Indeed, who exactly forced Appliances Online to Outsource? If you choose to overlook the ‘individual’ that carried out the actions, then you must examine management at every tier. The buck ultimately lies with Appliances Online’s CEO who, I suspect,chose the more economical option and sacrificed control. However, the bigger issue must be that in a world now awash with commentary from many millions of individuals and organisations, there is very little anyone can do to micro-manage such events and actions by individuals. It is the environment we have allowed to be created.
Wow social media and experential has had a stellar week. Agree with all the peanuts and monkeys commentary. Clients who assume agencies will live up to promise without due dilligence deserve all they get
Due diligence yes, but are you trying to say that a client should check every post by its contractor to make sure they aren’t copying someone else’s work? Really? Is that where we are today?
JG: “Isn’t this just another version of piracy – something many commenters on Mumbrella seem to be completely at ease with?”
Yes because copying videos for free personal use is exactly the same thing as using somebody’s work to make money for your business.
@fresh meat – bullseye
sometimes i think the only reason agencies hire juniors these days is so because they make great fall-guys (and fall-gals)
Thanks for clearing that up Lempiere.
But I just want to make sure that I have got it right. Personal use is OK, use for gain isn’t it.
So if I popped around to your place and ‘borrowed’ you car to earn some spare cash as an Uber driver you would be pissed off with me.
But if I popped around and just borrowed you car and took it joyriding you’d have no issues with that.
Have to say I disagree with outsourcing being a bad thing – and yes I work for a third party.
Outsourcing can get you access specialist expertise an organisation may not otherwise have access to and services that in-house staff are unable to provide – scaling at short notice, filling gaps, access to an experienced team rather than just one person.
Agree that greater due diligence is required in agency selection when it comes to social media.
@tony j.. The due diligence should ensure that they don’t hire the type of wankers that are capable of damaging their brand through plagiarism.
what started as an interesting topic on various levels looks like it just descended into a free for all? I’m intrigued by the ‘juniors’ immunity though? Is it a ‘junior’ at Mumbrella that decided the word Wanker above was apt, relevant and acceptable on what I assume Mumbrella regard as a serious medium for news and communication? Or does a junior and a manager find themselves under the wheels of a bus? Or does it just prove that you cannot micro-manage to this extent? Will Mumbrella print this?
another junior under the bus?
Enough said…..http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/.....ar-AAbffMl
No matter if some one searches for his vital thing, therefore he/she needs to be available that in detail, thus that thing is maintained over here.
What an incredibly low and unprofessional thing to do, blaming “juniors”. As a company that solely relies on making content and consulting for other companies, your number 1 job is to make sure that what you put out there is lawfully correct. The “junior” here is not to blame, it’s the team leader and his/her boss that is solely to blame for this.
The “junior” in that company must have been trained (and if she wasn’t trained, then you have more problems on your hands than just a mistake, you need to rethink your whole management process) and if he/she was trained, then why did the team leader not pick up on this? This didn’t happen just once, as we read in this article. Where the hell was the team leader or his/her boss, when content was written? Why was this not double-checked?
You cannot blame YOUR mistake on other people. It was YOUR job to ensure you correctly train and mentor your “juniors” and blaming them for your mistakes is the ultimate unprofessionalism.