How our fake business won a Customer Service award
Former agency executive Marc Cowper, now boss of start-up Recomazing, embarked on an experiment to see how easy it is to buy endorsements from influencers for a fake business. To his dismay, he won an award, which he argues highlights the potential for manipulation and dishonesty by social media influencers…
Back in my agency days I always had one constant frustration. Every day I saw talented agency & client teams working hard to deliver ‘on-brief’ marketing plans but ultimately have zero control over whether the company actually backed it up via good customer experience.
Unfortunately, the ‘gap’ that exists between advertising (what a company says it will do) and CX (what a company actually does) has been one of the most harmful things to our industry. Whether companies have knowingly deceived customers or whether the decision has been made to invest more in marketing instead of improving CX, this ‘gap’ has a LOT to answer for!
The CX gap is the reason for such high levels of consumer distrust in advertising and it has ultimately led to us corroding the effectiveness of the very channels we rely on to communicate with our target markets. Think this sounds a tad dramatic? Well, just ask Google what people think of our industry and see what comes up as the first results…
Loved it. Great story.
Great article! A++!!!!!!
On point again Cowper
What a guy
Really Mumbrella? A whole article about preventing fake reviews from a company that has a very clear (albeit unmentioned here!) commercial interest in moving people off the platforms they covered here to their very own. I don’t think all marketing is bullshit, but this sure seems to be.
Great article! A+++
Excellent article. I wonder how many Insta celebs actually have a high proportion of false followers.
Fantastic article Mark! I work with clients who despair daily about reviews, social listings, influencers, followers and engagement and it’s so refreshing to read this! Will def be sharing with them. Thank you!
As a old-timer I prefer business and sales strategy first, then marketing.
As a consumer I ignore all businesses on FB, Twitter and any ‘social’ media. New social technology businesses should stop being lazy and come up with a better revenue model than simply chucking advertising on everything.
Thanks Antony – appreciate the feedback
Thanks for the high marks 😉
Great contribution Marc! Of course you have a commercial interest but unlike most who simply rave on about what marketers should do you have actually done a useful experiment we can all learn from. I think this is an excellent contribution! I hope you keep exploring! Peter
Too funny… …and quite disturbing.
Sounds like a common problem these days Chloe. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi Peter – happy to hear you appreciated the fresh approach, that’s what we were aiming for. We’ll certainly keep digging away – thanks for the positive vibes.
(Hmmm…Mumbrella, the reply function seems to be wonky…I’ll try replying this way)
@KP – well, the last time Insta did a cull of fake/non-active accounts there was mass complaints from Insta-celebs with some losing millions of followers…should give an indication 😉
@Stuart – glad it had an impact
@Maddy – wow an “A+++” – people are going to start thinking I paid for your review 😉
@Gerry Attric Your sentiments seem to be shared with many who are now blocking our ads. It will be interesting to see how this develops in the future as new tech can’t rely so heavily on ad revenue.
@Tim – thanks for the feedback…trying to think which Tim you are!?
This is the horrifying truth in an industry that too often cares more about numbers and less about the quality of the followers. Money causes some people to act with zero integrity. They’re called cowboys.
Great article, seems our intuitive concerns are founded. Thanks.
Scary, brilliant and entertaining!
It’s a very similar story to a guy (I forget who) that built a massive, fake Twitter following and Facebook community. He ended up getting quite a few bookings because of it.
What I want to know is if you got any potential customers during your experiment?
Marc Cowper is the kind of guy that can turn up ten minutes late every day on a skateboard and have his boss riding a skateboard by the end of the day. Go Marc!
Authentic relationship is the key here – great article
Toni C
Deep-seated
Hi Marc, nice work – even though it is a bit of PR piece disguised as a funny case study. Well seems to work 😉
However you repeatedly say “research says” without providing a hyperlink to the study or the name of the study. This undermines a) your credibility and b) does not pay respect to the people who conducted the studies you are referring to. Please change this in the future (@Mumbrella: please remind authors to do so, in the name of content creators).
In particular, I would love to know more about “the research shows us that it’s still far more effective than traditional advertising when it comes to converting a sale.” Assuming you refer to social media, I challenge you on this one!
NN, sorry for my absurdly late reply – a friend just sent your comment to me (shame on me for not replying earlier).
The research I refer to is the Nielson Global Trust in Advertising report which has always shown that people trust and act on recommendations from friends more than any other medium http://www.nielsen.com/au/en/i.....-2015.html
You are right though, I should have referenced it…