Business

The Day-to-Day Things Bothering B-to-B Marketers

Phillip Nones Business, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Executives Group (LinkedIn)The discussion boards on LinkedIn are often good places to capture the pulse of what’s happening “on the ground” in the marketing field.

A case in point is a discussion started recently on the Marketing Executives Group on LinkedIn by Carson Honeycutt, an account executive at marketing research firm Mintel.

Honeycutt’s question was, “What are the biggest day-to-day issues for marketing execs?”

He was interested in getting input to help him speak to needs and offer solutions when interfacing with his customers and prospects – even if those solutions meant referring them to other vendors.

According to Honeycutt, he often hears responses like, “Too busy to talk. I’m swamped and we have no budget anyway.”

His query generated some interesting feedback. Comments ranged from the succinct (“sounds like you’re getting the brush-off”) to ones that were more helpful and useful.

The OfficeOne response I liked particularly well came from Brent Parker David, a marketing strategist at CRE8EGY. His listing of the day-to-day issues for marketing execs were to-the-point:

  • Too many meetings;
  • Lack of experienced creative thinking;
  • Personal and political agendas overshadowing the mission and the marketing objectives;
  • Too many “experts” who have never truly accomplished anything — but are very comfortable telling others what to do or how to behave.

I think most of us involved the marketing field for any length of time will be nodding knowingly at the above points …

Another response — more nuanced — came from Matt Smith, a marketing strategist in the consumer packaged goods  field. Here’s what he contributed:

“When Marketing doesn’t provide deep insights and a strategy to leverage them, price discounting takes over. This gives Sales the lead, as they are the executors. Growing sales, no matter how it’s done, is taken as progress. Sales is the hero, even though margins [may] have eroded.

“The byproduct of this is increasing their trade spend budgets — and by extension, their political clout. Conversely, Marketing loses clout as they don’t have an answer that drives sales AND margins. In the zero-sum budget game, the increased trade spend comes out of the advertising/promotion/innovation budget.”

Smith went on to add that “marketing is only stifled by bean-counters if they don’t know their customers and [can’t] devise a creative strategy to get them to buy more at higher margins.”

What are your own thoughts about the biggest day-to-day challenges facing marketing execs? Please share your thoughts with other readers here.

 

The Continuing Ambivalence about Twitter

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

Or is it more a division of the house?

ambivalenceOf all of the social media platforms that have taken root, the one that seems to cause the most divided opinions among the marketing and communication specialists I know is Twitter.

… And these are the folks who have been diligent about “following the script” for crafting tweets that are interesting, informative, and get noticed.

Each social platform has its strong and weak attributes, of course … but I hear far more mixed views about Twitter than I do about Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn.

This is amply illustrated in a recent discussion that was started on LinkedIn’s B2B Marketing Group, of which I’m a member.

Joel Harrison, Editor-in-Chief of B2BMarketing.net, posed this question to the group’s members:

“If Twitter ceased to exist tomorrow, would we all be better off?”

This rather provocative query elicited a range of reactions pro and con – which was to be expected.

However, I was a little surprised that the comments were weighted roughly two-thirds negative about Twitter versus positive.

Remember, this is a discussion group made up of marketing professionals — people you’d expect to be keen on pretty much any established social platform that has an extensive following for marketing purposes.

… Which, even if you discount the ~30% of accounts that “fake, faux and farcical” – still makes Twitter qualify as one of the leading social media platforms.

But consider these comments about Twitter posted by members of the B2B Marketing Group on LinkedIn:

“16 characters solve this dilemma: ‘Don’t take part.’”

 “I once read a tweet that said, ‘This is the generation that had nothing to say, and said it.’ Sums it up pretty well.”

 “My target audiences … have not mentioned that they prefer to communicate on that channel, so until that happens, there isn’t much going on.”

 “I like the old BBC mission: ‘Entertain, inform and educate.’ If you don’t do any of that, I ain’t following.”

 “Useful as an additional channel for customer service and sharing experiences – if the customer wants it.”

 “It depends on the industry and the target audience.”

 “As a marketer, it’s useful.  On a personal level, it annoys the hell out of me.”

These statements don’t sound like a ringing endorsement of the platform, do they?

Of course, they were posted on a business-to-business discussion board, so presumably people were commenting based on their B-to-B perspective; consumer marketing opinions are likely somewhat different.

What are your opinions about Twitter? Based on your own experience, how important and how effective has Twitter been to your marketing efforts?  Is it a critical component … or is it just one more ornament on the MarComm tree? Please share your comments for the benefit of other readers.

Social Branding: Reality-Check Time

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

social brandingWith all of the attention marketers have been paying to social media, it’s always helpful to look and re-look at information that gives us clues as to how customers are actually interfacing with brands in the social sphere.

Statistics published in a just-released report titled Digital Brand Interactions Survey, based on research conducted by web content management company Kentico Software, gives us a reality check on just how [non-]essential social media actually is in the greater branding picture.

The Kentico research queried approximately 300 American consumers age 18 or older via an online survey administered in February 2014.  Let’s start with the most basic finding:  the degree to which consumers “like” or “follow” brands on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram:

  • No brands followed on social media:  ~40%
  • 1 to 10 brands followed:  ~39%
  • 11 to 20 brands followed:  ~7%
  • 21 to 30 brands followed:  ~6%

Considering how many different brands the typical consumer encounters in his or her daily life (dozens? … hundreds?), following ten or fewer brands on social media represents only a very small proportion of them.

Yet that’s exactly where four in five consumers are when it comes to social branding.

So … how do companies get into that rarefied group of brands that are, in fact, followed by consumers?  Here’s what the Kentico survey discovered:

  • Already interested in the brand and wanted to stay informed:  ~40%
  • Followed on social media to receive special offers:  ~39%
  • Followed because of a recommendation from a friend or family member:  ~12%
  • Didn’t really know the brand before, but wanted to learn more about it:  ~8%

These results suggest that the notion that social branding is an easy way to attract new customers may be flawed.  Instead, social branding is better-suited to deepening brand engagement with existing customers.

Money talks as well (discounts or other special offers) – and be sure to offer them often.

kentico logoIn another piece of evidence that points to social branding’s relatively weak ability to drive incremental sales … Kentico found that ~72% of its survey respondents “never” or “hardly ever” purchase a product after hearing about it on a social network.

An equal percentage of respondents have “never” or “hardly ever” had brand encounters online that altered their already-existing perception of those brands.

So it would seem that much of the “heat” generated by social branding may be adding up to very little “light.”

On the other hand, there is also some good news for brands in the social realm:  The incidence of people “unliking” or “unfollowing” brands is quite low:  Only about 5% of the survey respondents reported such actions.

When that does happen, it’s often because a brand has been publishing too many social posts – or the content of the posts themselves is uninteresting.

The biggest takeaway notion from the Kentico research is to remind us to maintain a degree of skepticism about the impact of social branding – and to understand that in most cases, social media activities are going to remain the “ornaments” on the marketing tree rather than be the “tree” itself.

In fact, that’s probably the case even more now — as consumers become bombarded with ever-more marketing messages from ever-more brands with every passing day.

The [dis]connect between content “quality” and online advertising.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
Jack Marshall
Digiday’s Jack Marshall

I really appreciate the work of Jack Marshall, a reporter at marketing e-zine Digiday, who is helping to expose and explain the “brave new world” of online display advertising and how it has evolved into something that’s rife with problems.

ad exchangesConsider a recent column of Marshall’s titled “Is this the worst site on the Internet?”

In it, he notes that for “legitimate” online publishers that rely on advertising as their revenue model, that model is becoming a more daunting proposition with each passing day.

And a big reason is the emergence of other websites that are “gaming” the online system – not to mention the ad tech middlemen that are their willing accomplices.

Essentially, what’s happening is that ad dollars are being siphoned away from websites that provide professionally produced content and are going to sites that are explicitly constructed to serve up as many ad impressions as possible.

These sites contain little or no original content.

Marshall’s “Exhibit A” is Georgia Daily News, a website which purports to cover “news, traffic, sports, politics, entertainment, gossip and local events in Atlanta.”

As Marshall contends, “What it actually features is content ‘curated’ from elsewhere on the web, and some it has simply stolen from other major news sites” such as the Daily Mail.

Sizable chunks of the website’s content have nothing to do with Atlanta.

GADailyNews home pageConsidering the type of general news site it purports to be, GADailyNews.com doesn’t attract very much traffic at all.  And why would it? — since it contains precious little information of value or interest to anyone who is actually “seeking news about Atlanta.”

But it sure does generate a lot of ad impressions.  According to Marshall, each article page on the site features seven display ad units – all of which refresh every 20 seconds or so.

In the two-minute span of time it took him to read an article about Katy Perry and John Mayer (content copied from an Australian news site), Marshall was served more than 40 ad impressions.

Marshall continues:

“One page has served me nearly 500 ads in just 20 minutes – and I couldn’t stop refreshing them even if I wanted to.”

[And these ads aren’t for B-list advertisers, either.  They’re for brands like American Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Charles Schwaab and others.]

What’s happening here, of course, is that websites and ad tech middlemen have figured out that the algorithms of even the “quality” ad vendors like Google, AdRoll, and Bizo can be gamed pretty easily to serve ads on a low-quality site like Georgia Daily News, which is owned by a single-person entity called Integrated News Media Corporation.

It’s hardly the type of media vehicle that big-brand advertisers would normally wish to use for advertising.  But thanks to the vagaries and complexity of the ad exchange landscape, they are.

For every Georgia Daily News site, there are hundreds of others like it that cobble together seemingly valuable content with a passably convincing set of audience characteristics.

Put it together, and it adds up to problems on two levels.

First, advertisers are paying for impressions that are near-worthless.

Second, since there are finite ad dollars available, legitimate online publishers are losing out on those funds, which are far more important to their well-being than they are for sites that don’t engage in any true journalism at all.

As Jack Marshall concludes:

“Thanks to fraudulent traffic, dubious sites and middlemen with low quality standards, life is only getting harder for those publishers with expensive content teams to support.”

At Times Square, it’s “location-location-location” when it comes to advertising.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The building at 1 Times Square in New York City is nearly 100% vacant.

One Times Square Building (2010).
One Times Square Building (2010).

But if you’re the owner of the building, why should you even care?

That’s because the building takes in a reported near-$25 million per year in advertising revenues – thanks to the digital signage on the building being rented to top brands like Anheuser-Busch, Dunkin’ Donuts and Sony (among others).

Media, Sports & Entertainment Marketing Officer Blaise D’Sylva of Anheuser-Busch keeps it pithy:

“There’s a statement we make in being there – and we think the placement we’ve got is outstanding.”

Of course, there’s more to it than simply “making a statement.”  According to the Times Square Alliance, each year more than 100 million pedestrians pass through Times Square.

Moreover, foot traffic volume is running ~90% higher compared to 1996.

I’m quite sure these traffic volumes are central to any go/no-go advertising decisions being made by the big brands.

Where night is day: Times Square advertising.
Where the night is as bright as day: Times Square advertising.

The Wall Street Journal reports that billboard signage in Times Square is actually the priciest outdoor advertising in the world.

Considering its location at the intersection of “high traffic” and “high trend,” marketers think it’s an investment worth making — and the rates they’re willing to pay proves the point.

e-Invoicing: Losing Luster … or Wave of the Future?

Phillip Nones Banking, Business, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

e-Invoice ServicesWhat’s happening with e-invoicing support services for small businesses these days?

Minneapolis, MN-based financial services industry market research firm Barlow Research Associates, Inc. reported in January 2014 that two of the three large banking institutions that had been offering e-invoicing services have now retired those programs.

Indeed, you won’t find mention of them anywhere on their small business online banking websites.

Donna Arce, Barlow Research Associates
Donna Arce

According to Donna Arce, a Barlow Research client executive, both Chase and Wells Fargo dropped e-invoicing in 2013, making Bank of America the only one of the nation’s 14 top banks still offering this service.  (Existing e-invoicing customers at Chase remain grandfathered in … for now.)

Reportedly, the reason behind the elimination of e-invoicing services was low usage.

But was this usage a function of low demand … or was it actually the result of limited market availability?

After all, Arce reports that overall invoice volumes are notable.  For the typical small business enterprise, approximately 75 paper invoices and 10 electronic invoices are generated in any given month.

In the middle market segment, the volume of invoices is quite a bit higher:  Those companies average just over 1,250 paper invoices and more than 250 electronic invoices in the average month.

For answers to the question about inherent e-invoicing demand, we can look to PayPal, one of several non-bank providers of e-invoicing services.

PayPalAccording to Chris Morse, a PayPal spokesperson, “millions of users” have accessed company’s online invoicing services – particularly since 2011 when the product was redesigned with more robust functionality and features.

For an analyst’s column she wrote on the topic, Barlow Research’s Donna Arce reported on remarks made by René Lacerte, founder and CEO of invoice management firm Bill.com, on the elements that are essential for making sure that e-invoicing is a viable solution for business owners.

Quoting Lacerte:

  • “Working in an entirely online environment is not realistic for many businesses, [which] need a receivables solution that will track and manage both paper-based and electronic invoices and payments in one system.
  • “Integration with accounting software is key to businesses adopting any financial management tool, including e-invoicing.  Without integration, businesses must re-key data from one system to another, which is both time-consuming and can be fraught with errors. 
  • “Issuing the invoicing and accepting payment are just part of the overall receivables process … The ability to collaborate with customers via a portal where invoices can be referenced, documents shared and notes exchanged, dramatically reduces the time businesses spend managing these inquiries.”

The PayPal approach is quite flexible in terms of the payment options for the recipient of the invoice.  Choices include its own PayPal bill payment option, along with credit and debit card payments as alternatives.

Contrast this with Bank of America, which requires the recipient to log on to a payment center, agree to terms, and then upload account information to make a payment – debit and credit cards not accepted.

Contrasting PayPal and the approach of the commercial banks, is it any wonder that the one is experiencing growth … while the others have seen low usage?

Of course, there’s also the issue of fees charged for e-invoicing services.  PayPal’s fee structure is different than how the commercial banks have charged for services, in that a portion of PayPal’s fee is based on a percentage of the transaction value (currently around 3%).  Depending on each company’s individual characteristics, that pricing model may or may not be the most lucrative for users.

Bottom-line, it’s clear that e-invoicing isn’t a dying service.  But how flexibly it’s presented – and the degree to which it can actually reduce inherently labor-intensive in-house administrative activities – spells the difference between its success or failure as a business service.

In other words … the difference between PayPal and the giant commercial banks.

Bitcoin currency: You’ve got a long way to go, baby.

Phillip Nones Banking, Business, Economics, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

bitcoin

Whether it’s defaulting to preparing the same half-dozen dinner recipes, always taking the same travel route, or preferring traditional hyms and liturgy at religious services, humans tend to be creatures of habit.

Of course, there will always be the minority who revel in being the first to try out novel communications technologies … adopt the newest fashions … or take advantage of the latest investment schemes.

But most people would prefer to hold back and let someone else take the plunge first.

That’s precisely where things stand at the moment with the Bitcoin alternative currency.  The “virtual currency” has been around long enough so that it’s now getting coverage in the “popular” press … and there are even a few folks who have begun using it as an alternative to established currencies.

Indeed, for the past year now, a few national retailers and chain foodservice establishments have been accepting payments in Bitcoin currency.

But a just-released survey that queried consumer attitudes about the new-fangled currency – referred to as a “crypto-currency” by some – underscores how steep a climb the Bitcoin has before it can ever be considered a viable alternative to the Dollar or other established currencies.

TheStreet, a digital financial media company, commissioned the survey which was conducted in January 2014 by GfK Custom Research North America’s OMNITEL unit  A total of 1,005 telephone surveys were conducted with Americans age 18 or older.

Let’s start out with the most basic finding from the survey:  Three out of four respondents aren’t even familiar with the Bitcoin term.

So right off the bat, that’s a major hurdle.  The Bitcoin may have been the subject of numerous press stories and broadcast reports, but the news hasn’t seeped into the larger market consciousness to any great extent.

NoNext … even after the concept of the Bitcoin was described to them, the survey respondents remained distinctly chilly to the idea:

  • Nearly 80% would “never consider” using an alternative form of currency like the Bitcoin.
  • ~80% would rather own gold than Bitcoin currency.

Did the survey uncover different attitudes based on the age of the respondents?  Yes – to a degree:

  • Just under one-third of young respondents (age 18 to 24) would consider using an alternative form of currency like the Bitcoin … versus only about one in ten seniors (over age 65).
  • ~15% of the young respondents would prefer to own Bitcoin over gold … versus only ~4% of seniors.
  • ~57% of young respondents feel that Bitcoin currency helps the global economy … while just ~14% of senior feel the same way.

The main takeaway from the GfK/OMNITEL research?  Bitcoin proponents are going to have to keep plugging away for a good long time before positive public perceptions of an alternative currency take hold — including needing to focus on the most basic educational elements.

Considering the level of financial literacy out there … good luck with that effort.

If any readers have ever used Bitcoin as a currency and would care to comment on their experience pro or con, please share your thoughts here.

HubSpot’s Marketing Predictions: Hits and Misses

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

soothsayingOne of the things I like about SaaS inbound marketing firm HubSpot is the steady stream articles and white papers the company publishes on varied facets of marketing and communications. 

They’re often quite meaty and beneficial as informational resources.

Moreover, HubSpot isn’t afraid to go out on a limb and render a pretty strong “point of view” about various factors and trends in the fast-evolving marketing world.

The risk is that some of those perspectives can end up being “off” – or looking even a bit silly – in retrospect. 

But more often than not, HubSpot’s trendspotting is on the money.

Marketing Prediction Hits & Misses (HubSpot)Here’s a case in point:  HubSpot’s team of analysts made a number of marketing predictions for the year 2013.  Recently, it revisited those predictions to judge whether they’d turned out to be on the mark or not.

These are HubSpot’s 2013 marketing predictions that it feels were on target: 

  • Content and social will matter even more for search engine optimization.
  • Stop-and-start campaigns will fade, and real-time will be ‘in.’
  • E-mail will live on.
  • Inbound marketing will spread enterprise-wide.

At the same time, four other marketing predictions for 2013 didn’t pan out so well, as underscored by HubSpot’s own cheeky editorial commentary about them:

  • Mobile or bust … “Not so hot.”
  • Marketing becomes accountable for revenue generation … “Meh.”
  • ‘Big data’ becomes real for businesses … “Nope.”
  • Print is dead … “Not even close.”

HubSpot’s post-mortem discussion points on these “misses” are interesting.  Quoting from its report:

  • Mobile or bust:  “Customers pay attention to multiple screens … and smart marketers capture attention by adding value wherever a consumer pays attention  … we need to be prepared, not by targeting just [mobile] but by embracing them all according to our specific customers and data.”
  • Marketing becomes accountable for revenue generation:  “The biggest challenge … has been proving ROI.       Even more frustrating … has been the lack of sales and marketing alignment in many companies.  Tracking can also get tricky, thanks to trying to reach fragmented digital audiences against so many channels … As much as lots of us really want this prediction to be a hit, it’s still largely aspirational.”
  • ‘Big data’ becomes real:  “Big data remains mainly a buzzword to many companies and markets — and continues to be more of a prediction than a reality …”
  • Print is dead:  “Saying ‘print is dead’ has lost pretty much all of its roots in reality … nor will it die in the next few years.”

Ever intrepid, HubSpot isn’t shying aware from new forecasts for 2014.  Looking forward, what do its analysts predict for this year?

  • Podcasting will continue to grow substantially.
  • Marketing departments will become more like engineering departments.
  • Social listening tools will gain context and get smarter.
  • The economy will become highly collaborative.
  • Marketers will become more holistic and less channel-focused.

And one more HubSpot prediction that’s a particular favorite of mine:

We’ll check back again a year from now to see how well HubSpot’s prognosticators fared this time around.

Marketers Give Themselves Only Middling Grades on Understanding ROI

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Human Resources, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing frustrationIt turns out that even the practitioners in the marketing field don’t think they’re doing a very good job of understanding the return on investment on key marketing tactics.

That’s a major takeaway fnding from the most recent State of Search Marketing survey conducted by digital marketing information clearinghouse Econsultancy in conjunction with the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).

This survey of industry professionals is conducted annually.  The 2013 research cycle queried ~400 industry and marketing/communications agency professionals.

One would think that in an evolving field like digital marketing, the degree of collective skill in the discipline would be rising over time.  But the opposite appears to be the case – at least in terms of the professionals’ own self-assessment of their skills.

The SEMPO research report presents how marketers consider their level of understanding to be in terms of ROI factors.

What the research reveals is a pretty stark decline in self-assessment grades between the 2012 and 2013 surveys:

  • Understanding of paid search ROI:  ~47% consider their understanding to be “good” (down from ~79%)
  • Email communications ROI:  ~41% consider good (down from ~57%)
  • Digital display media ROI:  ~28% consider good (down from ~37%)
  • Social media ROI:  ~11% consider good (down from ~15%)

What’s the reason for the decline in these self-assessment ratings?

It could be ever-changing definitions of what each of these marketing tactics actually encompass.

… It may be that there is an actual decline in overall proficiency as more people are assigned these marketing tasks who have little or no relevant knowledge or prior training.

… Or if could be the rapid speed in which technology is evolving in the marketing sphere.  (Big data isn’t the half of it.)

Of the major marketing tactics addressed by the Econsultancy/SEMPO research, it’s clear that social media and mobile are the most mystifying to practitioners, judging from the percentage of survey respondents that profess to have a “poor” understanding of their ROI:

  • Social media ROI:  ~51% report having a “poor” understanding
  • Mobile marketing ROI:  ~35%
  • Search engine optimization ROI:  ~28%
  • Digital display advertising ROI:  ~26%
  • Paid search ROI:  ~19%
  • Email marketing ROI:  ~14%

Underscoring the admitted lack of understanding about ROI in social and mobile channels, the survey respondents reported that only ~11% of the digital marketing dollars in 2014 will be allocated to social media.

For mobile marketing, it’s even lower (~3% of the marketing budget).

This isn’t to imply that marketers don’t recognize the importance of these tactics.  For instance, more than eight of ten respondents consider mobile marketing to be a significant development in the field.

It’s just that many of them are having great difficulty going from Point A to Point B when it comes to quantifying the marketing payback.

[For access to the full report, which also provides interesting insights on the most popular marketing metrics, go to this page on the SEMPO website.]

Fake online product reviews: How pervasive are they?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fake reviewsThink about those reviews that mean so much to you when considering whether to purchase a particular product or a service …

It could be that the comments you’re reading are bogus – or at least not based on the reviewer’s first-hand experience.

An online survey of nearly 1,200 U.S. adults age 18 and older, conducted by marketing research firm YouGov in January 2014, found that more than one in five respondents admitted to having posted online reviews about products or services they hadn’t actually bought or used.

The percentage is somewhat higher for men (~23%) than it is for women (~17%).

Why do people post reviews or comments on products and services they haven’t tried?  Here’s what the survey respondents reported:

  • “Just felt like it”:  ~32% gave this reason
  • “Didn’t like the idea of the product”:  ~22%
  • “Didn’t like the manufacturer”:  ~19%

These stats might suggest that there are more “negative” reviews being posted online than what reflects the actual experience with the product or service.

But the YouGov survey also found that far more people leave good reviews than bad ones:

  • ~57% have left a mixed review
  • ~54% have left a good review
  • Only ~21% have ever left a bad review

What drives someone to leave a bad review?  The #1 reason is obvious … but the #2 reason might surprise you.  And the #3 reason is just mercenary:

  • ~88% want to warn others about a disappointing product or service
  • ~23% believe that venting their frustrations will leave them feeling less angry
  • ~21% are hoping to get a refund or some other monetary consideration from the company in question

The veracity of online reviews is important because the vast majority of adult consumers check them before deciding to purchase a product or service.

This YouGov survey is no different:  It found that ~79% consult reviews at least sometimes … and ~26% reported that they “always” check reviews before buying a product or service.

FakeryThe YouGov report comes hard on the heels of a Virginia lawsuit wherein a carpet cleaning service charged online review website Yelp with publishing negative reviews posted by people who had never been customers of the store.  The cleaning service claimed that the negative reviews had hurt its business.

In that case, a judge ordered Yelp to reveal the identities of the seven “anonymous” reviewers — who I’m sure never thought their “unidentified antics” would ultimately be revealed for all the world to see.

It may just be that posting a “faux” review has now become a little riskier.

People may think twice now before engaging in their little mischief.  I’m sure most of them can think of a lot better things to do than to be hauled into court for an alleged infraction like that — or at the very least, having their name brought into the legal proceedings.