If you hate something, by all means, blog about it! :D

Today, I found an awesome example that shows exactly how so-called "negative marketing" works. Even sites like Slashdot fell prey to it blindfolded (on Slashdot, articles are voted to the front page by readers).

The marketing firm put a few of the product that is to be marketed on Amazon and eBay. People purchase it from there, thinking they're dealing with an affiliate of the manufacturer. The marketing firm then makes the customer wait for the product, which results in an inquiry. Now the marketer pulls all kind of crap with the customer to make sure s/he's irate. Then the customer proceeds to report the e-mail exchange to various websites, where it gets published eventually. News aggregator sites like Slashdot pick up the story, which results in exposure of both the marketing firm and the product to thousands of people, from which the story can spread further. See, even I blogged about it.

Another example: In Germany, there was a case some time ago where some Russian guy created a few websites for alleged sale of various articles. He intentionally called a few customers on the phone and insulted them, which caused them to write irate stories on the web, which in turn increased the flow of customers to the web sites. When interviewed, the guy openly explained how it all worked. He faced charges of insult and fraud, however, b/c not all of his customers let themselves be treated that way. But it was another demonstration how something like that can work to generate more page visits.

And yet another example are negative reviews on review sites like Amazon, b/c sometimes they actually lead to the customer purchasing the article for various reasons (sympathy, for instance, or disagreement).

So, if you hate something, by all means, blog about it!

Update: Incredible, even Kotaku isn't immune ... he doesn't even notice that a reply he gets from one of those marketing folks comes signed with "The HAND Media Inc." as if to say "Talk to the hand!" ... nor do they verify if the marketer lives in Boston (while his company is supposed to be in San Diego) ... yup, negative marketing seems to work pretty well in the US.

Update II: The marketing guy was interviewed by In-Game/MSNBC ... looks more like unintentional negative marketing now. But it did work, didn't it? -- Slashdot still calls him World's Worst PR Guy though, but that's a gold medal in its own right. Meanwhile, the product's manufacturer does some damage control ... but in the end, people will know about the product, and the memory of this case will have dissipated, probably.