CCT356_Assignment1

Wilfred Tang 2011/04/05 CCT356

For Better or For Worst

Reddit (http://www.reddit.com) is an online user-generated link aggregator consisting of outside sites or user-generated content. It relies heavily on user-generated content or cross-links for its appeal and requires a registered account to post. Threads are moderated and replies are squelched based on the voting system. The system is divided between karma (voting of comments) and link karma (voting of link provided). Viewing the site is not limited to registered users, only down/up voting, posting and karma (a user popularity or positive contribution indicator based on replies and votes). Reddit is made up of people from all walks of life with a wide expanse of professions and hobbies. There is a SubReddit (niche) for almost every topic and fetish. On September 15th, 2010 Microsoft (MS) released Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) for free public download. On September 16th, 2010 Microsoft (MS) attempted a marketing campaign for their product Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) to the Reddit community (@http://www.reddit.com). MS’s marketing strategy was to give the marketing strategy over to the Reddit Moderators. The Reddit Moderators in turn simply quoted Wikipedia’s definition of IE9 and asked the users to try it out and offer their feedback. This opens up dialogue between the consumer and producer, but it also taps into user-generated content as free labor. The Reddit community created a marketing campaign on Reddit to market back to themselves. The strategy is a step away from traditional marketing of the corporation having absolute control over the campaign, to releasing all control and having the consumers market it back to themselves. The Reddit Moderators simply posted MS’s request onto the message board and the thread exploded with audience feedback. MS has succeeded in getting their product known to a large audience. Ever since the public release of IE9 Beta, it has received over 10 million downloads just 6 weeks after launch. It was a creative and innovative marketing technique. Online news sites picked up on the outreach by Microsoft and made it into news. This had a small viral ripple effect, linking more online newsreaders to the MS campaign of IE9. The IE9 team responds to questions that were posted earlier in the original thread by the Reddit Moderators. Within the response it seemed as if the IE9 team was making an honest attempt in connecting and understanding their audience. The team’s opening response included a lot of meme references such as, The Starwars Kid, bacon and a silly emoticon d=ʘ‿ʘ=b. The IE9 team’s net-speak was awkward at best, and their marketing jargon that answered questions from the original thread was dishonest and insincere. The top rated comment responding to IE9’s response was, “is there a tl/dr version? There is WAY too much fluff in there and I can't be bothered with getting the actual answers to the questions.” This Redditor’s request was followed shortly by another Redditor’s summary of the IE9 team’s response. The conversation took a turn and it became an anti-Microsoft thread. The Reddit community wanted “real answers, not PR spins”. Microsoft still had another chance at repairing the damage. Microsoft had earlier agreed to do an IAMA on Reddit. An IAMA is short for I-am-a, which is an interview with a person of a certain profession. In this case Microsoft promised to do an IAMA from their product team. The IAMA begins and the first question asked was, “When I click the 'stop' button to prevent a webpage from loading when opening IE9 for the first time, will it actually stop, or continue it's merry way loading msn, even as I'm continuously clicking 'stop'?” The IE9 team never responded to that very first question in the thread. They did however, answer other questions in the thread, but it was the same marketing jargon from the day before in their reply posts. The campaign had the potential to become a revolutionary marketing technique. Microsoft could have humanized their corporation, bridging the gap between consumers and producers. They could have taken the community’s feedback and implement them into their browser; exploiting a whole community’s free labor and commercialize it. The threads were full of technical feedback, User Interface upgrades, video/audio support, bugs, and popular web standards. Instead they wasted the audience’s attention and led them to use MS’s preferred avenues of communications. Their responses were littered with links to their website, blogs, and twitter feeds. From a different marketing point of view, Microsoft has succeeded. Through their marketing they have succeeded in getting the word about Internet Explorer 9. Within only 6 weeks after launch of the public open beta, IE9 has managed to garner over 10 million downloads. Their campaign made the front page of some online tech sites. MS got free opinions, and beta testers. Under traditional marketing standards they have succeeded in having their product reach a significant amount of people. But according to new modern marketing standards, they have alienated the audience, further demonizing MS as a money-grabbing corporation and worst of all they attempted to exploit the Reddit community. In turn the Reddit community grabbed their pitchforks and started the bashing the crap out of the IE9.

Original Ad Campaign sent to Reddit Moderators and transparently passed onto the community: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/depct/and_now_for_a_word_from_our_sponsor_because_for/ IE9 team’s official response to the questions posed in the Original Ad: @http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dk3s0/the_ie9_team_responds_to_your_questions/ IE9 team’s official I-am-a interview in another question and answer session: @http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_members_of_the_ie9_product_team_here/