Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#81

Post by wpietri » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #4

The funny thing is, there are plenty of things I don't like about Android. Areas where Windows might provide a better user experience. But malware fearmongering is a bizarre tactic. For the vast vast vast majority of users, it's a hypothetical rather than an actual experience.

Fearmongering, alas, doesn't require much in the way of actual experience. Look at American perception of crime versus actual crime rates. Fear of flying versus actual risk. Or the amount of money we spend "fighting" "terrorism" versus actual harm.

I suspect a campaign like this could have worked if Microsoft didn't have a giant pot/kettle problem.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#82

Post by MartinCron » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:16 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #8

You can accuse or compliment microsoft on many things, but they've never been slick.

This is just confirmation bias, the "slick" Microsoft isn't newsworthy.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#83

Post by cooldeal » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #14

I think somebody should study how MS marketing works, make it a case-study. Every time they try to be "hip", they end up looking like fools. Remember that weird Seinfeld ad? The spooky over-polished family for Windows 7? The competition on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win? When they stick to the basics, they usually manage to be half-decent, like for the Windows 8 campaign: safe, complet…

>The competition on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win?

That's wrong. Even before that specific incident, they did give out prizes to people who won, and there were multiple winners before and after. That particular incident might have been about one particular employee but certainly was not widespread. Guess which incident makes it into the news and onto HN front page?

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#84

Post by shuzchen » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:43 PM UTC

tferraz wrote: post #21

I've never seen a facebook or twitter campaign not going terribly wrong.

I've actually seen a lot of successful twitter campaigns. Barack Obama has had a few good runs during the campaign (with #forward2012) and recently with #my2k to push his side of the fiscal cliff issue.

Any twitter campaign will have participants who try to hijack the campaign for the opposing view. However, Obama has a strong enough base (I mean, ~50% of voters cast a ballet for him, and he does have a stronger hold on the younger, more-likely-to-tweet demographic) participating to drown out the hijackers.

The problem with this Windows campaign (I mean, besides that they tried the exact same thing before and failed) is that they specifically preclude their most devout supporters from participating. Anyone who is a die-hard Windows Phone fan has probably switched to WP when it was first available, and some probably have never touched android (I mean, they might have held onto Windows CE - anybody remember that? - until the first WP came out). In addition, anyone already using the latest WP hardware has no reason to tweet in order to win a free phone they already own.

So given this situation where MS's strong supporters have no content or reason to tweet, guess who rises up to fill the dead space? This campaign failed because it was designed to fail.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#85

Post by lostlogin » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:44 PM UTC

runjake wrote: post #42

Look, this is a class example of media-generated hype. Yesterday, some other tech news site declared something like Microsoft's "DroidRage" campaign EXPLODES in their face. In their article, they quote over a half dozen tweets. So I go onto Twitter and do a search for DroidRage and this "explosion" is actually more like a dozen or two people having fun with Microsoft. Anyway, after the publishing of yesterday's artic…

This is a good point - making fun of users of a product is a strange way to tempt them over. Samsung's advert making fun of a queue of iPhone buyers is similar in this respect. Notably, Apple adverts don't usually (ever? I have a distant memory of a failed apple campaign that did?) make fun of users of a competing product.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#86

Post by olefoo » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:47 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #78

lloeki wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a total non-story Worse, it shows a very bad mentality from the so-called 'passionate fan-base', which reeks of Microsoft's own situation on the desktop: > True, Android malware is a real problem. True, Google needs to do more about blocking malware applications from ever reaching users in the first place via the Google Play Store. But, there's also a lot of Android malware FUD and Android now has over 75%…

Proof by horde is indeed absurd, but the fact that the Android fanbase jumps to this should not be a surprise to Microsoft. There has been several years of relatively vicious back and forth flaming between iOS fans and Android fans now. A lot of legitimate criticisms have been fired off by both sides, and both sides are very quick to respond with less legitimate but equally vitriolic response-fire. Even people who do…

I think the worst part is that internet culture frames far too many things in terms of epic manichean struggles, when in fact it's looking at tawdry commercial rivalry.

Part of the problem is that unless we're close to a fully equipped test lab, most of us have to make a choice of device and stick with it; because phones especially are still effectively luxury items. That means most people who are most strident in their belief about the superiority of one brand or another, do not have experience with other products ( or at best, superficial experience ).

So, someone who is raging on about their favored brand is trying to justify their own choices and likely has no meaningful experience of the alternatives.

So for expert level trolling, ask them what they think of Palm, or Meego.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#87

Post by svachalek » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 7:50 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #48

This reminds me of the #MuslimRage backfire that Newsweek got after publishing a controversial story about, well, "Muslim Rage", and asking Twitter users to use that hashtag to, I guess, talk about their own opinions of Muslim Rage: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/09/17/161315765/mus... Here's a social-media-tip: If you are the progenitor of an idea/product, people are automatically wary of self-promotional…

#muslimrage backfire was classy and funny and worth the read.

#[an]droidrage tweets, not so much.

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#88

Post by hnal943 » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #85

runjake wrote: post #42

Look, this is a class example of media-generated hype. Yesterday, some other tech news site declared something like Microsoft's "DroidRage" campaign EXPLODES in their face. In their article, they quote over a half dozen tweets. So I go onto Twitter and do a search for DroidRage and this "explosion" is actually more like a dozen or two people having fun with Microsoft. Anyway, after the publishing of yesterday's artic…

This is a good point - making fun of users of a product is a strange way to tempt them over. Samsung's advert making fun of a queue of iPhone buyers is similar in this respect. Notably, Apple adverts don't usually (ever? I have a distant memory of a failed apple campaign that did?) make fun of users of a competing product.

What were the "Mac vs PC" commercials but making fun of PCs?

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#89

Post by tlrobinson » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #14

I think somebody should study how MS marketing works, make it a case-study. Every time they try to be "hip", they end up looking like fools. Remember that weird Seinfeld ad? The spooky over-polished family for Windows 7? The competition on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win? When they stick to the basics, they usually manage to be half-decent, like for the Windows 8 campaign: safe, complet…

Don't forget the mocking of Windows 7 party tips (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ). My personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g...

Re: Microsoft's DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

#90

Post by rbanffy » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 8:35 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #14

I think somebody should study how MS marketing works, make it a case-study. Every time they try to be "hip", they end up looking like fools. Remember that weird Seinfeld ad? The spooky over-polished family for Windows 7? The competition on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win? When they stick to the basics, they usually manage to be half-decent, like for the Windows 8 campaign: safe, complet…

> TL;DR: dear Microsoft, don't try to be hip.

No! It's fun to watch them try!