Fake reviews and a lesson well learnt

In this weekend’s national newspapers broke a story of how The Southbank Centre, one of London’s leading cultural centres, attempted to fool theatre goers into believing two false reviews which quickly followed poor reviews to the new Wizard of Oz production. A beady-eyed moderator had noticed that three comments in quick succession had come from the same IP address! When exposed, the Southbank Centre owned-up to the attempt to manipulate public opinion, and are being investigated further.

It’s been well documented, and learnt by many, that participation in web2.0 requires openness and honesty, and this case illustrates the point well. The general public are now well versed in spotting a fake, be it by their tone of voice, or in this case, by identifying repeated IP addresses.

What the Southbank Centre should have done was to ‘listen’ to the general public with open ears,  take on-board their comments and respond accordingly. The approach to turn the negative - in this case a bad review - into a positive is always advisable in these situations. The reviewers felt passionate about their experience enough to get them online to share it with others. That passion can be used in a multitude of ways, either by suggesting how the performance could be improved - though understandably this is difficult with a production of this size - to offering them the opportunity to visit the show again at a later date to see how it had improved given time.

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Fake reviews and a lesson well learnt,” an entry on dub

Published:
08.04.08 / 3am
Category:
advocacy, word-of-mouth