{"id":1072,"date":"2023-03-07T16:01:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T16:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2023-03-07T16:01:37","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T16:01:37","slug":"best-buy-learns-the-streisand-effect-is-very-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/best-buy-learns-the-streisand-effect-is-very-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Buy Learns The Streisand Effect Is Very Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is not a doubt in my mind Best Buy\u00a0wants\u00a0<\/em>to be social. Strategically, they have been a regular\u00a0case study\u00a0for holistic use of the web. Their tactical execution is usually pretty good (ex: check out their\u00a0Twelpforce\u00a0account on Twitter).<\/p>\n

I have even\u00a0spoken on a panel\u00a0with Brad Smith, interactive marketing director at Best Buy who clearly gets it. And yet. Their actions as a company show that they still have a long way to go. They have very consistent\u00a0reputation management issues\u00a0across social web platforms, subjectively one of the worst I\u2019ve seen for a major consumer brand. Also their perception amongst the tech savvy is dismal.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019d think they wouldn\u2019t go out of their way to do things that would awake the hive mind of the web. You\u2019d think.<\/p>\n

Recently\u00a0Newegg.com\u00a0generically poked fun at Best Buy\u2019s geek squad by publishing the following commercial:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

All in good fun, companies do this all the time. And to be perfectly honest there is a lot of truth in advertising to this.<\/p>\n

Except what happened next? Best Buy sent a C&D letter to Newegg. Next, Newegg promptly\u00a0posted it\u00a0to their Facebook wall (as they should). And by sending the cease and desist, Best Buy basically invoked the\u00a0Streisand Effect.<\/p>\n

Until today, I didn\u2019t even realize Newegg ran TV commercials. But thanks to Best Buy, I now know (and so do you, and so do all of\u00a0Consumerist\u2019s readers\u00a0as well as\u00a0all of Reddit).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s just part of the C&D letter:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fact that Best Buy thinks they own the word \u201cgeek\u201d is pretty bad (if not a bit arrogant). But that\u2019s not even the worst part of this situation, at least from my perspective. What is?<\/p>\n

Best Buy is antagonizing a brand with\u00a0fiercely\u00a0loyal and technology savvy fans<\/strong><\/p>\n

Newegg is frequented by\u00a0truly<\/em>\u00a0technology savvy consumers. Their customers are well-connected and frequently sought after by friends, family and businesses for advice about tech purchasing decisions. The commercial above perfectly targeted Newegg\u2019s market, who I am sure had a laugh about Best Buy. But here\u2019s the thing: it didn\u2019t present any information they didn\u2019t already know.<\/p>\n

While some do, certainly not all Newegg fans\u00a0<\/em>necessarily hate Best Buy. But most real geeks\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0have affinity for Newegg. So imagine, your favorite brand gets a C&D from another, larger competitor. You might have previously referred someone to them in a pinch even if it wasn\u2019t your first choice. After an act where they throw their legal team on your favorite brand, you\u2019d be a bit more hesitant to make a referral wouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0comments from\u00a0Newegg fans reinforce this, with the sentiment being as you\u2019d expect when antagonizing a passionate group:<\/p>\n

Some additional thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can brands who are quick to bring in legal teams in situations of clear fair use or parody, either with competitors or fans, really be considered social?\u00a0Can we\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0think a company is serious about having discussions when something isn\u2019t to their liking and they react by freaking out and sending cease and\u00a0desist\u00a0letters?<\/p>\n

But I guess the biggest question is do brands like this really understand the web? They\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to know this is going to generate ill will and cause a target market who already may be skeptical of them to defect even farther away. Also, they\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to know that a company like Newegg is not going to back down without a fight. Or maybe they don\u2019t?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just not sure what they possibly have to gain here. This seems like yet another example where a company\u00a0ruins their brand reputation\u00a0without good reason. The part that really gets me is\u00a0the Newegg video wasn\u2019t the issue, their reaction to it was<\/strong>. They turned a non-event into something for the web to easily rally against.<\/p>\n

A little common sense here could have gone a long way. The lesson which we see\u00a0again\u00a0and\u00a0again\u00a0is clear: think carefully about the damage your legal team can inflict on your reputation before you let them act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is not a doubt in my mind Best Buy\u00a0wants\u00a0to be social. Strategically, they have been a regular\u00a0case study\u00a0for holistic … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-marketing-and-pr","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1268,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}