COMMENT: A cheap publicity stunt coupled with questionable methodology has left the Australian Consumer Association exposed as they desperately try to re invent themselves in light of online competition.
This month the Australian Consumer Association laid on an all singing all dancing stunt called the Shonky Awards with hosts Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson. The primary objective according to Choice as they now want to be called, was to reveal the shonkiest products sold in Australia. A victim of this stunt was the now famous Apple iPod. According to Choice they had received several complaints about iPods having cracked screens, faulty batteries and problems with sound production as well as difficulties when it came to getting them repaired.
The emphasis being on the words, several complaints, not hundreds or thousands but several that Choice alleges had made calls to their complaints hotline. The fact is that tens of thousands of iPods have been sold in Australia via major chains like Harvey Norman, JB Hi Fi and the Apple reseller channel and very few have been returned to either Apple or the retailers with problems. And wehen they have Apple have fixed the problem to the extent that when it was revealed that the Nano iPod scratched easily Apple sent consumers who complained a brand new product. The real facts are that the return rate on iPods is below 0.5% compared to the industry average of 2% for CE products and if Choice had checked they would have discovered that the iPod stacked up pretty well compared to a lot of low cost CE products.
What the Australian Consumer Association engaged in was a cheap nasty publicity stunt to get publicity for Choice which is confronted with the possibility that the Internet and the tens of thousands of free product or service reviews is set to hurt their business model.
By choosing the Apple iPod they knew that they would get wall to wall publicity. They chose a high profile product from a high profile Company and slam dunked it. They failed to reveal to Apple the alleged complainants or take steps to resolve any of the issues with Apple according to Apple Marketing Director Rob Small.
Choice is 50 years old and where in the past consumers and organisations paid to get a print edition of their reports on products and services they are doing that less today due to the advent of the Internet and the easy access to thousands of free reviews by both professional reviewers and consumers.
What this publicity stunt was all about was the fact that the Australian Consumers’ Association is dumping its brand to align under the banner of its magazine, Choice in the hope that it will appeal to a younger audience. They have also bought on board Indira Naidoo as a PR front person. The former SBS news reader is paid to plead and plead she does despite the beat up’s that Choice is churning out.
The magazine and website has around 200,000 subscribers but the problem is that as they move online they are going to have to rely on consumers paying either $29.00 a month to get access to their content or $116.00 a year as Choice does not take advertising either online or in print.
This is a big ask as consumers now have an abundance of free online reviews from many well respected magazines such as SmartHouse, Home Cinema Choice, Hi Fi Choice or overseas organisations that are reviewing the same products as Choice.
This month Choice launched a new advertising campaign by ad agency Oil aimed at driving traffic to their website and their “Shonky” PR stunt was an orchestrated part of a new marketing initative aimed at generating publicity for Choice.
To take on Apple in the way that they did was a very low blow from an organisation whose credibility is well and truly on the line. In the CE market there are many dodgy products which Choice could have targeted. But they didn’t because the mass media would not have given an unknown brand as much publicity as they got choosing the Apple iPod.
What the stunt has revealed is that the Australian Consumer Association is not a trusted organisation that consumers can have faith in. Their testing methodology has to be questioned andby taking a very small number of consumer complaints for a product that is sold in the tens of thousands and blowing it up into a story that was blasted across TV and radio networks was shameless grandstanding from an organisation that is fast becoming irrelevant in today’s online society.
