If you were a hardware manufacturer...

Stripe · 17 May 2006 at 08:32

OK, this point has probably been raised before (a lot), but if you were in the hardware biz, don't you think having someone in your marketing department sign up for forums and just happen to recommend your product when people ask for specs would be a good idea?

I mean, it would be pretty obvious if you said the same company name for every component but the odd one here and there, then some other companies who you aren't in competition with for other products. I don't believe there's anyone like that on this forum, which is one of the things I find interesting (and I know less subtle offenders have been unmasked before - someone from silentmaxx I remember especially from another forum).

but my point is really, don't you think it's strange how it seems in this industry, regular customer's opinions through forums are so much higher in influence than things such as advertising or company reputation? ok, some stuff you can look at benchmarks or whatever but whenever I buy anything, I pretty much ask for a recommendation on here and go with whatever a couple of people agree on.

just musing really. what does anyone else think?

semi-pro waster · 17 May 2006 at 08:43

That sort of viral marketing does go on sure but in the forums there are enough different people to offer different opinions on almost any piece of hardware(and software) you could care to name so that would probably counter-balance it. However if someone is recommending their companies products and gets no counter-recommendations then providing the products are good enough then is it a problem at all?

Defcon5 · 17 May 2006 at 10:51

surley if the products are good enough people will recommend them anyway

Smithy · 17 May 2006 at 11:05

Defcon5 said:
surley if the products are good enough people will recommend them anyway

Well obviously, but thats not the point.

Of course this sort of marketing happens. They would be fools to miss out on an oppertunity to sign up on an overclockers forum and throw their company name about here and there. But like semi-pro waster said, there are plenty of other people on these forum's offering advice for components from other hardware manufacturers to counter balance.

FrankJH · 17 May 2006 at 13:14

I cant really see it working myself , unless you had a whole marketing team doing it on the same forum.

Even then you would have to be very sure of the products you pushed using this method because the more technically savvy among us would spot any "hype" and blow it out of the water

My impression anyway

trojan698 · 17 May 2006 at 13:33

If it's a genuinely good product and someone is paid to highlight and promote that, I can't see a problem with it. If it's cack, it wont avoid the criticism it deserved.

If I was a hardware manufacturer, I'd pay someone to do it

Sparky · 17 May 2006 at 13:50

If the hardware is that good it really doesnt need to much of a plug.Look at the Opteron CPU for example,word of mouth put these chips into most peoples shopping list and infact AMD even went as far as to attempt to stop supply

RobH · 17 May 2006 at 14:09

I believe the RAM, CPU, Motherboard and Case I bought (rig in my sig) from OcUK were all recommended by forum users and I think that they genuinely think that they are good products. I am happy with everything recommended and would also go on to recommend it because I have had no problems with it.