back to article Microsoft says 'sorry' after Japan quake marketing gaffe

Microsoft offered to donate $100,000 to Japan's quake victims, one day after a devastating series of tsunamis struck the country on Friday 11 March. Unfortunately, the software giant initially turned its supposedly altruistic efforts into a marketing opportunity, with MS tweeting the following unwise message on its Bing …

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  1. squilookle

    Nothing new

    It was the advert for nappies (or washing powder or whatever it was) that got me the most - "1 pack = 1 vaccine". It was like saying "Buy our stuff or we let the kids die."

    This kind of fake support to blackmail people into buying our stuff or supporting our brand crap needs to be stopped across the board. If these companies really care, they should just donate the money quietly (by quietly, I don't mean secretly, they can tell people and claim some nice, warmfuzzy image for it to an extent, so long as they don't go over the top into tasteless marketing country. I don't know where the line is though, that's another debate) and be done with it.

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  3. Mike Bell

    If you can't do, teach. If you can't teach, do marketing

    You don't need to be terribly bright to be in marketing, do you?

    I got an e-mail from a large corporation at the weekend, addressed to me by name and titled "Make her day special...". It was a tout to buy a personalised Mother's Day gift. Let her know how great she is, treat her etc. etc.

    All of which will prove to be a little tricky given the simple and plain fact that she is dead.

    Fortunately for me, I was not recently bereaved, but I imagine there will be plenty of recipients of this e-mail who are.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep

      I've had the exact same experience, and the same thoughts. I also sigh when people change their facebook status to messages along the lines of "My wish this year is that they'll find a cure for cancer. If you wish that too, change your status to this, just for a day"

      Having lost my mum, three aunts, and both grandmothers to cancer, it don't seem particularly useful to remind people there's still no cure. Especially when someone might be grappling with the current reality of coping with it.

  4. Lamont Cranston
    Badgers

    Rather than interpret this as a marketing technique,

    I viewed this in the same way as all those "every time you forward this email, Microsoft will donate $1 to the Make A Wish Foundation" emails (that still appear to be doing the rounds) - i.e. spam.

    As it's not a hoax, I'll assume that I just don't understand twitter.

  5. Ian Ferguson
    Thumb Down

    "an easy way for people to help"

    HOW would retweeting have helped people in Japan? If people want to help, donate your own f**king money.

    I can see why this was negatively perceived, but the second message is just as bad.

    1. Daniel 1

      It would have helped (upto the $100k limit)...

      ...After which it would have just been free publicity ("Hoo hoo! We reached our limit ten ours ago, and the stupid schucks don't realise it, yet! Keep linking, suckers!")

      What is perhaps most comforting, is to reflect that $100,000 will pay for, maybe... twelve... washed-away cars (and when you've got nuclear power plants exploding around you, that sort of money is going to make all the difference).

      So... why do you imagine that this sort of thinking is being seen as at bit cynical (in a really cheap, small-time, sort of way)?

  6. Wize

    Its as annoying as those facebook statuses...

    The ones that mention some cause and contain the lines:

    "I know that 97% of you won't post this as your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of xxxxxxxx, post this for at least one hour.

    Which do absolutely nothing for the cause they are trying to promote. They probably have a negative effect as some will actually think they have done something and won't put a penny in a collection tin with this justification.

    And why is it always 97%?

    1. Kevin Johnston

      97%

      I think that is in homage to the statistic that 84% of statistics are made-up

      1. Elmer Phud

        Shirley

        isn't it 84.6%?

    2. Toastan Buttar
      Happy

      One of my friends posted...

      Copy this and paste it in your status if you know someone, or have heard of someone who knows someone. If you don't know anyone, or even if you've heard of someone who doesn't know anyone, then do still copy this. It's important to spread the message. Oh and the hearts ♥ ♥ ♥ ... for crap's sake don't forget the hearts! ♥ ♥ ♥

      1. Lionel Baden

        the last person

        Got unfreinded pretty damn quick !

        apart from this one. This one i did repost

        Please put this on your status if you know or are related to someone killed on Alderaan when it was obliterated by the Death Star. My wish is that people will understand that the Empire is a band of murdering scum. The Rebel Alliance wants only to bring peace to the galaxy, but the evil empire continues to kill innocent civilians.

        93% won't copy/paste this.

    3. Cynical Observer

      Please Repost

      This one is probably closer to the mark....

      PLEASE copy and paste this into your status if you know someone, or have been affected by someone, who needs a punch in the face. People who need a punch in the face affect the lives of many. There is still no known cure for people who need a punch in the face, except a punch in the face. 93% of people won't re-post this...Why? Because they probably need a punch in the face.

  7. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Why?

    'Cos PR and ad monkeys don't give a flying toss about anything other than raking in the green! Everyone must be valued, packaged and sold.

    As Bill Hicks once said, "If anyone here is in PR or advertising, kill yourself. No that's not a joke, there's no punchline, no follow-up dick-joke, just kill yourself. You're worthless parasites sucking on Satan's **** for that one last dime. Putting a dollar value on everything you see, think or hear will lead you straight to the horned one's throne!"

    1. The Commenter formally known as Matt
      Joke

      Bill Hicks PR (The Fuzzy Wotnot)

      This is a thread about Bing making a boo-boo, please don't pollute it with your spammy advertising for Bill Hicks and his old jokes. I don't want to buy the product you are advertising.

      Thanks.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Not only M$.

    Quite a few companies are selling RTs for donating to Japan.

    We also have a bunch of musical jebends publicly stating "I HAVE DONATES SUCH AND SUCH TO JAPAN" for the attention and press.

    If you are a high profile company or person. You should not publicly say what you donate. Just say you've helped out. Pricks.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Where's Saint Bono?

      As per title

      1. TeeCee Gold badge

        @Elmer Phud

        I'm sure his team of spin-meisters are working overtime to provide him with an appropriate, off-the-cuff response.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For my part ...

      ... I donated ten bucks to your momma.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's not always that simple.

      I work for company where we are encouraged to spend some of time in each year working to support local charitable organisations. Often this takes the form of large projects such as renovating community spaces or the like. We try to do this as descreetly as possible, without making a huge song and dance about it - the aim is to help them, not to get publicity fo us.

      However a number of the organisations want us to make a song and dance about it so that their name and their work gets some attention. They also like to have detail of what was donted included so others are aware of what help is needed.

      I know this particular case with Microsoft is not a case of this, but I think your last statement takes a very narrow view. Often the publicity is as much for the charity as it is for the person or organisation. I do agree that details should be kept to a minimum where possible, but sometimes it isn't that easy. I think you might be pleasantly surprised if you saw the amount of work many large oranisations do for charity that goes un reported.

    4. Alicia

      Actually

      I don't mind people saying I donated £x to cause y. Reason being if people just say "I donated to cause y" I bet there would be lots of companies who donate $1, but their PR spin it as a big deal because the actual amount is secret.

      I don't like selling RTs, or the daft Celebrity auction that went up for comic relief last week

    5. Bilgepipe
      Thumb Down

      True

      Twitter is little more than free publicity for "celebs" at the best of times, to see them crawling out of the woodwork in situations like this is sickening.

  9. aahjnnot
    Welcome

    For goodness sake, give the guys a break

    I'm no Microsoft fan, but give the guys a break. I doubt that the victims of this tragedy actually care too much whether some of their aid resulted in some publicity for a big corporation. Aid given with impure motives is better than no aid at all.

    Big business holds the purse strings in our society. If we're so mean-spirited that we scream shrilly whenever a company opens its wallet, don't be surprised if the wallet remains firmly shut next time. That won't help anyone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      When the guys give us a break.

      "Aid given with impure motives is better than no aid at all."

      That's debatable. Think Robin Hood.

      "Big business holds the purse strings in our society."

      And that doesn't really help most of us. Perhaps we should think on't rather than just giving them a pass. In the case of Microsoft, I'd rather they didn't give $100,000 to Japan, and also didn't try quite so hard to corner every fucking market at everyone else's expense. That way, maybe we'd all have a little bit more to give and an industry without so many bullshit, corporate distortions to boot.

    2. No, I will not fix your computer
      Thumb Up

      Re: For goodness sake, give the guys a break

      The disaster will cost Japan upwards for £150 billion, where is the microsoft money going? How about, Red Cross, sounds good, they have people there and they are set up to help in this type of disaster, I'm sure the emergency services would like a hand, but Japan isn't without resources, and the dust hasn't even begin to settle before people are getting the collecting tins out, look at save the children, big expensive google adverts, is it even specifically children that are affected?

      The reason why we have "charity fatigue" is because when anything happens anywhere in the world you know there'll be a influx of multiple charities, yes lots of them are doing good, however the competition is so fierce that to get any of your cash they have to get in early, before the water has even subsided.

      It's a dangerous area to criticise charitable giving, but of course, it's not the giving, it's what people do with the money after they have it, and perhaps that money could be of greater benefit elsewhere, after all, some ceo's of charities can be on seven-figure salaries.

      Definitely DON'T "give the guys a break", but also don't stop giving, and also why not follow the money, see where it's going.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Re: For goodness sake, give the guys a break

        Give Microsoft a break?

        Only when they agree to compensate me for all the time I've spent when employers have forced me to use Winblows.

        It's pants. Not just small pants but gigantic horrible dirty bloomers with pieces eaten out by moths and horrendous skid marks all over the inside. That's not to say that any of the rest of their software is any better!

    3. Cameron Colley

      RE: For goodness sake, give the guys a break

      Why? Why should anyone "give" a corporation "a break" because they tried to use a tragedy as a shitty marketing strategy. Heck, I'll be cynical and say that, seeing as $100,000 is both very little to Microsoft and virtually nothing compared to the costs which will be seen in Japan, MS need not have bothered at all.

      Corporations should always be criticised and always be blamed in cases like this, because then one of these pathetic pricks in Marketing may realise that their only role is to shovel money into the accounts of shareholders at the expense of everything else.

  10. jake Silver badge

    Some people use their time usefully.

    Other people sit on their arses, playing with !MSGooMyFaceYouTwit.

    Me, I pulled a few boats out of the harbor in Santa Cruz yesterday.

    Microsoft? Not so much ...

  11. John Tserkezis

    Those who live by the Twitter, can die by the Twitter.

    An electrical "whitegoods" retailer "Bing Lee" here in Australia tried The_Exact_Same_Thing during the Queensland floods, 'we'll donate $1 (up to $10,000) as long as you ping our Twitter account'.

    They got a royal kick in the nuts for trying that too.

    Bing Lee was prompted into a response that went along the lines of "the true reason behind pushing for more Facebook fans was to 'motivate people to raise awareness' about the floods".

    Which was eerily simliar to Microsoft's response. Are all their marketing droids trained at the same place?

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Coat

      Hmmm....

      ....maybe it's a Bing Thing?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't get upset over this

    and if I did it would be over the paltry sum of $100,000. This amount will have sod all impact on getting things back to any form of normality and if anything it's not money that's needed but manpower. Maybe they should send all their marketing people over there with a pair of overalls and a shovel and deny them access to any gadgets, media or communications until they've acheived something useful.

  13. poohbear

    Found it in the tickey pocket

    So MS has a net income of over $6 billion in 3 months, and they only give 100K?

    Shame on them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      $2m so far

      ac because I work there

      according to an internal mail from LisaB this morning MS have already donated over $2m (I don't know if that includes the Bing PR money).

      additionally we have ways in place where MS will match any employee donation

      In 2009 MS donated around $70m to charitable causes - that's a total of $3.9bn since 1983

      http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Employees-Give-over-70-Million-to-Charity-130517.shtml

      Please don't assume that the only charitable acts are the ones that PR clowns are responsible for

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re

      "So MS has a net income of over $6 billion in 3 months, and they only give 100K?

      Shame on them."

      I lol'd. Why should anyone be shamed for refusing to give something they earned to someone else at no cost?

      Furthermore, I'm not sure why people "care" so much in these sort of situations. You do realize that millions of people around the world live in as bad or worse conditions every day of their lives? Yeah it sucks you lost your house and all, but the people living in the slums of India would love to have a house to lose.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Nuance

        "Earned" as in the rather flat "receive reward for labour"? Much like a burglar earns their living off the backs of others?

        Perhaps you were using "earned" with the nuance of "deservedly so" in mind. And therein lies the rub. What have Microsoft done to deserve their market dominance and related billions?

        In my book "embrace, extend and extinguish" earns you a kick in the soft parts.

  14. mittfh
    Stop

    Another example...

    Celebs are currently piling on the #twitrelief bandwagon. Apparently it's some kind of ebay auction thingy for Comic Relief, whereby if you 'win' the auction, they will follow your Twitter account.

    Now how sad must you be to want to pay for a celebrity to follow your random drivel on Twitter? I suppose it's the same kind of person who craves every new follower and doesn't care that 90% of their 10,000 followers are spambots...

  15. Lionel Baden
    Flame

    Fuck it then

    All you absolute C**TS

    If this gets them 100k Who gives a fuck......

    Let me tell you the guy with his family in a tent wondering how he is going to get food for his family today and tomorrow, they just wont care if it came with a lifelong newsletter to microsoft.

    And while were at it Lets BAN every single Company from promoting charities.

    Need Rage icon cause flame just doesn't cut it today !!!!!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    John Cooper Clarke said it all...

    Agreed Lionel, John Cooper Clarke's words are quite fitting for some of the responses above...

    http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/twat.html

    From one business man who is still helping (in his own little way) with the aftermath of the 2005 Pakistan Earthquake.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: John Cooper Clarke said it all...

    Just noticed that the link I posted is part of a web design companies site, the site is not mine so don't go flaming cyberspike.com and no it's not some kind of shameless plug for them either.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Erm, I don't get it

    Sorry, I'm not a Twitter user.

    What is the point of the article?

    You do a tweet, and M$ donotes some money.

    Could someone educate me?

    1. The Unexpected Bill
      Go

      @skelband - explanation

      Someone might well beat me to this. Who knows?

      Twitter hasn't got a whole lot to do with this, other than being the medium. What's going on here is that someone within the Microsoft corporation posted a message to the Twitter site stating that for every response they received to their posting, they would donate some amount of money up to a certain value (seemingly $100,000 in this case).

      Well...I'm relatively sure that they probably meant well, but here's where the problems start. For starters, how do we even know it's legitimate? E-mails purporting to be from some reputable corporation (including Microsoft, speaking in terms of legitimacy of their business, not quality of their product, so don't flame me) were sent around claiming a similar thing would happen. Only trouble is, they were completely bogus. And while their intentions might have been good, the whole part of posting it to Twitter and saying "respond to this and we'll donate" can really come across as a cheap, poorly thought out publicity stunt. I don't know that it was, and I don't pretend to pontificate in a way that would suggest I did.

      That is basically the point of the article. Microsoft pulled off what could have been (and mostly was) perceived as a poor publicity stunt as opposed to just quietly supporting the recovery efforts in Japan.

      By the way...just because it's been "that kind of a day"...those who are thinking that $100,000 doesn't buy a lot of cars...well, you're right. Congratulations. It could buy a lot of meals for those who don't have one, it can buy lots of cleaning supplies and many other little things that just might help a lot. I've been close enough to a disaster where the American Red Cross was involved, and I can say that their presence was an enormous help. Even though I wasn't particularly hard-hit by said disaster, I did help people who were and all of those buckets, mops and other cleaning supplies provided without reservation by the Amercan Red Cross were much appreciated.

      As for these people's cars...well, I'd guess I'd say "let's just pull the engine apart, drain the water out, slap a new battery in and see if she'll go!"

      1. LateNightLarry
        Thumb Up

        @skelband - explanation

        I've been involved as a volunteer with the American Canyon Cross for close to 20 years, mostly on local disasters and single family disasters. The ARC is mandated by Congress to provide disaster relief, among other duties, and does a fantastic job for the most part. Ninety-eight percent of the people with the Red Cross are volunteers who put their lives on hold for weeks with little or no notice to help people affected by disasters such as Katrina and all the other hurricanes and the Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes. But they can only do it with the support of the American people and companies, because the Red Cross gets no funding from the government. So give if you can, and if you can't, volunteer, or do both.

        Thumbs up for a bunch of great people.

  19. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Japan doesn't need $100K

    In case anybody on el' reg hasn't read it - an excellent account of the status from a programmer in Japan http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/

    Ending with :

    "If you’re feeling compassionate and want to do something for the sake of doing something, find a charity in your neighborhood. Give it money. Tell them you were motivated to by Japan’s current predicament. You’ll be happy, Japan will recover quickly, and your local charity will appreciate your kindness."

  20. 88mm a.k.a. Minister for Misbehaviour
    Paris Hilton

    This is the Modern World

    Me me me - I have rather a large chip on my shoulder when it comes to these sorts of business practices. I perceive them as a violent assault on my birthright as the world seemed a more friendly place in the 70s. Because of this I don't buy from conglomerates whenever I can help it but it COSTS. Voting with your wallet is far more powerful than the ballot box. When sheeple wake up to this it'll make the Middle East look like... well it won't stop the bloodshed so I'll stop the analogy there but you get my drift.

    - Paris 'cause I bet she likes (The) Jam

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Rule Number One: Never Admit to Being Wrong

    Looking at the quoted tweets, it is plain that they did not apologise for what they said, they apologised for other people's perception of it.

    Just another example of a typical MS error message. Your mind has performed an illegal perception and will be apologised for to protect our reputation.

  22. Mike VandeVelde
    Stop

    corporate charity

    I guess they want people to think this is Microsoft (or whoever as the case may be) being all warm and fuzzy and caring, and parting with some hard earned cash to help out the needy.

    But the thing is, I think of it as Microsoft (or whoever as the case may be) is overcharging for their product to the point where they have a spare $100,000 lying around. Every time I hear of something like this, I think to myself why don't you just refund me the extra money you charged me instead, and I will decide if and where to donate it?

    Better if they just lowered their prices, and left that $100,000 in the wider economy, then maybe more of us poor sods might have a little extra to donate? Why should we leave it up to corporations to collect a little charity tax from each of us, and then decide which charities are worthwhile?

    I mean really, do you think that $100,000 is going to come off the salaries of the executives who made the decision to donate? Nope. It will get accounted for when they set their prices. So where is the big sacrifice they make that everyone should be wowed by?

    Corporations are for making profit, they should stick to that, and quit the pathetic attempts to trick people into believing they have feelings, which just end up costing the rest of us anyway.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    This is really cool

    Well, seriously. Fair does for donating 100k!

  24. Adrian Esdaile
    Troll

    It's probably less then they spend each year on...

    ...paperclips.

    ...staples.

    ...blank CDs.

    ...post-it notes.

    ...etc.

    Why not give $1,000,000? $10,000,000?

    $100,000 is going to help, what about 4 people?

    For the record, I have donated 5% of my salary this week - I'd love to see MS donate 5% of their profit...

  25. D. Suse
    Gates Horns

    Microsoft - the Antisocial Company

    The mark of an antisocial personality is preying on and manipulating others to for one's own self-benefit (such as capitalizing on others' misfortunes). If "caught" doing this, they typically just try and distract their victim(s) hoping they will forget about their latest transgression, and then get back to the "business" of victimizing once again.

    Corporations are considered as legal "persons". Therefore it would seem that Microsoft has a bad case of antisocial personality disorder. Unfortunately one of the only ways to reform people (or corporations) with ASPD is to change something they can understand, namely their own self-interest.

    So, instead of allowing Microsoft to "distract" you by dismissing their opportunistic marketing stunt while millions suffer -- or by their latest "strings-attached" donation of some cash and "temporary software licenses" (aka crapwear) to Japan, remember who/what you may be dealing with in the future, and just do not deal with them (and instead deal with companies with prosocial motives, like Google). THAT is the only thing that could possibly snag the attention of the self-interested Microsoft, in terms of perhaps shifting its predatory behavior.

  26. bubba-bear

    Insurance

    I wonder if automobile insurance in Japan covers tsunami damage; if it does, there are going to be a lot of re-insurers out big bucks. The automobile finance companies will probably take a big hit if insurance doesn't cover the loss (assuming that many Japanese finance their cars, which may be a bad assumption considering their high saving rate).

  27. 50
    Gates Horns

    Seeing an opportunity when it arises.

    Has anyone stopped and though about how news networks are marketing by reporting on the devastation and aiming to get higher ratings? It's business. Face it, natural disasters, people die, to all those religious ones reading this "IT'S IN GODS HANDS" to all those skeptics reading this "S**T HAPPENS" and to all business minded "HOW BRILLIANT IS MICROSOFT?"

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