It’s the time of year for saving money!
Yesterday I received a note with an attachment from one of my editors. The note let me know that a manufacturer was unhappy with a review. The attachment was the manufacturer’s letter. The “funny” thing about the review was that it was 99% positive! The manufacturer was objecting to the “fact” that my praise of the component was not as effusive as the accolades heaped upon it by other previous reviews…
My first thought was, “Just because you were able to pull quotes from past reviews and use them, verbatim, in your advertising doesn’t mean that ALL reviews are copy for your advertising.” My second thought was, “Another amateur…”
In point of fact ads that rely on using reviews as their primary text are as common as dandruff. And if a manufacturer can’t garner a positive review from some “reviewer” they have a marketing department suitable for firing. And, of course there’s always the fallback to judicious editing, changing “remarkable in its awfulness,” to “remarkable.”
But that was not the issue here – the manufacturer really felt I had slighted his latest offering by not turning into a puddle of organic fluids after the first listen.
Now, for an exercise, let me try to see this from a manufacturer’s view. First, for some context, this was a relatively new firm that had only been offering audiophile gear in the US for five years and have released fewer than a dozen products. Perhaps because all their past products had garnered not merely positive reviews, but raves, they had come to the erroneous conclusion that ALL reviews would always be raves, so one that was more down-to-earth came as something of a shock.
Now, the professional PR folk who are reading this are, by now, shaking their heads while smiling that half-smile of Deja-Vu. Most have seen this kind of manufacturer over-reaction multiple times and when they could, that attachment that I received was never sent. That was doing their job…
Of course, the manufacturer’s letter contained all the standard reasons why someone would not be gobsmacked by his latest offering – less than ideal ancillary gear, lack of comparisons with far pricier gear, and finally the “lack of objectivity.” What I find most egregious about this circular reasoning is that in the manufacturer’s eyes anything less than cries of “Halleluiah” marks a review as not being objective enough.
I suppose if I were a less experienced reviewer I might be tempted, somewhere in the recesses of my reptilian brain, to take some of that letter to heart and become more effusive and more of an industry cheerleader for whom any new product introduction is a reason for celebration. But, I won’t.
My position has been consistent over thirty+ years – the object of a review is to describe a product so that a reader can decide if it would be appropriate for them. Since no technology is perfect, you can hardly expect any product based on technology to be perfect, so a good part of my job is to find where and how a product might be less than ideal for some of my audience. In short, my job is to find faults or features that may not have universal appeal.
So, if a manufacturer can’t accept the fact that their product is less than perfect and will not always receive raves, perhaps they shouldn’t submit it for review…and they should certainly not bank on using reviews for the bulk of their advertising copy…and perhaps, just perhaps, they might want to read a few reviews from a reviewer before submitting their components to that reviewer so that they will have some reasonable expectations for a review.
Nah, that would be too easy…
This manufacturer should be happy I didn’t review it. Will it play my nine reference albums and three reference recordings? The answer is almost always no.
Having spent over 35 years reviewing I have always striven to avoid comparative (group test) reviews, preferring to concentrate my experience on one product at a time and produce a subjectively-assessed objective view of that particular product. In the context of my available (and relatively consistent) benchmark reviewing system all reviews are undertaken using a ‘standard’ process using my best endeavours (assisted by the manufacturer’s guidance and my experience) to get the very best performance out of that product. Every review I pen is written with equal integrity with absolutely no expectation of the manufacturer quoting any of my findings in their promotional material. Further, there is never ever a predetermined outcome, and there have been major surprises, both good and bad! On the basis that the manufacturer ‘trusts’ the view of the nominated reviewer it then does seem churlish of the manufacturer to question the findings (having previously tacitly approved the choice of reviewer). But every reviewer can sometimes welcome set-up assistance from the manufacturer if things seem not to be going too well. An expectation that the reviewer will be ‘effusive’ is plain unprofessional and it’s not up to the reviewer to do the marketing department’s job. Lastly, at the end of the day, a review is the reviewer’s carefully considered view and opinion (in the context of the rest of the review system) of a product. There’s no obligation for that opinion to be aligned to any degree whatsoever with the manufacturer’s view or claims.
Chis my question to you is how much of the stuff you have reviewed will play Pet Sounds properly?
We live in an era where there’s a lot of really good gear coming out, both analog and digital. I’ve been fortunate that the overwhelming majority of my experiences over the last ten years or so have been very, very good with regard to manufacturers and the equipment they offer for review. I see a lot of online criticism directed at Stereophile and TAS, bemoaning the fact that their reviews are all overwhelmingly positive, but then I read the manufacturer response pages, and there’s almost always some criticism of the reviewer’s failure to get to the “essence” of the product. I don’t know…with the seemingly ever-shrinking audiophile market, I guess it’s somewhat understandable that manufacturers rely on reviews and word-of-mouth to boost product sales.
You are right about the volume of good gear out there. Its hard to find crap and who would want to review it any way?
I have dealt with this problem that Steven talks about perhaps as ANYONE in this business as I both sell the ads AND control the editorial.
First of all – ask Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian if there is anything such as bad publicity? They became “self made billionaires” because of such promotion.
Some AV companies look at their products like “perfect children” thus they can’t take anything below a DOUBLE 5-star rating and the most glowing of terms. Chances are: their products aren’t as perfect as they think and its our job as reviewers to point out the flaws. Its your job as readers to see if the products interest you enough to do more research, get a demo and or make a buying decision. See AV publications aren’t stereo stores although some who buy ads think we are. They of course wont offer us dealer margins on “what we sell” of course.
Ads are a key part of the AV process. Not only do companies need to get the word out on their goods. They also need to support the publications that support them. Moreover, they need to understand that there are nearly UNLIMITED choices of gear that we could review and in the case of HomeTheaterReview.com – we can say “yes” 104 times per year. With 33 clients who do pay us thus the ONLY way we make a living and can keep the doors open – we are going to support those companies as best we can. Does that mean editorial is “pay for play”? Nope. And history proves that: Sony hasn’t spent a red cent with us in more than 5-years. Samsung has never spent a penny and won’t take my calls re: ads. Vizio – not a penny EVER. LG – same story. Not a penny. Yet in the past few weeks and into the coming weeks we will have reviewed THREE top-level Sony HDTVs including their Master Series OLED. We have LG’s top OLED in for review and did their 65 inch LED recently. We’ve reviewed Samsung’s S9 top QLED. We’ve also have Vizio’s QLED in the can waiting to publish. That’s basically EVERY TOP 4K TV on the market from a group of Asian electronics companies who REFUSE to spend a dollar with our publication. Their stupidity and arrogance but we deliver for our readers AND FOR FREE. We also support our clients like with today’s B&W 702 SE speaker review or the MartinLogan Motion 4I review.
What some AV companies don’t understand is that reviews cost WELL into the 4-figures per. Expecting them for free and forever is like expecting to be invited to a wedding over and over but never bringing a gift. Its not polite or sustainable long term.
Moreover, the idea of using the threat of pulling ad money is a quick way to never get a review and possibly to get banned from a publication. I have 14 companies on my banned list. Trust me: they earned it.
In the end, we look for companies that understand that we need a working win-win relationship. They need to understand that not every product is going to be 5-stars and that NO amount of money will guarantee them 5-starts. Sadly, some just don’t get it. Thankfully, we’ve got a good group who do. We could use a dozen more however! 🙂