On Kitguru, a well-known UK hardware news and review website, an ASUS representative has said that “Buying positive reviews is legal.” Obviously, this type of statement has caused great discontent in the public and has raised suspicions about the reviews and comments in the reviews that are made to the brand.
These comments have been issued by none other than the ASUS Public Relations Manager in the United Kingdom. In case you are not familiar with this role within a large corporation, a Public Relations Manager (PR Manager) is a professional who is responsible for maintaining and improving the public image of an organization, brand or individual. This person uses various forms of media to shape public perception and create a positive image.
In other words, they oversee reviews with experts like Kitguru, and they do the same with other websites, influencers, YouTubers, and manage payments to them for their services, as well as the task of establishing future agreements.
The thing is not in what I am talking about and that comment has many comments on this matter in the same post, and after stating that, as ASUS Public Relations Manager, he considers that buying positive reviews is legal in the United Kingdom, so with That being said, let’s talk about certain concerns that all this is causing in the industry.
what we believe
So that you have an idea in Argentina ASUS does not have anyone from Marketing for example and it is managed by people without any knowledge, to the point of owing a lot of money to various websites and youtubers, this would never come to light in a normal way.
We believe that readers should be able to trust the information that is presented to them, and this happens to us, at HD Tecnologia we do not have sponsors of any kind and that is why many brands choose to go elsewhere, not everyone is like what we write. Someone always dislikes something, when we put out xxx news and the fans come out to oust the work, we already have more than 15 years. Nobody pays us people and even less to speak well of someone or ill of someone. The worst part is yours, how can someone make a well-informed purchase decision with all this? In our case, we have a monthly audience of millions of views and a combined following on social networks of more than half a million enthusiasts, thanks to the trust placed in our test methodologies, resulting numbers and conclusions, regardless of who may and make good or bad comments.
Openly posting that you think it’s ‘legal to buy positive reviews’ goes against everything we believe. Of course, one can run ads in various media, create promotional and demo videos that focus on specific aspects of a product’s features that may not get much attention in general, but they are not reviews per se. But this type of content is labeled ‘Paid Promotion’, obviously this doesn’t happen in Latin America, so you never know when a promo is paid or not…
Why are we focusing our attention on this?
This past week Gamers Nexus and Jayz Two Cents talked about ASUS for its quality issues and the idea of taking care of customers. ASUS was founded on engineering principles. Engineering trumps public relations. When you have the best products on the market, then you don’t need to have the “it’s legal to buy positive reviews” mentality. Simply you excel in engineering the competition and ask the most experienced and trusted publications and media around the world to try your product. As a company you are sure that everything will be fine…
I’m sorry ASUS… but you’re fired!
ASUS Scumbag: Overvolting CPUs & Screwing the Customer
Fountain: Kit Guru