Buzz Agency Mucks Up Microsoft Campaign Again

Buzz agency Edelman have crowned a year of mistakes by asking for the laptops back that they sent out to bloggers on behalf of their client Microsoft. Bloggers have been left resentful after they were sent ‘Ferrari laptops’ to promote Microsoft’s Windows Vista and AMD’s Turion only to be asked for them back. When they were received many of the bloggers disclosed that they had received the laptops in the spirit of transparency that has been developing in the blogosphere to fight ‘pay-per-post’ blogging. The bloggers involved include Brandon LeBlanc, Scott Beale, Barb Bowman, Mauricio Freitas, Mitch Denny, and Zen.Heavengames.

CRN news suggests that the publicity following the giveaway apparently prompted Microsoft and AMD to reconsider the gift and they sent out emails to the bloggers asking for the laptops back. On his blog, Marchall Kitpatrick says:

The original email read” “you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like.” Now this follow up:

“Marshall, No good deed goes unpunished, right? You may have seen that other bloggers got review machines as well. Some of that coverage was not factual. As you write your review I just wanted to emphasize that this is a review pc. I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews.”

There’s a lot of discussion about the issue here.