Martin Sargent, Murphy Goode and Social Media
You may have seen some of the uproar surrounding Murphy Goode’s decision to exclude Martin Sargent from their top 50 list of contenders for “areallygoodejob”. http://bit.ly/30gf68 Whether or not Marty is the right person for the job is not for me to say (I think he’d be a huge asset and cheap for the salary they advertised) but it’s obvious the wine company only half understands the whole social media gig.
They did a great job of getting out there and gaining traffic but they stepped on their peepee in closing the deal. What Murphy Goode didn’t get was that if you harness social media for “good”, you better not be an asshat. It ends up being like throwing a tennis ball against the wall and having it come back at you with 10x the velocity, and in the form of a clump of poo.
I’m not saying they should have hired Marty (I wish I could afford him!) and I can see how a popular web dude could dominate the votes and have that not be the right person. But if you’re gonna ask the social universe to jump in you better at least give their opinion a tiny bit of weight; Their wrath would leave you wishing you had only left a thousand women scorned instead. Their wrath is what Murphy Goode is dealing with now.
Murphy Goode probably saw a spike in sales just with the introduction of their “contest”. My guess is, they’re gonna see those sales dropping off rapidly. It’s much more expensive to lose a customer than it is to gain one. For example, if I had never bought from them before and found them with the initial stunt, I might buy 10 bottles per year. But had I been buying from them and I heard about their shitty behavior I’d never buy from them again. That’s a pretty big penalty and one that is not immediately recognized.
Personally, I love the leveling effect of social media. Sure, sometimes it goes way overboard but I think it mostly helps keep companies and individuals more honest. Because if you break from social media etiquette you may as well jump into a tank of gasoline while holding a lit torch and save yourself the hassle.
Seinfeld, 
tom, 
BrianC, and 4 others are discussing.
Matt 12:59 pm on June 27, 2009 Permalink
Tom: Kudos to you and your understanding of the interesting Murphy-Goode/Martin Sargent social media case. My 6/26 letter to the Murphy-Goode winery is below. The inept way in which they have managed their first attempt at harnessing the power of social networking has certainly backfired.
To the promoters of the Really-Goode Job contest:
Congratulations on your decision to make a mockery of your own publicity event. It was a very poor decision to launch a contest with specific metrics, then exclude the one individual who exceeded all others in the achievement of the most important one.
What you have demonstrated is a complete lack of understanding of the very marketing modality that you were trying to capture. If you were going to choose your 50 finalists based on the content of their “application” then why include a voting component at all? You have essentially insulted all of those who took the time to employ social networking to vote for Martin Sargent. Those voters were not just 20-something gamers, but a much, much wider demographic including personal colleagues from my own network in the business and medical field – and their networks, and so on. You should keep in mind that social media is not just a powerful tool to spread positive energy. It can also be very effective in the opposite direction, something that I feel you will likely learn the hard way all too soon.
I had never heard of your wine before this contest, and I can assure you that I will never take the time to learn more about it – let alone taste it. The taste that you have left in my mouth is already bad enough.
the slackmistress 2:56 pm on June 27, 2009 Permalink
I argued that it should not be labeled a “tragedy” (as @martinsargent himself put it on Twitter, but I do realize tone and such can be lost online).
There wasn’t anything that said votes would count. I had assumed that they were using votes as an internal way to pare down the candidates who they would look at more closely for the top 50 as well as drive traffic to the site.
BUT…it DOES seem odd that they didn’t keep him in the running, simply because while I don’t know him, checking him out, he actually seems qualified. That + votes = seems a logical choice to at least make the top 50.
While I was not in the Top 50 for votes, I ended up getting a phone interview before the Top 50 were announced. I’d be curious to know if Martin was interviewed as well? If not, then what WAS the point of voting? Did they have a winner in mind before they started?
This is an excellent analysis of the situation, so thanks for that. Everything I had seen up until this point was FUCK MURHY GOOD LUSERS!!!!!!ONEONEONE which isn’t exactly an effectual argument.
In any event, I first thought this was sour grapes (no, erm, pun intended), but upon further investigation into Mr. Sargent’s background and qualifications added to his internet popularity, it seems ludicrous that he didn’t at least make the top 50.
Curious to see how this will play out. If I was a rival winery, I’d look at swooping in and hiring Mr. Sargent in a social media coup. Good luck, Martin!
Andy 1:04 pm on June 28, 2009 Permalink
Finally this comment came up on Facebook:
“Just so you know: yes, like everyone else, here at MG we watched the tweets on Friday night with concern. How could anyone be oblivious? We also know that Martin, our top vote-getter, is a true professional, and we believe that he himself has been cool about the whole thing, offering congrats to the current 50 like the gentleman he is. He can’t help that people love’em, and so do we…”
(http://ow.ly/g1Rm)
They continue to give 4 points which might be interesting to read.
I personally never thought it was a “contest” — MG always stated that it was a hiring process. Having said that, isn’t there a Californian law which prohibits
alcohol related contests?
I think, slackmistress, that your point is very good: I had a few extra hits on my blog from people who thought I was somehow from MG (I am not, live in Germany for Pete’s sake and actually have never drunk wine…) ranting about how I rigged the campaign…
My response: stop ragging and ranting, show me how good the guy is and make anyone who did not hire him think “drat, how did we let that guy go through our hands?” when they hear everyone attesting positively to his qualities instead of coming across as a load of trolls. (My motto: don’t feed the trolls!)
So that is just my two cents.
Brandon 11:55 am on June 29, 2009 Permalink
I agree, they really dropped the ball on this one. In the very least, they could have ridden out Martin’s popularity by including him in the top 50, even if they never intended on hiring them. Not ethical, but as a PR stunt, would have really made sense.
I would like to also commend how professional and gracious Martin has been on the whole topic. He’s really a class act (sometimes…hehe).
Really good point on gaining vs. losing customers Tom. I live up in Canada, and until this point, I was actually going to see if any of the stores carried their wine. Now, not a chance.
BrianC 9:44 am on July 1, 2009 Permalink
I understand how many fans of Martin Sargent can believe he was wronged by Murphy-Goode. But I have a different take on this issue.
Martin Sargent with the assistance of Sara Lane and Leo Laporte, used the fan base of the TWiT network to boost his numbers. In a way he pulled a “Ashton Kutcher”.
They didn’t say “go to the website, watch the videos and vote for the one you like the best” they said “go there and vote for Marty”
That was unfair for the other candidates, Murphy-Goode was right in disqualifying him from the final 50.
tom 10:14 am on July 1, 2009 Permalink
I can certainly see your point of view BrianC but I don’t think “unfair” is a fair term to use. After all, MG wants to harness social networking so Marty demonstrated his ability to do so. I also don’t think MG “disqualified” him because of the manner in which he got so many votes. Personally, I think they just felt he wasn’t going to project the image they envisioned for their company.
I went through many of the competing videos and ultimately chose Marty. But I must admit that since I know him I was slanted (to say the least) in his favor from the get-go. I think many of his other votes were similarly based. But again, that was meeting one of the needs of MG and was likely an important piece.
I’m sure in retrospect MG would have made some sort of “note” about some of the higher vote candidates who were not included in the top 50 at the time (or even before) they announced their list. And I would guess they’ll be more aware of their environment in the future when dealing with the social universe. Their handling so far on Facebook (thanks for the pointer Andy!) has been a good start. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Seinfeld 11:56 pm on July 7, 2009 Permalink
Blame Marty for getting too many votes. If Marty was the 2nd or 3rd most votes getter instead of first with 6000+ votes, I am sure he would have no doubt made it to the top 50.