[vinair]

Looks like Mahindra two wheeler division is desperate to get some foot fall in their two wheeler showroom

Motorbeam has highlighted what it thinks is a fake user posting positive reviews about Mahindra two wheelers (Centuro and Gusto) on its website. By the very tone of things its clear that the reviews are fake, but its hard to tell if its really the Mahindra marketing team behind this fake exercise!

Further read - http://www.motorbeam.com/2015/11/bik...nts-motorbeam/

[hybridpetrol]

This is a practice followed by many business owners these days. Any excessively positive or negative reviews that are seen online should be taken with a pinch of salt.
User reviews found in many forums sometimes mention mileage figures as high as 28 kmpl for petrol cars sometimes!
Too bad, nothing can actually done to pin-point the false reviews and filter them out automatically.
But, one thing is for sure. The sales numbers comes out of something good with the manufacturer, and not false marketing. Manufacturers should discourage such practises, for their own benefit. Because, once such false advertising is known to the public well, then even if your product is good, there will not be anybody to believe you.

[FuelInjector]

Astroturfing has always been alive. In the pre-internet era, anonymous postcards used to be sent. Its upto the customer to evaluate the pros and cons of the product. Jaago grahak jaago.
To me - The websites reviews are only next to test drives. Nothing like taking a test ride to evaluate the vehicle of your choice. If still doubtful, take a couple of more test rides as its ones hard earned money going into the product.

[barcalad]

I wonder why is Motorbeam going all nuts over this. Interesting.

Their comparison video between the Mojo and the D200 is still fresh in the minds of many.

[GTO]

Shame on Mahindra for cheating. This is FRAUD

Hat's off to Motorbeam for the way they handled the matter

I agree. None of this can happen without the knowledge of Mahindra. I know for a fact that monthly reports have references & screenshots of 'favourable comments' placed online.

We have ourselves banned a couple of suspicious ORM idiots (online reputation management) who tried to post biased messages on Team-BHP. Our tolerance toward such matters is zero.

Team-BHP's very active community, heavy reported post volumes, strict moderation & careful membership approvals help keep ORM profiles away.

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

Too bad, nothing can actually done to pin-point the false reviews and filter them out automatically.

If you have deep knowledge of cars / bikes, it's very easy to (manually) pick out ORM posts.

Originally Posted by barcalad

I wonder why is Motorbeam going all nuts over this.

Are you kidding me? Someone tries to come & dirty your house....won't you go nuts over it?

I'm very pleased with Motorbeam's post. If we see any manufacturer trying similar tricks on Team-BHP, we'll publicly shame them too. Stay out of my house!

Mahindra should perhaps learn a thing or two from Hero / Honda / Bajaj / Enfield. Want to sell two-wheelers? Focus on building some great products! Stop this nonsense of misguiding readers. Stop lying - instead, spend that time in the engineering room.

[2000rpm]

I agree with GTO, there are multiple organizations today which report snap shots of Positive Social Media Comments during sales reviews. In fact, this is one of the KRA of the Social Media Marketing Team!!

@ Mods: we should have similar IP tracking mechanisms (if not already) to track such behaviour on Team-BHP as well. We can crowdsource the funding, if required, amongst ourselves!!

[drsingh]

Originally Posted by barcalad

I wonder why is Motorbeam going all nuts over this. Interesting.

Their comparison video between the Mojo and the D200 is still fresh in the minds of many.

People browsing online will soon figure out false reviews and fake/marketing posts. I have stopped visiting sites with suspicious posers. It will become a low quality site if there's no strict policing.

This 'social media marketing' phenomenon is more like spam in India right now.

They should learn from the targeted viral videos made by the volvo marketing team. But that takes too much time and effort I guess. The marketing team would rather pay keyboard warriors to spam sites.

It isn't really too much effort to take your vehicle on a countrywide trip/leh/rallies /off roading /road trips to good locations and do some amateur style videography/photography and run an online campaign. Mahindra has that in their DNA.

In fact, that would spice up their youtube channel/Facebook /instagram /twitter presence and have a bigger impact.

I don't know if a 'social media marketing team' can influence genuine consumer reviews on non-biased sites like Team-bhp and others. And with high impact follow up posts and member discussions. Low quality posts/reviews are rejected by mods/members alike.

Even if you paid someone, the result wouldn't be as good. And if you mixed corporate sponsored dodgy reviews with solid consumer reviews, you're diluting your credibility online.

Or they're aiming for the people who shop telemarketing products

Oh well...

[Chillout]

First kudos to the team identifying this malpractice, it takes a lot of dedication and passion to go behind these fakes. A big cheers to Motorbeam team. I am sure this kind of posts aren't limited to motorbeam alone.

Lot of folks trust Teambhp because of its genuineness and I am happy that Mods do a wonderful job in identifying fake reviews and comments.

Mahindra should have put effort in rectifying the issue rather than having someone post false statements.

[i74js]

This is bad; Mahindra could be possibly hands in glove with their partners.
Having said that this is true for many vehicle reviews and comparisons on you tube done by several auto experts, wherein one can figure out that the opinions are biased. I am not sure of such reports / you tube videos are financially supported by one of the competing companies.
Anyways, its good that such things are brought to public notice.

[barcalad]

Originally Posted by GTO

Are you kidding me?

After watching their comparison video and asking myself about their intent, I think they were the ones actually kidding me. Some of the comments on it share the same sentiment as me.

Bringing in notice such cheap malpractices is absolutely fine and I am a strong supporter of that. However, one needs to look into their own cupboard too.

If I'm not wrong, some major brands have tried this cheap trick many a times in spite of being publicly apprehended. Such a shame.

[drsingh]

Another point that irks me is the SEO practices, Google algorithms giving all commercial low quality results on the first page.

If I search a car model e.g. 'Maruti Suzuki Baleno specifications', the official Maruti website is nowhere to be seen on the first page!

I wish these companies put more effort into site optimisation.

Or it might be a ploy by Google to get then to cough up money for sponsored results.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by drsingh

Another point that irks me is the SEO practices, Google algorithms giving all commercial low quality results on the first page.

If I search a car model e.g. 'Maruti Suzuki Baleno specifications', the official Maruti website is nowhere to be seen on the first page!

I wish these companies put more effort into site optimisation.

Or it might be a ploy by Google to get then to cough up money for sponsored results.

Actually that's how Google works. The sites/advertisements are ordered depending on how much a website owner is willing to pay to Google for every single visit. Hence you could get junk results in the beginning as they are the one's who pay the highest.. You need to filter it out. It's acceptable unlike jotting down fake reviews by some desperate marketing team.

[falconion]

Mahindra has done what has become a norm for almost all of the major corporations, and the method has worked wonders in influencing customers to make the plunge for the purchase.

Its definitely not an ethical practice, but that's why as consumers we search for anything positive or negative about a product before purchasing it.

Thats not how actually google works. I have gotten pretty accurate search results.

Googles algorithm has many variables:
- It displays results which match your query with the most frequented sites
- It then displays websites which best work with the platform you are using (mobile vs desktop)
- It then searches through your history of previous searches and websites you have visted.
- then some magic

Google displays the initial results depending on the websites you frequent, then it displays the ones with most page visits, and then the rest follow.

Thats how I met Team-BHP... thank your google

[wrongturn]

I have recently bought a Mahindra Xylo H4. While going through reviews, forums I came across Xylo's Facebook page. It has about 2217233 likes!!! That is a lot of likes for a UV that is not doing well (although IMHO it is one of the most underrated vehicle in India at the moment). Majority of comments are one liners and clearly fake.
I remember one of my friends once talking about this kind of practice wherein even Facebook in its early days outsource projects to various BPOs across the globe, including the one he worked for, to make fake user profiles, so that it can show off the millions of users connected to it. I think this kind of practice must be followed by a lot and not only Mahindra, same can also be used to defame a product by a competitor. But in the end what really matters is the word of mouth marketing.
Reading reviews online is one thing and doing market research, sound advice from other product users is another and people are influenced more by the later.
In the end, If it's not a team-Bhp review, it doesn't matter anyways

[amansanc]

Thanks to the OP for bringing up this issue here. Appreciate it.

Originally Posted by barcalad

After watching their comparison video and asking myself about their intent, I think they were the ones actually kidding me. Some of the comments on it share the same sentiment as me.

Bringing in notice such cheap malpractices is absolutely fine and I am a strong supporter of that. However, one needs to look into their own cupboard too.

Could you please elaborate upon the above mentioned points?