Search Marketing for the Sony Battery Recall
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | October 24, 2006 | Share This
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Today Sony issued a public apology for their massive recall of over 9.6 million laptop batteries. As the largest recall in consumer electronics history, it’s expected to cost Sony over $430 million, a full quarter of their yearly profits. None of the laptop companies escaped unscathed — Dell, Apple, HP, Gateway, Vaio, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Lenovo all face enormous costs for battery replacement, customer support and brand management. Last week, Toshiba became the first company to announce it was investigating the possibility of seeking legal compensation for losses incurred from damages “to product and brand images, and potential loss of sale opportunities.”
Given the recall’s internet-savvy audience, however, there is a huge opportunity for laptop companies to use paid search for brand reputation management. I checked out terms like, “sony battery recall”, “dell battery recall”, “Toshiba recall”, and “dell exploding laptop”, to see what, if anything, the major brands were doing with search. To my surprise, none of them appear to have SERM (search engine reputation management) campaigns underway on any variation of “battery recall”. Rather, paid ad spots were occupied by wholesale companies, laptop accessories, battery info sites, battery replacement and even battery testing services.
Interestingly, with all of the ads for laptop parts and wholesale batteries, the companies that have seen the largest increase in profit are local system builders and service providers. Says one local business man, “The [recalls] are very visible to customers. They prefer something that is configured and serviced by somebody local…We’ve got a number of clients who don’t want to deal with the battery issue at all. We’ve picked up business handling the battery returns [for them].” (via CRN) Furthermore, most local tech companies haven’t run any of their own SEM campaigns, but have merely piggybacked off of larger online vendors to pick up local business.
What should large companies consider when dealing with damage control through search? For starters:
- Run a search marketing campaign on generic, branded AND local keywords. So, “Laptop battery replacement” also becomes “Sony battery replacement”, “sony laptop battery replacement new york”, and so on.
- Hit every first point of information by running contextual ads on industry-specific sites. For the battery recall, that includes tech publishers like CNET as well as generic news sites like Washington Post.com.
- Send ad traffic to landing pages that are specific to the recall. Landing pages should be educational rather than promotional, providing explicit information about the products and their estimated turnaround time for repair.
- Point to local options. The surge in demand for custom-built computers reveals that users are more inclined to get their laptops fixed in person, rather than by sending them away for an indefinite amount of time. By using landing pages to direct people to local technicians that are either partnered with or specific to branded products, large companies like Dell can help customers through the entire process–from first ad to the final battery replacement.
- Provide an immediate point of customer service. Give people a number to call directly from the landing page or within the ad creative itself. At the end of the day, frustrated consumers want to talk to a real human, and will go elsewhere if that’s not provided.
Topics: Search: How-To |
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That’s too terrorable, I had replced my original sony laptop battery with a replacement battery 3 month ago, i bought this battery from http://www.batterylist.com.au/ ,is there any body bought battery from this website before, what is the quality of this replacement sony battery?
I tested this camera for a client. I didn’t have the light running for more than 15 minutes. The battery lasted approximately 6 hours before recharging. The LCD, however, had a few dead pixels - never saw this before. Tried returning for exchange and had to put up quite a fight. Anyone else seen this? http://www.batteryfast.co.uk
I tested this camera for a client. I didn’t have the light running for more than 15 minutes. The battery lasted approximately 6 hours before recharging. The LCD, however, had a few dead pixels - never saw this before. Tried returning for exchange and had to put up quite a fight. Anyone else seen this? http://www.batterylaptoppower.com
Thank you for this outstanding article.I thought Centrino was the best technology for laptop battery performance.