Report: Nubia playing dirty to downplay the competition


nubia z9

Nubia just announced itself in the lucrative Indian smartphone market, but from what we’re hearing the company’s marketing (at least some part of it) isn’t cent percent ethical, at least it wasn’t at one point in time.

Apparently, a mail requesting an ‘influencer’ to defame Meizu on it’s Facebook wall was sent. It read: ‘You need to go to their page and write bad i.e., negative things about their product that it is a bad phone. Also go to amazon and write negative reviews about it. (sic)’

nubia Meizu

Needless to say, this went viral soon after it happened. Someone brought this to the notice of the employer of the sender of the email… who seem to have sacked him since then.

Xiaomi’s Google import, Jai Mani seems to have seen the lighter side of things.

jai mani

If this did actually happen (which it seems like), companies need to take better care of their PR and other campaigns. Every market is more competitive than ever before. Such tactics might give you an upper hand for a temporary duration, but no one’s going to emerge a winner if this carries on.

 

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26 Comments

  1. Muhammad Yasir
    May 21, 2015

    classy from jai vani tho 😀 !

  2. May 21, 2015

    If true, this is really dirty.

  3. RRRobert
    May 21, 2015

    So they want to look like Apple, in more ways than just copying their iPhone?

  4. iKosh
    May 21, 2015

    This is not dirty, this is retarded. This is the level of a teenage girl going against other girls on facebook.
    Nubia has lots of negative reviews without anybody influencing them.

    • MaxPower
      May 21, 2015

      They are not the first and won’t be the last one doing it.
      It’s a way to promote your products over competitor’s ones. It’s cheap and proven to work.
      Amazon knows that and that’s why they introduced the “verified purchase” but still can’t fight all those fake reviews

  5. Guaire
    May 21, 2015

    What’s mean “we have no budget”? Are they paying people for negative or positive comments?

    • MaxPower
      May 21, 2015

      Looking for a job?

      • Guaire
        May 21, 2015

        Maybe I should, are you content?

        • MaxPower
          May 21, 2015

          Of course I am. I should be a recruiter, I’ve always had a good eye to spot talents

          • Guaire
            May 21, 2015

            Good for you.

      • balcobomber25
        May 21, 2015

        I thought he already had one writing negative comments about Xiaomi.

  6. JeffAshe
    May 21, 2015

    Not surprised. This is India after all. ZTE should never have hired a local manager. ZTE should have hired a non-resident Indian, who are less tainted by the dishonest and shady culture.

  7. Adam Irvine
    May 21, 2015

    That’s disgusting business practices!!!

  8. balcobomber25
    May 21, 2015

    This doesn’t surprise me no matter what the country is. Companies pay big money to influence reviews not just on Social Media but in the actual Media as well. I won’t call out any publications but there are plenty in the US who are clearly shills for certain companies (Biggest being Apple, M$oft and Google) and will write nothing bad about them ever.

    This is the main reason I am very skeptical with customer reviews. I never even read the overly negative or overly positive reviews. I only read the neutral ones they tell you the most about a product and compare those to the critics reviews.

    • Natsumi
      May 21, 2015

      and that’s why we don’t have gnu/linux in common laptops, smarthpones…. etc, or even without OS,we just have to buy it… that’s called oligopoly.

      • MaxPower
        May 21, 2015

        Android uses Linux kernel

        • Natsumi
          May 22, 2015

          I do not want Android…..

          • MaxPower
            May 22, 2015

            You can go with Microsoft or Apple.

            • Natsumi
              May 22, 2015

              It’s a bipoly, no thanks.

            • Mark Burley
              July 6, 2015

              But maybe with Linux on board you don’t have to meet them in court too often?

      • balcobomber25
        May 21, 2015

        Linux was crushed by the tech journalists for a number of years thanks to M$oft and it’s bottomless wallet of Windows sponsored journalists But that is all starting to change, while Linux isn’t as popular as Windows it has been gaining ground significantly over the last 10 years thanks in large part to Google. The best selling laptop in the US right now is the Chromebook. Chromebooks run Chrome OS (Chromium) which itself is based off of Gentoo Linux. The top selling mobile platform as Max pointed out is Android. The largest gaming platform on PC is Steam and they are building their new Steam OS based off of Ubuntu.

        • Natsumi
          May 22, 2015

          ok, but I want gnu/linux, not chrome os with 32gb of space and mass surveillance, no thanks XD

          • balcobomber25
            May 22, 2015

            “mass surveillance”. Anytime you connect to the internet your under mass surveillance regardless of the platform you use. But Chrome OS is based on Linux and it is extremely easy to turn a Chromebook into an Ubuntu or Arch Linux or Fedora book in about 15-20 minutes.

            • Natsumi
              May 22, 2015

              Be that as it may.

  9. May 21, 2015

    I think the saying goes something like: “if you aren’t scheming, you aren’t competing”.

  10. Mark Burley
    July 6, 2015

    You can spot these a mile off they usually get tech specs all wrong and are far too uni directional I think ZTE have been on the wrong end of this a fair bit lately but that’s no excuse.