The AdAge video is completely infuriating — it has this completely triumphalist tone celebrating the "cleverness" of the marketing campaign. As if it were a "hack" rather than an unethical and distasteful idea unbefitting an ad agency. North Face would do well to part with Leo Burnett Tailor Made.
"paying absolutely while collaborating with wikipedia"
Collaborating my ass.
Not to give these guys a pass, at all — this is some seriously skeezy marketing — but I think this underscores a deeper issue of paid accounts on Wikipedia, which is totally a thing as I found out recently. Apparently there people, or maybe a whole ecosystem, who are essentially lobbyists who get paid to edit Wikipedia pages, and that's okay, as long as they mark that they're a paid account, or something.
I guess if you follow Wikipedia's rules for paid accounts, it's okay to update pages in favor of your brand?
Their target customers are businesses that want an innovative company to boost their public perception. They don't care what consumers think about them. So, to AdAge, it is a triumphant moment as it showcases their ability to do so without hurting the perception of AdAge to large companies.
I might get heavily downvoted for this one but so be it:
I was curious why this article we're discussing doesn't show the after pictures, since it's about defacing. (The picture at the top is the one that was replaced - so we only see the before pic.)
From the video, it seems because the after pictures are beautiful and way better, which I'd guess is why the real volunteer Wikipedia editors kept them rather than reverting them and why it was so successful. They do show a tiny logo incidentally as part of travel gear that is in the photo but other than this it seems the photos are way better. It's not like the logo takes up more than a few pixels.
Any counterexamples? (A photo that was worse than the one it replaced)? If not I think I can't agree with the word "deface". Maybe if the brand placement were more conspicuous or damaging to the photo -- but the ones I saw honestly seemed fine to me and seemed like an improvement.
"we improved wikipedia with fantastic royalty-free images of popular destinations, taken with travelers who were also wearing our gear" seems like an alternative way to phrase what happened. then we wouldn't be talking about it.
I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone can show a before/after example that wasn't an improvement. Any examples?
Funny that now someone can update the North Face wiki entry with the "Wikipedia Incident" paragraph...hahahah death by a thousand cuts?
Edit: lol already live [1][2]
Most of the pictures are fine i.e. you can't really see the North Face logos. A few of them though are just really terrible and don't belong on Wikipedia.
This is just vandalism. It is like painting your ad illegally on the walls of buildings and boasting that you invented a "smart trick" to get your ad placed for free.
Man, that's really disappointing to read. I'm a fan of North Face gear. With that said, this will definitely push me towards their competitors like Patagonia and Arcteryx.
No doubt that there will be some sort of apology incoming from the CEO, but in reality the damage has been done.
Sorry to hear that. I can't speak about Arcteryx but I've been a long time customer of Patagonia and have only the absolute best things to say about them. Their products are expensive but they back them with lifetime guarantees. I had a $400 Gore-tex jacket that after two years of use, started letting water in at the seams. I took it to a Patagonia store and told the clerk, who gave me a free bottle of a liquid wash that helps restore water repellency. When that didn't work, I returned to the store and the clerk apologized, took the jacket and told me to grab a new one off the shelf.
I've had other friends get replacement gear years down the road, and have also had down jackets get repaired by them for free after regular wear and tear. It's those little things, along with their support for environmental causes, that have made me a lifelong customer.
This has to be one of the worst marketing ideas ever conceived of. What consumer, in their right mind, would admire their efforts to put their brand on wikimedia images? This is exactly how you should not do marketing.
Unless...unless this is a meta-advertisement - I would imagine this intent: "Look, everybody is talking about our agency, see how good we are? [Never mind that we achieved this by vandalizing Wikipedia and by making our client look bad]"
Let’s also talk about how terrible their clothes are, from material to construction, and mainly exist as some kind of pyramid sandwich-board scheme to sell more clothes rather than protect wearers from the elements.
One is a hardcore mountaineering company, who makes equipment where the owner dies if it fails. Their tents and sleeping bags can be found in the most inhospitable places on earth, including Everest.
The saddest part is that their photos could have easily just been used in an innocuous ad campaign, showing wonderful photos and making sure their products are in it.
Manipulating Wikipedia for the goal, is the opposite of wonderful, it is distasteful. :/
I hope that the terms can be re-written to impose some sort of liability on anyone who tries this sort of thing. The only disincentive is the wrath of editors and the foundation, which, frankly, doesn’t amount to much.
1) Label accounts with conflicts of interest if necessary.
Personal accounts that are only personal (and never used in an official capacity for any other organization or entity).
"Professional" accounts for which one or more professional entities (potential conflicts of interest) are disclosed.
2) All work should be submitted to the public domain, or as close to the public domain as possible; and any fair use material clearly marked as such and why. (I believe they already require this, I'm just not a Wikipedia contributor so I've not read their specific guidelines.)
I am a very big purchaser of frivolous outdoor clothing and gear, REI is like a candy store to me. I will be boycotting The North Face for at least one year starting today, because this is so obviously unethical. Can't wait to score some Patagonia gear for summer hiking :)
Does North Face understand the image licencing here?
I can take every single one of their photos and caption it "North Face sucks, buy Patagonia" or whatever I like, and then republish it, and NF can't do anything about it so long as I give attribution.
Maybe Wikimedia will lambaste the Israeli Ministry of Foreign and Strategic Affairs for also "defacing" Wikipedia? That is, "unethically manipulating" (Wikimedia's words) the site to provide a Zionist friendly narrative of the conflict with the Palestinians. https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-partisans-work-censor...
State actors and corporations have been infiltrating Wikipedia for ages. That Wikimedia pretends it doesn't happen and that this The North Face incident was unheard of is just dumbfounding. Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive.
Of course, we can't discuss North Face behavior without getting to the topic of The Joos and their attempts to take over the world with their dirty money. And of course since Israel recognized the achievement of Wales - who btw has zero control over Wikipedia content - he is forever tainted and everything he does is now part of the Jooish Conspiracy. Shameful.
> Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive
If you spent about 10 minutes researching the topic, you'd know Wikipedia community knows that, and has specific disclosure rules, templates and requirements for acknowledging and disclosing paid editing and conflict of interest. Nobody pretends it does not exist. Undisclosed paid editing (known in Wikipedia community as UPE - use this to look it up) is what is prohibited and would get one banned.
The North Face has a storied history of abusing every law or process in the books to "defend" its brand, and this is just a continuation of it. They also make utter crap for consumers. I've been happier with Arcteryx or REI's own brand of apparel.
Free advertising, not just for The North Face, but for the ad agency, Leo Burnett Tailor Made, who I'd never heard of before. I hate them both now, but the fact remains that they've forced their names into my awareness, and that alone will attract work from large, out-of-touch companies.
[+] [-] glup|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindgam3|6 years ago|reply
Collaborating my ass.
Not to give these guys a pass, at all — this is some seriously skeezy marketing — but I think this underscores a deeper issue of paid accounts on Wikipedia, which is totally a thing as I found out recently. Apparently there people, or maybe a whole ecosystem, who are essentially lobbyists who get paid to edit Wikipedia pages, and that's okay, as long as they mark that they're a paid account, or something.
I guess if you follow Wikipedia's rules for paid accounts, it's okay to update pages in favor of your brand?
[+] [-] chipperyman573|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicallee|6 years ago|reply
I was curious why this article we're discussing doesn't show the after pictures, since it's about defacing. (The picture at the top is the one that was replaced - so we only see the before pic.)
From the video, it seems because the after pictures are beautiful and way better, which I'd guess is why the real volunteer Wikipedia editors kept them rather than reverting them and why it was so successful. They do show a tiny logo incidentally as part of travel gear that is in the photo but other than this it seems the photos are way better. It's not like the logo takes up more than a few pixels.
Any counterexamples? (A photo that was worse than the one it replaced)? If not I think I can't agree with the word "deface". Maybe if the brand placement were more conspicuous or damaging to the photo -- but the ones I saw honestly seemed fine to me and seemed like an improvement.
"we improved wikipedia with fantastic royalty-free images of popular destinations, taken with travelers who were also wearing our gear" seems like an alternative way to phrase what happened. then we wouldn't be talking about it.
I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone can show a before/after example that wasn't an improvement. Any examples?
[+] [-] orliesaurus|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face#Controversies
[+] [-] village-idiot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoranceprior|6 years ago|reply
There are at least two ongoing community discussions about the incident:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no...
[+] [-] X6S1x6Okd1st|6 years ago|reply
In at least one of these the bag is photoshopped in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pico_do_Agudo_Santo_Anton...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vale_do_paraiba_montanha....
[+] [-] iso-8859-1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_north_face|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rdiddly|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] codedokode|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eindiran|6 years ago|reply
https://adage.com/creativity/work/north-face-top-imagens/217...
Warning: page requires Javascript and even with an adblocker, it connects to nearly 30 tracking and ad domains.
[+] [-] ziddoap|6 years ago|reply
Color me not surprised. Shady in one area, shady in other areas.
Thanks for the heads up.
[+] [-] PhantomGremlin|6 years ago|reply
I use Firefox + NoScript + JavaScript disabled by default.
The page was very readable as soon as I did:
That's a simple workaround for many sites. And it doesn't pull in any ad trackers either. Granted, the formatting isn't the prettiest.Here's the start of the article:
The North Face used Wikipedia to climb to the top of Google search results
Campaign from Leo Burnett Tailor Made updated photos with images of brand, raises flags with Wikipedia editors for violating user terms
By Ann-Christine Diaz Published On May 28, 2019
[+] [-] eljimmy|6 years ago|reply
No doubt that there will be some sort of apology incoming from the CEO, but in reality the damage has been done.
[+] [-] mdolon|6 years ago|reply
I've had other friends get replacement gear years down the road, and have also had down jackets get repaired by them for free after regular wear and tear. It's those little things, along with their support for environmental causes, that have made me a lifelong customer.
[+] [-] rsweeney21|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Piskvorrr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vr46|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] village-idiot|6 years ago|reply
One is a hardcore mountaineering company, who makes equipment where the owner dies if it fails. Their tents and sleeping bags can be found in the most inhospitable places on earth, including Everest.
The other makes fleece for college students.
[+] [-] ngngngng|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chungy|6 years ago|reply
Manipulating Wikipedia for the goal, is the opposite of wonderful, it is distasteful. :/
[+] [-] heraclius|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjevans|6 years ago|reply
1) Label accounts with conflicts of interest if necessary.
Personal accounts that are only personal (and never used in an official capacity for any other organization or entity).
"Professional" accounts for which one or more professional entities (potential conflicts of interest) are disclosed.
2) All work should be submitted to the public domain, or as close to the public domain as possible; and any fair use material clearly marked as such and why. (I believe they already require this, I'm just not a Wikipedia contributor so I've not read their specific guidelines.)
[+] [-] Joakal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quxbar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|6 years ago|reply
I can take every single one of their photos and caption it "North Face sucks, buy Patagonia" or whatever I like, and then republish it, and NF can't do anything about it so long as I give attribution.
[+] [-] Timothycquinn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjourne|6 years ago|reply
Of course this wont happen since the site's founder Jimmy Wales recently won a $1 million Israeli prize and is not a neutral voice himself. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/wikipedia-suggests-antisemite...
State actors and corporations have been infiltrating Wikipedia for ages. That Wikimedia pretends it doesn't happen and that this The North Face incident was unheard of is just dumbfounding. Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive.
https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html
[+] [-] smsm42|6 years ago|reply
> Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive
If you spent about 10 minutes researching the topic, you'd know Wikipedia community knows that, and has specific disclosure rules, templates and requirements for acknowledging and disclosing paid editing and conflict of interest. Nobody pretends it does not exist. Undisclosed paid editing (known in Wikipedia community as UPE - use this to look it up) is what is prohibited and would get one banned.
[+] [-] thrillgore|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busymom0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EForEndeavour|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannykwells|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shermozle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duplicitous|6 years ago|reply
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