Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S9E14 - Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down: The New World of Online Reviews

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

This week, we explore the world of online reviews. These days, you can leave a review for anything - from a cup of coffee to your dentist. 90% of us read online reviews before buying a product - that���s why those reviews are so influential. Yet how do you tell fake ones from the real thing? Thumbs up or thumbs down, welcome to the world of online reviews. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no, no, no. You're not you when you're hungry. You're in good hands with all things. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. They were intense competitors. They wrote columns for competing newspapers.

One was a Pulitzer Prize winner. The other resented it. One was round and a little heavy. One was tall and thin. They would compete for interviews. They would try to get a scoop at the other's expense. And when they got together, they would fight like cats and dogs. One was named Roger Ebert. The other was Gene Siskel. Roger Ebert was the film critic for the Chicago

Sun-Times. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. In 1975, a local public television station decided it would be interesting to put the two competing film critics together on a TV show and let them duke it out. When approached, both were interested, but each said they would rather host the show with someone else. Anyone else. Reluctantly, they appeared together. That program was titled Coming to a Theater Near You.

Originally, Ebert and Siskel worked from scripts, but because they weren't actors, it created a lot of problems. But when they just talked to each other about movies, or yelled at each other, the show found its groove. A year later, the title was changed to Sneak Previews, airing once a month.

Before each episode, Ebert and Siskel would meet their producer for lunch to discuss the films they planned to review. The producer said Ebert and Siskel

would argue about everything. They would argue about which restaurant to go to. They would argue about which movies to review. They would argue about the program's graphics. They would argue about which restaurant to go to. They would argue about which movies to review. They would argue about the program's graphics. They argued about who would get to talk first on the show. And they definitely argued about whose name should get top billing.

Their producer always had to carry a quarter in her pocket to resolve the squabbles. Eventually, through several iterations, a coin toss determined the show would be called Siskel and Ebert. There was no denying they had a chemistry.

Both had an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, and when they locked horns, it was magic. I'm saying that the ideas in the film said by the performance artists

that somehow this is a connection between life and death, that's a bunch of booey. It's booey. The movie thinks so too, Gene. The movie is about crazy people. That's what it's about.

The movie doesn't argue these people are right or even that they make sense. But are they interesting? Yes. Not to me. One night, Siskel and Ebert appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During the interview, they started arguing. Carson just sat back and let them go, much to the audience's delight.

Often when they argued, it was a fascinating discussion on the art of filmmaking. Other times, it bordered on hostility. They were both ferociously honest and had very different tastes. Roger Ebert's favorite movie was Citizen Kane. Gene Siskel's favorite was Saturday Night Fever. But beneath it all, they loved the movies and had a mutual respect for each other.

They were the living definition of frenemies. The duo was also famous for the way they rendered their final verdict on a film. Like gladiatorial spectators in the Roman Colosseum, it was either thumbs up or thumbs down. It became their signature move. As a matter of fact, Siskel and Ebert trademarked the phrase, Two thumbs up.

When attached to a movie, it could add millions to the box office. Conversely, two thumbs down could shave a lot of dollar signs off ticket sales. And as a result of all the clashes and sparks, those two thumbs become very valuable in the world of marketing too. We now live in the era of never-ending customer reviews. You can leave reviews on a company, a cup of coffee, and even your dentist. Over 90% of us read online reviews before purchasing a product these days and those ratings

can make or break a company or product. Some of those reviews are thumbs up, some are thumbs down and some are even real. You're under the influence. Marketing takes on many forms.

Along with traditional commercials, videos, and print ads, marketing could be a chalkboard on a sidewalk, it could be the fine print on a label, or even a tattoo. But the most powerful marketing is still word of mouth. Online reviews from the general public are the 21st century version of word of mouth. Reviews are incredibly influential because shoppers have no vested interest

in the company they are reviewing, so they are objective, they are honest, and they are blunt. That's the hope, anyway. The advertising world has always been drawn to customer recommendations, and the testimonial is an age-old marketing technique. Testimonials even predate modern marketing by quite a few centuries. As a matter of fact, Roman gladiators used to endorse swords and do testimonials for other merchandise. The problem that has hamstrung testimonials over time is money. The person giving the recommendation is often paid to vouch for the product. To draw a red line between objective testimonials and ones that are paid for, there are now

regulations stipulating that advertisers must reveal paid testimonials. Therefore, small lines of type will appear at the bottom of TV screens that say, paid testimonial or real dentist testimonial accurately portrayed by an actor. Online influencers must state up front if they are being paid to promote a product, either with cash or with free merchandise. But in the digital era, it's not just paid testimonials and actors promoting products, it's the general public. The sheer number of online reviews is overwhelming.

Today, everyone has an opinion and everyone wants to broadcast it. That constant flow of opinion has forever altered the marketing landscape. Here are some revealing statistics. Five-star ratings are the number one factor used by shoppers to judge a company or product. Reviews are incredibly influential, as over 90% of the public reads online reviews. 80% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Interestingly, only 14% of shoppers would consider using a business with only a 2-star rating. Yet, 57% would consider a company with 3 stars.

So 3 stars is the dividing line. Over 60% of people would be more likely to make a purchase from a site that posts user reviews. And 95% of shoppers think reviews are fake if they don't see any bad scores. Clearly, online reviews are extremely persuasive in this day and age, but they are also extremely complicated. The more reviews a product gets, the more purchases. The more purchases, the more reviews. The more reviews, the higher Google ranks the product in its search engine.

The higher the rank, the more sales. If you find that companies hunt you to leave a review after a purchase, now you know why. It is critical to their marketing success. Even a single positive review can make a difference. Just going from zero reviews to just one positive review can increase the chance of a purchase on a website by 65%. People window shop online, then go out shopping.

And 55% of all shoppers start their online research in one place. Amazon. According to a survey by e-commerce analysis firm MarketTrack, over 50% of all shoppers rely primarily on Amazon for online reviews. And get this, almost a quarter of those shoppers will check Amazon reviews even when they are physically standing inside another store, like a Best Buy or a Canadian Tire. Because Amazon lists thousands of products, the chance of finding a review on almost any item or brand is high. According to USA Today, Amazon reviews are referenced

by so many people because they are considered the most trustworthy. And that's why Amazon reviews are worth so much to marketers. They can influence sales everywhere. That's not to say all Amazon reviews are 100%

genuine. When broadcaster Megyn Kelly released her memoir on Amazon in 2016, it was flooded with one-star reviews just two hours after it launched. No one could have possibly read it that soon. The LA Times reported that over 100 of the one-star reviews were orchestrated by a pro-Trump online group. Amazon maintains it goes to great lengths to police fake reviews, saying it has launched over a thousand lawsuits and has taken action against five million sellers for review manipulation. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S.

settled its very first case over fake reviews on Amazon in February of 2019. A weight loss supplement company paid to have fake reviews written to maintain a 4.5-star rating on Amazon. It was found guilty and fined $12.8 million. Nature has given us built-in truth detectors. As Malcolm Gladwell puts forth in his book titled Blink,

we are hardwired to make critical snap judgments. And those snap judgments are often accurate. Here's a test for you. You're going to hear four people reviewing a movie they saw. They are all using the exact same words. Three of them are actors, but only one is telling the truth. See if you can tell which one. It was just really funny.

Really unexpectedly funny as well. And just a nice family film. And you can tell that everybody in It was just really funny. Really unexpectedly funny as well. And just a nice family film. And you can tell that everybody in the cinema loved it as well. It was just really funny. Really unexpectedly funny as well. A nice family film. And you can tell that everybody in the cinema loved it as well. It's just... It was just really funny.

Really unexpectedly funny as well. And just a nice kind of family film. And you could tell that everybody in the cinema loved it as well. Yeah, it was really funny. Really unexpectedly funny as well. Just a nice family film. And you could tell that absolutely everyone in the cinema loved it as well. If you picked person number three, you are correct.

She was telling the truth. You picked number three because your built-in truth detector made instant calculations based on experience. But listening to a person or being able to look someone in the eye doesn't work with online reviews. And that's the problem. A study by Cornell University revealed that people could only pick out a fake online review less than 50% of the problem. A study by Cornell University revealed that people could only pick out a fake online review less than 50% of the time. So, how do you spot a fake review?

One way is to look closely at the language. Many fake reviews have very corporate wording, not the loose chatty language of a real review. Sometimes fake reviews have very corporate wording, not the loose chatty language of a real review. Sometimes fake reviews have questionable spelling and grammar that seems oddly consistent review to review. Yet it's still difficult to be really sure. There are free websites that will analyze the reviews of any product on sites like Amazon to help weed out the obvious fakes.

One such site is called FakeSpot. You just cut and paste the link to the product and click Analyze. FakeSpot's algorithms analyze both reviews and reviewers, looking for telltale signs of incentivized reviews, weeding out the unreliable ones, then gives the remaining reviews a letter grade from A to F. Another free site is ReviewMeta. It works a little differently than FakeSpot. For each product, ReviewMeta runs 12 different tests on the reviews. Its algorithms roam the various reviews looking for suspicious patterns and eliminates them. Then, from the remaining ones,

ReviewMeta calculates an average rating. Both sites stress that spotting fake reviews is not an exact science, and both are only evaluating the actual reviews, not the product itself. Interesting to note, the categories with the most fake reviews are electronics, garden pest control, very curious, and sexual wellness.

One of the ways review sites like ReviewMeta calculates its results is by first looking for verified buyers, a distinction Amazon gives to customers who have actually purchased the item. It is looking to weed out reviews from people who did not purchase the product they are reviewing. But even this distinction can be gamed. BuzzFeed ran an article on an anonymous woman who has purchased over 700 items on Amazon over the last few years, including three vacuum cleaners, six desk chairs, and 26 pairs of earbuds.

She's given each of these products a five-star review, complete with photos and videos. Here's her game. Sellers reach out to her with targeted Facebook ads and give her a very specific set of instructions to purchase their products on Amazon. She then posts a five-star review, and the companies reimburse her for the purchase, and she gets to keep the item. To Amazon, it looks perfectly legit. She's purchased the items

through her Amazon account, so she is a verified buyer, and she's using her own credit card. And we'll be right back. In other words, Amazon is unknowingly paying her to leave fake reviews. And we'll be right back. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online

who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives? Available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Here's an intriguing question. Can you be sued for leaving a negative review? The answer appears to be yes.

There have been many cases in recent years where companies have sued customers for libel. An Ontario couple was sued when a building contractor filed a $3 million defamation suit for posting negative reviews about bad workmanship. A Vancouver law firm filed a $15,000 defamation suit against a former client who had posted what the firm felt was an unjustified negative review. The judge in the case awarded the law firm $1, saying the case should never have been brought forward.

He said no reasonable, well-informed person would make a decision based on a single negative review. The law firm disagreed with the ruling, saying it has lost business as a result of the review, has experienced violent online backlash, and has since received more scathing reviews

from people who have never been clients. Furthermore, the lawyer stated this kind of ruling opens the door to more unjustified attacks on companies, giving companies no recourse. Some companies try to use gag orders. A Hamilton woman challenged what she felt was an outrageous $280 service call charge from an appliance company,

who then charged her an additional $700 for the repair. She was offered a $35 refund, but only if she signed a waiver agreeing not to post a negative review. She refused. Companies take reviews very seriously because reviews are very influential. But there's also a delicate balance between free speech and defamation. The public has a right to express an opinion about a product or service. Companies have a right to defend their reputations. The Internet has made this balance fraught with difficulty.

Online reviews are instant, they can be forwarded, hyperlinked, and can go global. A positive review can boost a company, and a bad review never goes away. Here's a checklist one law firm put together to avoid defamation when posting a negative review. 1. Don't assume posting an anonymous review will protect you from a lawsuit. Many courts have ordered Internet providers to hand over IP addresses of anonymous online reviewers. 2. Give your opinion and only state facts you can back up. If you feel the service was bad, that's an opinion. If you say you saw rats in the restaurant,

you just might be called upon to show evidence. 3. Only review the product or service, not the character of the person who provided it. That moves into problematic defamation territory.

Lastly, be truthful, not malicious or vindictive. If you are filled with rage, it's not a good time to post a review. Cool down, then write it. When it comes to online reviews, there's a lot of humor in them there, Hills. For example, there are pillowcases for sale with actor Nicolas Cage's face on them, together with the line, One reviewer gave it five stars and wrote, I bought one for all my loved ones for Christmas. They were at a loss for words. So much, in fact, I haven't heard from any of them since Christmas.

Totally worth the money. Believe it or not, there is a Swiss Army knife available with 87 different implements on it, which prompted one reviewer to write, Surprising results. I tried to file my nails, but in the process I-star rating for a pizza joint saying, ruined my social life because each night I only want to go there. I hate this place! There is a book titled Crafting with Cat Hair. Transform straight clumps of fur into adorable handicrafts. It got five stars from one reviewer who wrote, I purchased this book because I was tired of people sitting too close to me on public transit. Worked like a charm. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered.

Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. When it comes to online reviews, one of the most amusing examples is for the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer. It is plastic and shaped like a banana and is sold on Amazon for about $5. This crazy little banana slicer, universally panned as completely unnecessary, has attracted close to 6,000 reviews. Here's the best part. Nearly 4,300 of them are 5-star ratings. Now, before you think this avalanche of positive Hutzler 571 banana slicerer Reviews Must Be Fake, know this.

They are. But they are hilarious. The first mocking review was left in 2007. Since then, people have written short stories and even poems about the slicer. As a matter of fact, leaving a funny, heartfelt review about how the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer changed your life has become a thing.

I used to pay someone to slice my banana. Now I handle my own banana business. This product gave me the confidence I need to slice my own banana anytime, anywhere. What can I say about the 571 Banana Slicer that hasn't already been said about the wheel, penicillin, or the iPhone? I was sitting on the couch and my doorbell rang. I leapt off the sofa and ran to the door screaming, My banana slicer! I opened the package and immediately snatched bananas to slice.

I did it all day and forgot to go to work. I got a call from my boss. You're fired, he screamed into the phone. I cried. I am no longer Jake from State Farm. I am now just Jake. Or this. The Holzer 571 Banana Slicer is the most amazing time-saving product to ever exist.

It will slice all of your bananas up all at once. Think of how much time that will save you over the course of your life. I personally have saved so much time that I have to find hobbies to fill up all of it. My latest hobby is putting bananas back together. The Hutzler company, slogan fresh since 1938, is probably in the Amazon Review Hall of Fame. The company says they are okay with all the mocking reviews, adding that they are crying with laughter and are probably crying

all the way to the bank. It's interesting that in this post-truth era, 65% of us trust online reviews, especially when online reviews are so hard to police. Yet almost all of us use online reviews before buying a product or before going to a new restaurant. And we leave reviews for everything now, from a haircut to an Uber driver. And we hope the reviews we see are as honest as the reviews we give. But because online reviews are so influential, people are tempted to game the system. Some have advertised on Craigslist saying they are willing to write positive reviews for money.

Some companies have asked employees to leave positive reviews. And sometimes, companies leave bad reviews on their competitors' websites. For many small businesses without marketing budgets, reviews become their advertising. So when a bad review is posted, it can have a devastating effect.

All companies fear bad reviews, yet it's revealing 95% of us don't trust reviews unless we see a few bad ones in the mix. As with all things on the Internet, it's a bit of the Wild West out there. Regulations governing online reviews and the reactions to them are still being written. But that's the reality of online reviews these days.

It's one big coliseum, and it's either thumbs up or thumbs down when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Ullman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Research, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Research, Abby Forsythe. If you liked this episode,

you might also enjoy Unwitting Endorsers, Season 8, Episode 9. You'll find it in our archives wherever you download your podcasts. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at

Terry O'Influence. See you next week. It was just really funny, you know, really, really unexpectedly funny as well. A nice family radio show. And you can tell everyone listening to the podcast loved it as well.