How Tech Companies Manipulate the Media ft. MKBHD

Tech companies have figured out how to

squeeze the most positive favorable

coverage out of youtubers and

journalists and to be honest i think

it's time you knew about it so i've been

working with marquez mkphd to lay out

the five key ways that these tech

companies manipulate

the media now one thing that seems to be

increasing at an alarming rate is

giveaways with the launch of reviews now

don't get me wrong giveaways can be a

great thing but companies have quickly

realized that by partnering up with

influencers like us to make giveaways as

part of our review videos they can

massively reduce the negativity

surrounding their product

you probably remember these nothing ear

ones right well as part of their hype

generation strategy they did exactly

this they even asked me and it's

tempting because like how often does a

company say to you they're going to make

you 100 custom versions of their product

for you to give to your audience but

then i really thought about it and i

realized i've got no idea how these

earphones sound i've not tested them yet

but if i'm going to be giving away 100

pairs of them in my video

i'm going to look like a right idiot if

i then say i don't like them can you

imagine don't buy these earphones they

suck

by the way i'm launching a massive

giveaway of them please like share

subscribe to enter like if i'm

organizing a giveaway on my own terms

that's fine but if a company is saying

to me let us send you 50 or 100 units to

give away as part of your review video

immediately what they're trying to do

with that is turn my organic content

into a promotional video without needing

to pay or write up contracts or even

make it officially sponsored

over to marquez for number two

okay so the next version of this that

i've seen is what i'll call

the uh coming soon feature the feature

that gets announced on stage and makes a

lot of headlines and it gets people very

excited and it's super impressive but

it's it's not ready yet it's it's coming

soon

later but this thing was announced on

stage and now you're holding it in your

hand and it it's not here yet so

you kind of just have to include maybe a

sentence or two about it about what it's

supposed to do so an example of this

would be uh when the iphone 11 came out

and that deep fusion feature was also

announced on stage as one of the new

camera features so every written review

and every video review had something in

there that was basically at this point a

quote from apple about what apple said

deep fusion would do but then it didn't

come out for a while and then of course

as you can imagine weeks later when it

did show up

it wasn't all that great it didn't make

a huge difference but now all of those

reviews you know the written reviews you

can go back and add a couple sentences

but the video reviews you can't really

go back and change and those impressions

of those quotes from apple are stuck in

people's heads rather than what the

feature actually was

but it gets worse because number three

is the absolute fiasco that is embargoes

now an embargo is not in itself a bad

thing it's just basically when a company

says don't publish your videos before

this particular time on this particular

date that's why you see like 20 videos

all at once when a product launches

every reviewer has been given the same

embargo time but a lot of the time

companies abuse this system with

something called a dual embargo they

tell reviewers okay when we announce the

product the only videos you can make are

first impressions videos if you want to

do any kind of in-depth coverage or any

kind of comparison then you have to wait

for the full embargo which is a week or

two weeks later they come up with some

sort of excuse like oh we need to issue

an important software update in that one

week period and they'll use this to give

you a whole list of things that in your

first video you just can't say

or show this happens a lot and it's

pretty clear why companies do it two

embargoes basically forces the media to

split what could have been one article

or one video into two to give the

company two separate waves of coverage

one set when the product launches but

then also one set a couple of weeks

later which often just so happens to be

when that product is coming up for

pre-order

but also b to make the launch coverage

the videos that most people will

actually watch

artificially positive see the

restrictions given to reviewers for

their first videos they're often so

tight that you can't really say what you

actually think

there was a recent launch where i was

told the first impressions video must

focus on the hands-on experience of the

device no benchmarks no camera judgment

no camera samples you're welcome to talk

about the design and specifications

design

and specifications if that's what

someone wants that's what ads are for

people don't watch my videos to find out

design specifications they want opinions

they want judgment

and companies know this they know that

if they restrict reviewers from giving

opinions then all they really can talk

about are all the new features they've

added which naturally gives the viewers

the impression that this is a complete

no-brainer product that has no

negatives yeah you might remember this

happening pretty recently and very

clearly intentionally with the microsoft

surface duo i mean this was one where

obviously a lot of people were

interested in it's this dual screen

android phone collaboration between

google and microsoft and yeah us

reviewers all got two embargoes so when

embargo number one hits you're allowed

to show

anything you want as much as you want as

long as it's just the hardware

you can't show the software it's it's

not done yet or whatever it's not

finished it's not ready so you're not

allowed to turn it on in your first

video

but you can show as much hardware as you

want they literally said that and some

people actually repeated it including me

in our videos we weren't allowed to turn

it on on camera and so this was maybe

the most obvious biggest red flag of all

time because yeah of course the surface

duo had some really nice hardware it had

this super sleek thin beautiful design

one of the best hinges i've ever seen

and that stuff was all

very broadly

painted beautifully in this first

impression and that's everyone's biggest

impression but the second you turn it on

you encounter a not great software

experience and microsoft knew that and

that's what eventually showed up or to

give you another example

the nothing ear ones again do you know

how these guys had initially planned to

do their launch

two embargoes and if you wanted to

release a video for the first embargo

when everyone's gonna be paying

attention you weren't allowed to talk

about fit

or sound let me get this very clear you

want me to make a video about a pair of

earphones without talking about how they

feel or sound

in the ears

what do you expect me to do for 10

minutes start knitting

hey guys this is my review of the

nothing ear one they're really

oh

i quite like how they're

what can i actually say i would have

felt guilty posting a video with such

little information on this channel but

thankfully after we pushed back the

company eventually did agree to change

it to just one embargo where you could

say everything so fair play to them for

listening

most companies don't but you know the

biggest thing that annoys me about these

embargoes is that companies only enforce

them

when it suits them so last year for the

launch of the samsung galaxy note 20

ultra i was asked to travel to london in

the middle of a pandemic to film a video

in the company's shared space

okay fine and then i spent a full week

scripting that video to try and make the

best possible most detailed piece of

content i could and the second the phone

launched i posted it i was so relieved

the video was doing well only then the

company emailed me to say

take it down

excuse me take the video down because it

violates our first impressions embargo

because you compared this phone to a

different model we think this video

counts as too in depth

okay so what samsung's basically saying

is that they deem any kind of comparison

as too much information to give for your

first impressions video fine but i'd

made almost exactly the same comparison

for their previous launch and presumably

because that was a more positive video

for that launch they didn't just not say

anything but they actually actively

reached out to me to ask if they could

promote that video but also in all these

phone launch presentations they are

already making comparisons samsung had

already told people that this new phone

was like 20 faster than the last one and

that the new camera had better autofocus

and that the s pen was more responsive

etc these are all inherently comparisons

and so what they really meant was not no

comparisons allowed in your first videos

but in fact only the comparisons that we

want to be allowed in your first videos

and samsung are not the only company who

do

this yeah that sounds about right

actually the point is dual embargoes are

gross and they prevent journalists from

doing their job all right so another one

and this one's kind of interesting

actually exclusives and interviews and

things like that it's sort of along the

same lines as companies trying to turn

organic impressions and evaluation

into

promotion for free so you might have

noticed on my channel we've done a fair

amount of interviews and really fun

sometimes even world exclusives that are

amazing videos they make for a great

experience both for the viewer and for

myself but at some point

uh the light bulb went off and people at

these companies started to realize they

could use these interviews

as a sort of

mask or just to use them to offset any

negative pr they could use them in

orchestration alongside a product launch

to minimize negativity and so now these

have become like a really interesting

delicate dance to walk because companies

will approach you with an interview they

want to do i remember an example would

be what oneplus did with the nord when

they were first going to announce this

super hyped ultra budget phone the

oneplus nord oneplus came to me and said

all right marquez we have a world

exclusive we'll let you interview carl

pay co-founder and you guys can talk all

about this stuff and what they wanted

was a you know let's talk about the

history of oneplus and let's talk about

why we're launching a new product line

and this promo and that promo and this

talking point and so behind the scenes i

had to do a lot of twisting and a lot of

messing with that plan in order to make

a different video where it was still a

fun exclusive interview but we got to

talk about the actual process of making

a budget phone in general we got real

prices for different parts of a phone

and how much they cost the manufacturer

but that was a far twist from what they

were planning on making which would have

been an ad so this is the type of thing

that's evolved a lot lately and we ended

up still making something that was

pretty great for the viewer and great to

show people but it's definitely changing

okay this one's really unfortunate i

want to bring your attention to out of

context

quoting that's not right and if you are

enjoying this video then a sub to the

channel would be

right

when i make a review of a product i

spend a long time crafting that script i

tried to make a a really tight

structured storyline that is meant to be

watched from start to finish and i'd

like to think that this makes them

useful videos to engage with but it also

means that if you just take one sentence

out in isolation it is not at all going

to summarize the subtlety of what i'm

trying to say i'll give you an example

late last year i made a full review

about that galaxy note 20 ultra and i

titled this video the perfect

samsung and what i meant by that which i

explained in the content itself was that

this was a brilliant phone but it was

let down by some of the fundamental

problems that samsung phones in general

have so

i was kind of surprised to see that a

week later this title was sitting on

samsung's homepage

the perfect samsung those are my words

but when taken out of context they mean

something different

i spent a long time digging and as far

as i can see they didn't tell me they

were going to use that quote but even at

the very least if they did i would have

expected them to at least link the full

video from there so people could

understand what i meant by it

nope and there's plenty of other

examples of this one of the major ones

being these mashup videos the 30 second

or so quick fire cuts from various

reviewers

it's very clear why they make these

videos they're short they're sharp and

they leverage the trust that people have

in these reviewers but

they chop out all the caveats they'll

cut videos mid-sentence to exclude any

negatives any butts they might mention

to make it seem like they've just

created the perfect phone if you chop

out the caveats you could make the red

hydrogen one a phone that was

universally regarded as a miserable fail

seem like an incredible device look this

is a mashup that i made myself for this

phone that was reviewed as like a three

out of ten in a best case scenario

[Applause]

the hydrogen one smartphone it's

definitely one of the most unique

looking phones of this year oh

it's just so different it's built like

an absolute tank but beyond that

holographic display creates an

experience beyond 3d things will sort of

pop out of the screen and appear to fly

at you kind of float above the display

unlike any other phone selling today

amazing speakers 4 500 milliamp hour

battery so the biggest in any phone i've

tested so far interchangeable lens mount

smartphone form factor a holographic

medium machine cameras you really can

create something almost magical a photo

that seems to jump off the screen i'm

ready for this it is unique every time i

pick it up i'm impressed all over again

so yes you did hear that right i said

snapdragon 835 that's why the

performance and battery life are

actually good the world never saw this

coming red cares a lot

[Music]

now don't get me wrong companies do

sometimes ask for permission before

using our content like this they

sometimes purchase licenses but they

often don't and they never tell you that

they're going to use it in a way that

alters your message

so they have it pre-launched giveaways

features coming soon dual embargoes

exclusives interviews and out of context

quoting

now you know thanks to marquez for

hopping in on this one you can find his

channel down below to find out if you

can actually trust me click here or to

see some of the cheapest wildest tech on

the planet click here my name is aaron