Turning a negative into a positive

If you don’t know about yelp yet, you should. The site offers user reviews for all types of businesses in many big US cities. You can, for instance, look up a local pizza place before trying it out and see what other people thought of it. Reviews are based on a 1 through 5 start scale, one being the lowest, and many users provide written feedback and comments to accompany their scores. It’s really a great resource for finding great places in your neighborhood.

Good scores are obviously good, and free, marketing for businesses. But what about those pesky one stars reviews and hateful user comments? This is a question that many companies are asking and according to a recent New York Times article, many are getting fed up that they can’t respond to the online bashing. Well, according to consumerist.com, one pizza place in San Francisco figured out a way to respond by using those negative reviews and making them part of its image.

Pizzeria Delfina took those nasty user comments and printed them on employee t-shirts. So now, any old customer, aware of yelp or not, can read the most slanderous attacks on the pizza that he/she is ordering.

I for one think this is a great marketing strategy. Face your opposition head on and make it a joke is the overall message of Delfina’s actions. It’s almost like anti-advertising in that it is kitschy and kind of ironic, but I’m sure that it makes customers smile and relax a bit. After all, it’s only pizza!