Reply To: Amplitube 5 for $29.99 and POSSIBLY GET IN IK’S GROUP BUY

[LinkedMusicians]

On swijaya said

IMO IK’s Peter deliberately doesn’t want to say anything about it, to avoid worsening things.

I believe those who bought before the disclaimer, got in (whether by a system glitch or else), but after the disclaimer, IK definitely have a stronger position not to let the buyer get in, or revoke it (if somehow the system automatically slip them in).

Granted, Peter is a friend. But before Peter and I met at KVR more than 20 years ago, I believe that Peter knew my publication and writing on marketing strategy (I’m pretty sure the CEO of the tech company he worked at recommended my publication to his employees). I have a long career in the field, as a marketing manager and director before founding a business of my own. Peter is a marketing manager, and you can be certain that decisions on these areas, especially at a smaller company like IK (yes, they’re big in this industry, but they’re technically a small business )are made by a VP or C-level and the marketing manager is more involved in the interactions directly with the public, which can be challenging in times like this. I think IK is an ethical company and Peter is an ethical person. My guess is that IK probably bent over backwards after seeing a lot of customers were confused and then after BPB started hyping up the situation to cash in out it (make as much affiliate commissions as possible, right or wrong), putting IK into a very uncomfortable decision.

I realize that may come across as an apologist for IK. I’m not. I’m a pragmatist. I think IK should have done this disclaimer much earlier — in fact, I posted that recommendation at LM before the disclaimer went up. But again, IK is a small company with a lot of stuff happening. On a technical / legal and even on an ethical level, as IK clearly had stated on their site that a minimum purchase of $49 — or $49.99 is required to qualify for the Group Buy — they certainly don’t have a legal obligation to allow people who purchased the $29.99 deal into the GB. The reason they still had likely done it is likely because of their concern that these customers would resent the IK brand if they were refused entry in the GB. That is the reason, if I were leading marketing for IK, I would likely say, “Even though these people technically don’t qualify, we’ll let them in the Group Buy anyhow, so they don’t resent the brand after this experience and hopefully they’ll have great feelings about our brand for doing this.” Again, being completely candid, the ethics problem in this scenario is with BPB, which did the wrong thing in order to make more affiliate cash for itself. BPB has a relatively good traffic number for this industry, and even though a single purchase using their affiliate link might generate, say $4 each, they  could easily have generated thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions based on their blog’s traffic and that clearly guided their activity, not good ethics.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

2