racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Looks like HP’s marketing for the Mini Note in the Philippines is in full gear. Check out this commercial clip (via YouTube, posted by makemineamini.com.ph; note that the video is inaccessible from my frontpage, but is embedded after the jump).

Celebrity endorsers include Pat Evangelista, Amanda Griffin, Brad Turvey and Tristan Encarnacion.

You can also win yourself an HP Mini Note by joining their raffle. You can either write an essay or have your pic taken with the HP Mini Note van. Darn, I was driving alongside this van last week, and I didn’t know about the promo!

I’ve been reading reviews, though, that the Mini is slow compared to its contemporaries. So given the cost considerations, people are opting for other brands. Still, those who are style-conscious would probably prefer the Mini Note. I have yet to get my hands on one (possibly a review unit, or one of my own). I want to see for myself if the Mini Note is worth the hype.

So I posted yesterday about Max’s PR agent, Press Inc., handing out free passes to Max’s first day of offering its Power Breakfast line. I got 15 passes, while my mom got 10, mine I shared with some friends and relatives. About 9:00 a.m. this morning, we headed out to Max’s at Quezon Memorial Circle to avail ourselves of the free meals.

Our feedback: we were disappointed.

Food was above average. Coffee was excellent. But frankly the service was not so great. We had to wait more than an hour after ordering to be served.

We’re regular Max’s customers, so we would know if something was amiss. For one, we were seriously thinking that we weren’t given much priority because we weren’t paying customers.

Food

Okay, let’s first talk about the food. By the time we arrived, we were told the restaurant alreay ran out of their beef Tapa meal, which most of us badly wanted to try. So we ordered the fried bangus (milkfish), sausage, and pepperoni omelet meals, as well as champorado (chocolate rice porridge).

We were also informed by the wait staff that they were unable to serve their brewed coffee. So the served us instant coffee instead (and that was after 40 minutes of waiting). At this point, I was already a bit fuming because the PR people were showcasing Max’s Indonesian Arabica coffee as the highlight of their breakfast line.

Priority?

Service was slow, but this would’ve been understandable, since the restaurant only started serving breakfast meals today. But what ticked me off was that apparently some customers who came in after us were being prioritized. For instance, there was a couple who came in about an hour after us, and they were served within five minutes of ordering. These were the very same meals we ordered (sausage). They were paying clients. They finished eating and left even before we were served with our orders.

A friend of mine also decided to avail of his free breakfast there, and he told me service was really slow.

I told my mother I had half a mind to approach the store manager. And we did. We told him that we dined at Max’s because we were sent complimentary breakfast passes under the assumption that we could help spread the word by reviewing the food and experience on our blogs and online publications. And I told the manager that this incident would seriously affect how I would review the promo/offering. After all, being bloggers, we are usually honest and candid about our reviews. And we don’t even need to be given free stuff to write favorable reviews. If we really like something, then we would be glad to blog about it in a positive light, even if—or perhaps particularly if—we were paying customers.

The manager apologized, and told us they really weren’t exactly prepared to meet the huge demand in breakfast meals, and in light of this promo, about 70% of the clients this morning availed of the free meal. He also said the coffee machine broke down. I pointed out my concern that we felt being discriminated against because we were availing free meals. Other people were served quite quickly.

Served, at last!

It was only after talking to the manager that he told us he would follow up our orders. After about 10 minutes, we were served. And that included the brewed coffee.

I was quite okay with the sausage, but my wife and brother-in-law said the sauce/glazing was too overwhelming. The bangus was tasty, but a bit oily. And the pepperoni omelet was on the salty side. Saving grace for Max’s was the champorado, which was great—very chocolatey and creamy. And the coffee was excellent.

My mom and siblings, who were served earlier (they came in about an hour earlier than us), complained that their champorado was cold, though.

Bad taste

I also texted Blooey singson of Press, Inc. to tell her about the incident, and she said she will have Max’s management look into it. This is definitely bad press, especially for a company asking for honest opinions and reviews. And this should be a lesson to companies launching promos. They should not discriminate against people who would avail of free stuff.

So would we still eat at Max’s? I would say yes. It’s still great casual dining at reasonable prices. But then this incident left a bad taste in the mouth. Our time was wasted and we felt badly treated. So this will stick in our minds for quite some time. And we probably won’t recommend Max’s power breakfast line to our friends for now.

If I had reviewed Max’s Power Breakfast Line in tenminut.es fashion, their ten minutes would have been over long before it even begins.

Update: changed pronoun references to Blooey. I just realized Blooey is a she, and not a he! Also, apparently other branches were better. I hear they treated coupon-holders like royalty, as Noemi relates here (she also has a review of the Power Breakfast, but she dined at the Katipunan branch).

Apparently, Max’s isn’t just about fried chicken and pinoy food. These days, they’re into buzz marketing, too. And they’re aware of the power of blogs and bloggers when it comes to spreading the word.

I recently wrote about Max’s new breakfast line on Pinoy Urban Blog. Max’s PR agent sent me a handful of free passes to try out the breakfast meals myself. This is for tomorrow, Monday March 19th anytime from 7 to 10 a.m.

From my email exchanges with Blooey Singson, it appears they decided to get in touch with bloggers according to their apparent reach and readership. I guess they wanted to take advantage of the influence factor, and in different fields/niches at that.

My mother also got a handful of passes, but I guess that’s just enough for the big family, eh?

I have a few more I can share. If you’d like a couple of coupons, please send me a message at 0927-5360123. Remember, it’s for tomorrow morning only, so you must have a way of picking up the passes here from my place anytime from today to tomorrow a.m.

Image borrowed from yugatech.

Remember my post about why Celebrities should blog? I mentioned that this is a very cheap and effective public relations tool, particularly in addressing pressing issues and controversies, or just even enhancing mindshare on the Web. We know that scandals and rumors spread fast through the Internet—be it via email, forums, chatrooms or blogs.

It probably goes without saying that it’s not only celebrities who should blog, but also any person or entity with a reputation to protect. For instance, big companies in the west like Microsoft and Dell are doing it (MS seems to be doing well, but Dell is not).

The Jollibee Scandals

Now here’s yet another issue that I think needs immediate attention. This past week, I encountered two posts about Jollibee that can potentially hurt the fastfood company’s reputation.

First is the Jolibee and Twirlie Scandal, as posted by Jepoy and Yuga on their respective blogs. In the video (which I won’t re-post here), mascots Jollibee and Twirlie are doing naughty stuff. This was likely done at a party with adults-only guests, and probably at the request of the party guests.

The guys behind the mascots (and the staff handling the party, too) would’ve probably been safe had this video not been circulated around the ‘net. Now I wonder what’s become of them.

Second is the Open Up and Say Yumburger post by American blogger pamie.com, who visited a Jollibee branch in the US along with a couple of friends (via Torn and Frayed).

Here’s what she had to say about Jollibee’s Yumburger.

Meanwhile, Ty was staring at her Yumburger. “This isn’t something we can eat,” she says. “There’s a pink…sauce… and it’s pink?”

I tried being positive. “Do you think it’s still Thousand Island dressing?”

She put the burger in her mouth and then instantly winced. “No.”

“What’s it like?”

She shook her head slowly, sadly. She whispered just one word to describe the taste of her cheeseburger: “Sweet.”

“It’s like Wendy’s took all the goo that comes out of their burgers when they’re done cooking them, pressed that down into a mold, froze it in a patty shape, and exported it to the Philippines, where they put it between some bread, put pink sauce on it and sent it back here.”

I think I do agree with her on some points, if you ask me. Anyway, there’s more to the post than rantings about the Yumburger. There were nastier things said about the Chickenjoy, Jolli Spaghetti, and Banana Langka Pie. One of the blogger’s friends concluded that “Fast food is nasty, no matter what country.”

Implications to Jollibee

Do a Google search on “Jollibee” and you will see the pamie.com post and various other blog postings about the mascot videos on the front page of the results page. And these scandalicious (to use the Jollibee nomenclature for their “delicious” stuff) blogs have the potential to taint Jollibee’s rap, if not locally, in the international scene (what will foreigners think of Pinoy food, then?).

Mike Abundo cites that some comment-posters on Yugatech are asking for the blog entry to be removed, and speculates that they might be from Jollibee. I agree that in this case, Jollibee needs to learn smarter blogging. If they want to address this effectively, they should also learn the medium.

Jollibee’s corporate honchos have apparently responded to the mascot video by sending out an email in an attempt to clear this mess. But this is clearly characteristic of corporate PR—carefully, well thought-out wording and not immediate. It took them about a week to come up with a response, and by this time the scandal has already spread all over the Internet.

The Yumburger post, meanwhile, has been online since January this year, and much has been said in other blogs and comment threads about Jollibee’s food, freedom of speech, tastes in food. Still, I haven’t heard a word from Jollibee itself. Of course, things like these are not likely to be addressed with a corporate press release (any company would look silly if blogosphere issues are responded to with press releases).

What should Jollibee do? Blog!

Oh, if you think it’s just Jollibee, do check out what Gary Granada has to say about McDonald’s (via Jason).

Image from Rebelpixel.