Beating the system: ‘How to become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant’
A non-existent restaurant which faked it’s way up to being number 1 on
TripAdvisor suggests how easy it is to manipulate our perception of reality. Making us re-evaluate how we differentiate between credible sources and fake news on travel review sites.
What exactly is fake news?
The term ‘fake news’ has been rather prominent in the media industries for the past few years. This term refers to ‘fabricated stories that appear to be news or spread on the internet by the use of media platforms’ (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). This phenomenon started in mid 2016 where media editors picked up an odd finding of a cluster of news websites all registered from a small eastern European town called Veles (Wendling, 2018). The fake websites was ran by a group of young people in Veles with the main goal of profiting through Facebook advertising (Wendling, 2018). The internet has emerged as the main source of where individuals gain their information, 67% of Americans in 2017 mentioned that they take in news through social media sites (Pizzi, Pichierri & Visentin, 2019). Since then, there has been a large increase in the number of people jumping on the bandwagon of creating and circulating fake news as click bait to alter one’s opinion on certain social/political issues.
Despite the unproductivity of fake news, it is still very prominent as it is associated with surprise, fear and disgust while reliable news are met with sadness, joy and anticipation (Chadwick, 2018). Naturally, humans still gravitate towards fake news that are controversial which sparks conversations.
The Viral Video
A viral series that was published by a youtube channel named ‘VICE’ perfectly illustrates how easy online content can be fabricated in order for a favourable outcome. ‘How to become Tripadvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant’ was a social experiment that took place for 7 months which was condensed into a 18 minute video (VICE, 2018). The main concept for this video was to see if fake reviews on TripAdvisor could land a non existent restaurant a top spot in London. This video highlights the influential ability that fake news has on review sites, making it hard for consumers to differentiate between false information and reality.
The inspiration for this idea came about when host Oobah Butler landed his first job writing fake reviews for restaurants which in turn did flourish the businesses. This then made him see review platforms like TripAdvisor as a false reality that everyone believed, hence picking up this idea for his social experiment to begin.
Breakdown of the video
‘The Shed’ was a fake restaurant created which was essentially just the backyard of Butler’s accommodation. The first thing was to create a brand image for ‘The Shed’ where it was branded to be a unique homely restaurant that served top quality food.
Butler was detailed in creating his website where he would shoot his visuals unconventionally but had it cropped at a certain angle to get the perfect shots he needed.
Additionally, for ‘The Shed’ to stand out, they did not have normal menus but created orders based on moods which will be a fresh and unique way for customers to have their orders taken. With all the basics laid out, Butler started his expertise of writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor, only singing praises for his non-existent restaurant. This slowly built up and Butler started receiving reservations calls where he would only reply ‘Reservations are full’ leaving customers to feel even more curious and eager to experience it for themselves. Television shows and PR agencies were part of the curious crowd and wanted to give ‘The Shed’ media coverage as well.
After months of building this suspense, Butler’s restaurant finally made it to the top spot on TripAdvisor with not a single real customer review. As things got very real, he decided to open his backyard for actual customers to visit but telling them their meal is on the house as he wanted to market it for the press.
As opening day drew closer, Butler also paid attention to the smallest details like hiring actors to be on set, where he instructed them to explicitly mention how good the food was after consuming them. This sets the atmosphere and plays on the real customer’s mind as they would have preconceived notions and high expectations of how their food would taste like.
This social experiment was marketed so well as a homely restaurant with a unique touch, that real customers did not even question when asked to be blindfolded to enter the restaurant. This comes naturally as customers had that established trust between TripAdvisor’s reviews which served as credible news sources, leading them to easily place their trust in a brand that they’ve never experienced before.
Thus hypothesising a path:
News truthfulness > News Credibility > Source credibility > Brand Trust > Brand Attitude > Brand Model.
(Pizzi, Pichierri & Visentin, 2019).
How did this impact me as a viewer?
Travel review sites have become a vital source of information for independent travellers and service providers from around the world (Tanner & Hämmerli, 2018). These sites are valuable feedback mechanisms which are beneficial to potential stakeholders.
Upon watching Butler’s experiment, it made me curious to find out how popular review sites actually filter real and fake bot reviews that contribute to the businesses. According to an official video that TripAdvisor posted, it mentioned that the company dedicated ‘significant time and resources like checking the IP addresses for each individual review.’ (TripAdvisor B2B, 2017). Not only that, they have a team of skilled and experienced staffs working round the clock to check for bots that may fall under one of the 3 categories of rejected reviews, namely ‘Review Boosting’, ‘Review Vandalism’ and ‘Review Optimisation (TripAdvisor B2B, 2017).
This then led me to my second question which was how did Butler manage to manoeuvre his way through the system? Was there a loophole that nobody speaks about in this industry? Butler mentioned that in order for his plan to work he had real people to write organic reviews on different computers and was particular in the writing style adopted (Butler, 2017). A representative from TripAdvisor also stated that fraudsters are usually interested in manipulating real businesses’ rankings and it was uncommon for real people to take the time and effort to create reviews for a fake restaurant (Butler, 2017). In which might have led to the slip up.
With my two biggest questions answered, this social experiment made me reflect on the way people interact with fluid information that is being shared online. With social media as a medium that provides news, users do not get to see the sources of all articles. Instead only showing selective information based on the user’s algorithm which lacks transparency (Dennis, Minas & Moravec, 2019). However, one of the most straightforward ways will be to make good practice of checking the reliability of a piece of information by constantly checking the source before further sharing. For instance, news from big media organisations like ‘BBC news’ or ‘The New York Times’ will be considered reliable sources that we can trust.
Impacts of this fake social experiment?
Despite the efforts of showing that fake news can be easily manipulated and used to influence one’s beliefs, this social experiment definitely did impact real businesses and shed light to the possible loopholes that review sites might have.
Spreading fake information for other added benefits might be tempting and easy, however correcting the record will be harder. According to a study done by De Keersmaecker and Roets, results showed that a correction of accurate information highly depends on one’s cognitive abilities (De Keersmaecker & Roets, 2017). Individuals with less cognitive abilities are less responsive to corrective new information hence the lasting impact of the initial exposure to inaccurate information then distorts reality(De Keersmaecker & Roets, 2017).
Drawing back to the social experiment done by Butler, despite the multiple media coverages that he did explaining how ‘The Shed’ did not actually exist, many people are still questioning if that was reality or not.
This includes real businesses that coincidentally share the same name of the fake restaurant to receive queries while some potential customers just assumed that there is no such restaurant. Leading to a loss of customers for the real businesses. On the other hand, this also affected TripAdvisor’s brand reputation in producing reliable reviews that their customers can trust. In which, this issue of increasing amounts of fake reviews were still prominent which caused TripAdvisor to change it’s original motto of ‘ Reviews You Can Trust’ to ‘ Know Better. Book Better. Go Better’ ( Kinstler, 2018).
Despite the monetary benefits by advertising fake news on social platforms, media professionals and the public should be cautious in sharing inaccurate information. It takes effort to build a sense of trust between the readers and the brand. Due to carelessness, one simple mistake may cause brutal damage to the company and have them lose the most important trait between media organisations and online consumers — public trust.
Media forming our perceptions of reality
The alarming thought of how our perception of reality is very much based on what we see on social media. From beauty standards that are based on society to ethical behaviours where people seek validation from the webs.
Relating back to the social experiment where Butler opened’ The Shed’ to the public, he had customers fly in from places like Norway just to be a part of the experience. Butler and his team only served ‘microwaved meals’ where they would plate it to look presentable. However, based on the perception that ‘The shed’ was the number one rated restaurant in London, it was appalling to Butler that the customers enjoyed their meals so much that they wanted to make second reservations again (Good Morning Britain, 2017). Then again, this raises questions to what formulates people standards? What is that factor that makes the top restaurants really the best? If consuming ‘microwaved food’ is good enough to keep people satisfied then the standards have definitely been blurred.
These artificial validations that we get through the screens are a form of addiction and reliance that humans have gained among the years.
What can be done to improve the reliability of review platforms?
In reality, with the state that media is produced now, it is hard to control and determine what is fake news or not. For instance, fake news still floods the web during a global pandemic — which has led to death due to misinformation (Mercier, 2020). Sadly, this is where we are at. It is even harder for a regular person to determine what makes a fake review without all the necessary tools. Despite this limitation, there are a few ways to combat this issue of fake news that may affect potential stakeholders.
Doing our part to report suspicious activities
One way we can contribute back to review sites will be being as transparent as possible. Reporting any suspicious activities when we stumble upon them. There will always be a limited capacity that organisation staff can handle. By helping the team to pick out potential fake reviews will then make it easier for them to look into the reported cases to have it removed. Making review sites as authentic as possible. One should always make it a point to check the credibility of the source before deciding the authenticity of a reviewer (Dash, 2018).
Building a reputable relationship between consumer and brand
Creating trust between both parties will foster a better understanding and relationship between the consumer and brand. By investing in factors like commitment, transparency and trust will form long term relationships and differentiate them from it’s competitors ( Vatanasombut, Stylianou, & Igbaria, 2004). It is also important to have a good mix between positive and negative reviews, where customers can have a balanced opinion before making their decision.
Be attentive and be quick to respond to all feedbacks
Lastly, as a business that uses a review platform to promote their line of work, it is crucial to be attentive to reviews given by reviewers. By individually replying to every review be it good or bad will cast a better brand image to the business. Especially making replies specific to a customer’s complaint will be constructive to both parties as this shows that the business takes every review seriously and values their customer’s honest opinions (Dash, 2018). Moreover, the depths of information a reply has impacts the decision made by the customer. Comprehensive feedback will give curious customers more information that they seek before making their choice (Tanner & Hämmerli, 2018). Adopting a good customer relationship through review sites will definitely leave a lasting impact on customers as 70% of a customer’s buying experience is based on how they felt after being served (Sukhraj, 2017).
Conclusion
The authenticity of travel review sites will always hold a level of uncertainty to it, however review sites are steadily improving with state of art technology that is able to detect bots. This social experiment done by Butler was a good learning point as it sparked questions towards review sites. Hence pushing these companies to analyse their organisation’s weaknesses and further work on them to improve travellers’ experiences around the world.
References
Bandi Tanner, M., & Hämmerli, S. (2018). Reviewing TripAdvisor and Co.: a quality analysis of hotel review sites. Anatolia, 29(4), 518–528. https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2018.1451350
Butler, O. (2017). I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor. VICE. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor
Chadwick, P. (2018). Why fake news on social media travels faster than the truth. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/fake-news-social-media-twitter-mit-journalism
CrashCourse. (2014, May 19). CrashCourse- Cognition: How Your Mind Can Amaze and Betray You: Crash Course Psychology #15 [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/R-sVnmmw6WY
De Keersmaecker, J., & Roets, A. (2017). “Fake news”: Incorrect, but hard to correct. The role of cognitive ability on the impact of false information on social impressions. Intelligence, 65, 107–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.10.005
Dash, S. (2018, September 14). How to Spot a Fake Review For Your Product. Entrepreneur India. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/320098
FAKE NEWS: meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fake-news
Gardner, M., & Mazzola, N. (2018). Fighting Fake News: Tools and Resources to Combat Disinformation. Knowledge Quest, 47(1), 6–7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/2101235236/
Good Morning Britain. (2017, December 7). Good Morning Britain- The Fake Restaurant That Was London’s Top Rated On TripAdvisor [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN_eTBe3NQ4
Kinstler, L.(2018). How TripAdvisor changed travel. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/17/how-tripadvisor-changed-travel#:~:text=TripAdvisor changed its motto from,Go better.”
Moravec, P., Minas, R., & Dennis, A. (2019). FAKE NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE WHEN IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. Mis Quarterly, 43(4), 1343–+. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2019/15505
Mercier, H. (2020). Fake News in the tome of Coronavirus: How big is the threat?. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/30/fake-news-coronavirus-false-information#maincontent
Sukhraj, R. (2018, June 10). 4 Best Ways to Keep a Customer Happy & Improve Customer Retention. Impact Blog. Retrieved from https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-importance-of-keeping-your-customers-happy
TripAdvisor B2B. (2017, April 10). TripAdvisor B2B- Journey of a TripAdvisor Review [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aCPXQzChE&t=
Visentin, M., Pizzi, G., & Pichierri, M. (2019). Fake News, Real Problems for Brands: The Impact of Content Truthfulness and Source Credibility on consumers’ Behavioral Intentions toward the Advertised Brands. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 45, 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2018.09.001
Vatanasombut, B., Stylianou, A., & Igbaria, M. (2004). How to retain online customers. Communications of the ACM, 47(6), 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1145/990680.990682
Wendling, M. (2018, January 22). The (almost) complete history of ‘fake news’. BBC Trending blog. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320