DeBragga Anonymously Takes it to LaFrieda, Bill’s & The Shack
This comment by “challahbackgirl” (cute!) was posted to yesterday’s news about the brand new Frites N Meats Truck (which uses meat from well known butcher DeBragga & Spitler). Notice anything odd about this supposedly unbiased comment from a totally random user?
Here’s a tip to all you businesses out there who think “guerilla marketing” should involve pretending to be a regular commenter on food blogs… if you’re going to insult the competition, you might not want to do it from a company computer. Especially if your company mail server has the company name in the URL. (It’s kind of a dead giveaway.) For those who aren’t technically inclined, here’s a layman’s explanation: I love your meat DeBragga, but you’re busted.
UPDATE: Somebody posted an interesting comment that I’d like to respond to…
From Lunch’er “Beast”:
“Zach, I expected better from you. This isn’t a “shill”, but you’ve spun it that way. Either that or you have very poor reading comprehension skills. She’s only lamenting that everyone in the five boroughs and beyond has been on their knees in front of Pat LaFreida lately. She didn’t “shill” for Debragga (never even mentions them) and she doesn’t even say the frites burgers are good. She only “bets” that they are better than Bill’s. I hardly think this is a shill, despite her place of employment.”
My response is after the jump…
Let me first say, DeBragga is a great meat purveyor, and this shouldn’t reflect negatively on their food, their business, or their management. I have no doubt they are good people and mean well.
But… to your point beast – both Bill’s & the Shake Shack use LaFrieda Beef. And while I don’t necessarily think that they were trying to directly sell people on DeBragga, I do think it is wrong when people log onto websites under fake names and praise a company they work for, while insulting competitors, without letting people know where they work. And companies will continue to do this (in increasingly more clever ways) unless they’re called out for it.
To say “I bet these street burgers are 10 times better than Bill’s Burger Bar” without letting people know that you work for the company that supplies the meat is disingenuous at best, and deceitful at worst. I’m not doubting the authenticity of their comments. They probably love In N Out Burger, and didn’t think much of Bill’s. But if they had simply added “I work at DeBragga so this is opinion is biased…” we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But whoever posted the comment didn’t do that. And they didn’t do that on purpose.
The more transparency there is, the better off we all are. I doubt DeBragga is going to suffer any from my stupid post. But maybe the next company will think twice before they shill on Midtown Lunch.
Posted: 2:30 pm, October 29th, 2009 under Shilling.
33 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
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33 Comments
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good job zach!
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Challahbackgirl just got SERVED!
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Kinda makes me wonder:
Is your stuff not good enough to stand on it’s own?Anyone think Pat LaFrieda is spending time making up some girly screen names and making fake posts? No.
Just like I don’t buy from Schendy’s halal because they bully competitors, I’m going to be wary of products containing this meat. Sometimes the stuff vendors do gets to the level where I have to determine if I want to spend on them.
Too bad, because I was about to call a bud and schedule a Bill’s visit.
That, and the mixed reviews trickling in have me wondering if Bill’s burger is in fact the emporer with no clothes!!!!
Tech note: When you catch someone doing stuff, it’s good not to tell them how. Now they will know to schill via a anon proxy.
Uber tech note: It’s probably the host name of the web proxy via which they posted, which may or may not be the host name of the mail server.
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Challahbackgirl’s name is ever so clever but I am shamed that one of MY people (Jews, not foodies) was behind this shill. :-(
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Oops. My mistake. Stupid me. I misread it as this being Bills supplier. Sorry, Bill’s.
I probably wasn’t going to try this truck anyway. But I’m still wary of the meat vendor.
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Don’t really give a fuck.
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Rudy,
You really should though.
If you can’t rely on anonymous food blog posts to give valid recommendations, who can you rely on?
Is nothing sacred?
:)
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You would think that in the over 20 years since Al Gore invented the internet, shillers would actually start getting good (or at least not terrible) at their job.
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Truth is, Debragga and Spitler has been around for a long time and has always had a great reputation. The late Mark Sarazin (sp?) was very tight in the food community for many years and the company is highly respected. Ive been involved in the NYC restaurant business since 1982 and D&S has always been known as one of the best.
They don’t need to Shill
(not a shill post)
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Don’t worry about Rudy, he just has an impulsive need to use one or more of the following words in each curmudgeonly comment: f*ck, sh*t, wanker, tosser, bloody, bitch.
Back on topic, I hope (but doubt) that the shill was just an overzealous employee and not the management. If you’re gonna use guerrilla marketing, at least learn some basics of how the interwebs work.
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ceh, …….you missed fuckwit…..shame on you it is your inner voice.
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Zach,
I expected better from you. This isn’t a “shill”, but you’ve spun it that way. Either that or you have very poor reading comprehension skills. She’s only lamenting that everyone in the five boroughs and beyond has been on their knees in front of Pat LaFreida lately. She didn’t “shill” for Debragga (never even mentions them) and she doesn’t even say the frites burgers are good. She only “bets” that they are better than Bill’s. I hardly think this is a shill, despite her place of employment.
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{shelly:~} webster shill
shill Slang. n. One who works as a decoy, as in a confidence game, by
posing as a customer or an innocent bystander. -intr.v.shilled shilling
shills To act as a shill. [Orig. unknown.]Beast. Is there some usage of the word “shill” you’re not familiar with?
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Rereading the message, I have to agree w/ beast…at first I thought DBGB related to Debragga, but it doesn’t. Likewise, I’m not aware that in-n-out uses their stuff. So, at worst this is just a poor attempt to gripe about a competitor…not precisely a shill.
Rudy–that doesn’t even make any sense (not that I expected it to). Also, people who reached 2nd grade learned about conjunctions…fancy stuff really, combining words.
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Just because “callahbackgirl” didn’t register her username the same as the company’s doesn’t mean she was intentionally trying to pass herself off as an innocent bystander, esp. if this is an employee who isn’t authorized to speak on behalf of the company. There’s also no rule that says anyone commenting about a competitor’s products without disclosing their identity is trying to be deceptive.
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“I did not expect one too”
fuckwit
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So other than being a bonhead move…though it wasn’t a super bonehead move since she did not send it from a company email so to say (it was a gmail account that she sent it from…it just happened to also be on a company server) Plus this seems like a gross violation of your TOS…when you sign up as a user of your page it says your email will not be shared with anybody, yet I am sure from the size of the black box she may be very identifiable at work..
This girl clearly a delusional cali transplant (a la her in and out rant) who simply needs to be taken out for better nyc burgers….Somebody should also tell her that if she wants to plug the company she works for she should just post to citysearch instead like every other restaurant in nyc does.
I should give a full disclosure in that the fact that she is a Jewish female hamburger lover I am simply writing in the hopes that perhaps she would go out with me.
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who cares where she works. In-N-Out is the most overrated burger around. I was in cali in-burgering my face off a few short weeks ago. It’s good and it’s cheap. The out-burgering is the same as all the others, though.
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We kind of hate it when you guys say Cali.
Thanks,
-Delusional California Transplant -
Steve,Rolf is dead…..they say shakeshack….has gone to bollocks….im taking the tri state area(IE mrs and the kids) to manhattan for xmas shopping….im left with what? moody vegans or shillers.
even sarah wont talk to me now……don’t even ask about Mama: pingpong balls Waldorf $20 if you hit a cop.
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I saw recently that a rival purveyor has posted comments to your site denigrating the meat we produce for the Shake Shack and Bill’s, and talking up the hamburgers at DBGB. While DBGB is undoubtedly a fine restaurant, the reason this person promotes it and other “in-house” blends is a simple one: their employer doesn’t produce any ground beef of their own, they out source it. “what makes each restaurant’s burgers stand out if the guy next door is using the same burger blend?” We make custom blends for over 50 different customers, created in close consultation with the chefs, and all are kept strictly proprietary. That is well known in our industry. In our business it’s always been the custom not to run down your rivals, either openly or, even worse, by means of secret anonymous comments. “Challahbackgirl” has done this several times on different websites, either to promote her employer’s customers or, as here, to put us or our customers like Danny Meyer and Steve Hanson, down. It’s not a good way to do business and it’s not accurate. -Pat LaFrieda III
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lafrieda 3 (sounds a terrorist group) it’s common knowledge you wank into the mincemeat.
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Zach, I’m impressed you have representatives/owners from two of the top meat purveyors in New York feeling compelled enough to write comments on your site. You’re influence is continuing to grow. It says a lot for what you’ve created.
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Why has no one commented on the HORRENDOUS name that is “challahbackgirl?” I think I threw up a little bit.
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Agreed with meyekull. I want Pat LaFrieda writing on my blog!!!
(even though it has nothing to do with Midtown Lunch hehe)
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Zach is right as rain. First, I thought that Challahback was, as village eater presumed, just a delusional Cali transplant who wanted to boost her company/employer. The post seemed to be along the lines of using personal social media accounts to promote your company’s clients (in itself a disturbing trend). But now, after reading lafrieda, it sure looks like guerilla marketing to me, and Zach is 100 percent right to call it out. We’ll probably be reading about this in the NY Times in a week or two.
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Cool.
But now I wonder why lafreida didn’t respond to my comment alleging that Shake Shack meat was delivered frozen, as witnessed and relayed to me by a kitchen employee?
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haha, you all take this shit waaaaaaay too seriously.
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[...] A tip from Midtown Lunch: if you’re going to tout your company’s goods “anonymously,’’ don’t do it on a company computer. [...]
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Any chance ChallahBackGirl can be the Freak of the Week?
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Schmidt. It didnt even take a few hours to read about this on the NY Times……..
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/what-were-reading-21/
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Zach: 3 points for working in the “disingenuous” comment!
Filed under “S” for shilling. Thanks Zach.