I hope it won’t be too contrived, because there is definitely a way to do this and have it not be, IMHO.

The responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the PR firm to advise the client. They need to urge the client to set a very loose filter on what is served up. If a reputable site or blogger has a problem with the product that is more a matter of taste than performance, it should definitely stay in the mix.

I’m thinking of movie reviews. (I often do. I’m a big film buff.) I heard and read many reviews saying that Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette was not worth seeing. They said it was slow-moving, and that little happened in it (at least, until the end, when she and her royal family got the bad haircuts).

Then I heard other reviews, from just a few others, who praised it. And I realized that the praise mentioned the same qualities that the other reviewers had listed, but this time as a testament to the director’s abilities to take her time and observe character quietly and artfully.

I wound up disregarding the bad reviews and had a wonderful film experience.

If I had links to both temperatures of reviews from this type of “review widget,” it would have saved me a lot of research time. And I would have reached the same conclusion and plunked down my eight bucks.

Sorry for the long response, and of course you’re right to be concerned.

I just know that word-of-mouth advertising, which in the online world is mostly UGC, is definitely the most important marketing tool in this new Web 2.0 era. This ad unit is laudable for its attempt to capture the lightning in a bottle.

I’m essentially an optimist. Maybe I’m just hoping it will be a success.

Even if they pull things off blogs and news feeds, it sure sounds like they are planning to use mini-testimonials for client endorsements.

I bet the selected reviews really glow and the few and far between dissenting opinions are only luke warm.

It still sounds contrived to me and needs more disclosure.
Chris