The $25,000 OS X Virus Challenge: Anatomy of a PR Nightmare

By now you’re probably aware of the huge brouhaha that erupted upon the Macsphere over the weekend. For those of you who wisely avoid the web on the weekends the brief version is as follows: Jack Campbell of DVForge issued a press release offering a $25,000 reward to the first person to write a virus that happened to infect two Macs running OS X in Hendersonville, Tennessee. In perhaps the least surprising turn of events since quick and uniformly unfavorable. Shortly thereafter the contest was scrapped. (All mention of the contest has been removed from DVForge’s press release page as of this writing)

Mr. Campbell contends that the contest was a reaction to a Symantec report that intimated the Mac would soon be a target for hackers. Mr. Campbell maintains, seemingly very earnestly, that it is his opinion that Macs are nigh invulnerable to viruses and the contest would highlight the Mac’s imperviousness to all things of malicious nature. Others opine that the contest amounts to little more than a publicity stunt and point to Mr. Campbell’s somewhat dubious business practices of the past. This makes for an interesting question: Was this simply a Mac zealot’s over reaction to Symantec’s scare tactics? Or was this, in fact, a very ill advised publicity stunt intended to move more DVForge products out the door?

Evidence for the publicity stunt angle is fairly easy to come by. Cast your mind back to the Super Shuffle by LuxPro unveiled at CeBit. The Super Shuffle is a small, white mp3 player that looks nearly identical to the iPod Shuffle. As soon of word of the device hit the street people were crying foul, noting that the device was a blatant iPod Shuffle rip-off (though a few pundits did enviously note that the Super Shuffle contained an FM receiver). While everyone else was getting worked up Mr. Campbell was doing detective work (and he did a nice job). Through his efforts he discovered that the Super Shuffle was a publicity stunt. More interesting than the status of the Super Shuffle was Mr. Campbell’s reaction to the ploy by LuxPro. He glowingly writes:

“This was not a prank, nor was it an act of blind stupidity. In my view, it was one of the most clever PR maneuvers I have ever seen executed by a small company”

Clearly Mr. Campbell is impressed. At this point it isn’t a leap to suppose that Mr. Campbell was envious of the LuxPro tactics and looking for something similar. That opportunity arose when Symantec released the aforementioned report. Seizing the moment Jack Campbell attempted to cash in and garner a ton of free publicity.

There is nothing inherently wrong with self-promotion or publicity stunts. Getting people interested in products or companies is a staple of successful marketing. Apple is very good at this and annoying FM DJ’s are constantly trying to be good at this. There is, however, a hazy line between getting people talking and creating an entirely negative situation. By way of example: Mike Tyson showing up at Wrestlemania is good, SuperBowl wardrobe malfunctions are bad.

So we are left with two questions: Was Jack Campbell serious about the contest or was the near immediate cancellation of the contest always a part of the poorly scripted stunt? I’m afraid we will never know. The final remaining question concerns the effect on DVForge. Will all the publicity surrounding the now defunct OS X virus prize be helpful or damaging to DVForge? In this case it is the green stuff that matters, if the reaction is big enough either way we may all know the answer to that question.