Hey, I'm just saying that's what I would be doing if I were Rasmoodi. Considering that if I were him, I'd be looking to save my ass from getting fired after the "HF HD700 Preview Debacle". Astroturfing would be a sure way to do it. It's business. I'm not beyond using these techniques myself to help my own company succeed.

To be brutally honest, if that's what you would do, then you're a dishonest guy. Rosmadi, and Sennheiser, don't have that attitude. Certainly he isn't about to get fired for negative forum comments. It's not to say that companies aren't afraid of negative reviews, but Sennheiser isn't one of them.  The smaller, newer ones may be, but the larger ones know by now that they will get their arse handed to them on a platter if they try and cheat. If they are making good products, it wont be necessary.

Stop being naive. Business is war. Most people who are very successful at it are pathological. They will lie, steal, misdirect, bribe, litigate, feign altruism, etc. Especially if tens of millions of dollars or more at stake.

Besides, there's nothing dishonest about encouraging co-workers, family, and friends as individuals to say good things about something your company makes in an Internet forum.

So I'm naive and Sennheiser must be doing it because you say so?

i have to side with Amos on this.

I hear you on the crap that goes on in the corporate world, but i doubt Sennheiser even bothers enough to have phantom accounts posting favorably to stem the slide in popularity of their latest headphone on the forum.

I mean any thing's possible, but its a bit of a stretch and without proof i would not make such bold assumptions or accusations.

Just my 2 cents FWIW...

The most sophisticated shilling I've seen on HF has been for word-salad blurbs posted by one-off accounts that link to Chinese Beats-knock-off sites.

Which is a shame because a modest yet coordinated sockpuppet campaign waged over a couple of months could earn a young aspiring marketer his keep at a company like Sennheiser. The first giveaway would be the sockpuppeteer's decency to at least use something like a tor proxy for the accounts. Otherwise the IP tracks / log on times / patterned language would be easy enough to identify. Thankfully Sennheiser seems to be a bit behind the times, their idea to let unpaid amateurs to hear an upcoming semi-flagship was probably the apex (or nadir) of their radical viral streak.

As for the latest suspicious streak of HD700 fanboism, I think Hanlon's razor applies.

It's not even necessary for Sennheiser to do the shilling themselves, there are companies who specialize in viral marketing, social network engineering...
Subcontracting is very possible.

Exactly.

If a company is going to do this they'd just give some marketing company some cash for "social media marketing" with a vague contract and an under the table understanding of what they're actually going to do.  The client would then just just deny responsibility or knowledge if it was ever made public/confirmed.