Brand crisis public relations trends in 2021!

It has to be said that brand crisis public relations has become increasingly difficult.

Firstly , the popularity of the Internet and self-media has brought more flashpoints to the crisis, making it increasingly difficult to prevent it in advance or eliminate its impact. Secondly , most consumers have become completely immune to public relations strategies such as "admit mistakes, apologize, and make corrections." If the brand is still using words like "the brand was not aware," "some stores," "temporary workers," and "already fired" to fool the public, it will easily escalate to a point where it cannot be resolved.

In recent years, we have been discussing the rejuvenation of brands, including visual rejuvenation, tone rejuvenation, communication rejuvenation, etc. In fact, public relations also needs rejuvenation and requires thorough innovation. Recently, Mr. Bingfa sorted out the excellent public relations cases in 2020 and summarized some key words about crisis public relations, hoping to inspire you.

At the beginning of last year, many students who were tortured by online classes vented their anger on the mobile office platform "DingTalk" . Even though many of Alibaba's BUs expressed their support for it, it ended up being besieged. Of course, most students gave DingTalk one star not because the software itself is not easy to use, but because the emergence of online classes ended their vacation early. In addition, the real-name system has not yet been fully popularized on the Internet, so even if you maliciously post bad reviews, no one else will know.

Fortunately, DingTalk, which was maliciously rated one star, quickly found a countermeasure - they first released a spooky "self-deprecating video" on Bilibili titled "DingTalk, the real Ding, begging for mercy online", and then released a series of interesting content with a similar style on the platform. Not only did they successfully change the direction of public opinion, but they also attracted many loyal fans with DingTalk's personalized image. As of now, DingTalk official has 1.185 million followers on Bilibili and has received nearly 10 million likes , becoming a popular online celebrity UP host.

Coincidentally, in last year’s advertising Rashomon between Tencent and Lao Gan Ma, Tencent also quickly “blackened itself” after discovering its own mistake. During that period, there were a lot of materials related to the topic on the Internet, such as the "Laoganma Bibimbap" in its own cafeteria, the word "dou'eyuan" which is homophonic with Dou'eyuan, and even a funny apology video using Yang Chaoyue's speech... While the comments on the Internet were one-sided, Tencent's "cuteness + self-deprecation" public relations method also helped the brand restore a lot of reputation.

In both cases, the brands did not make any major mistakes: DingTalk simply provided online courses, while Tencent's QQ Speed ​​was the deceived party. However, if they do not have a bit of "self-deprecating spirit", and if they release some bland or even self-abasement statements through official channels when they encounter such problems, it will probably be difficult to quell the public's anger. In other words, when doing crisis public relations, brands should not just sort out the "facts" but appease the public's "emotions" so that subsequent communication can be smoother.

In the past, when we discussed crisis public relations, we always liked to divide crises into several different levels and then deal with them differently according to different crises. But to be honest, this idea has completely failed in the era of extremely developed Internet. Perhaps a review, a comment, or a Weibo post can become the trigger point of a crisis: brands need to take the initiative to understand those related problems and solve them in the fastest way.

Last July, pregnant artist An Yixuan posted a message on Weibo saying that she was scalded by milk tea in McDonald's and the scar left has been difficult to remove so far. She also questioned McDonald's packaging and @McDonald's on Weibo. Although in this case An Yixuan did not order McDonald's in the mainland and @ed the wrong person, the brand took the initiative to stand up and said that it had conveyed the reminder to the relevant market and would also take it as a warning.

Many times, some small complaints from users can become a key opportunity for a brand to maintain a good relationship with users. Just like McDonald's, which proactively discovered the problem, Migu also fought a beautiful public relations battle during this year's CBA broadcast. In April this year, Migu took the lead in completing a non-exclusive five-year contract renewal with CBA. Since other platforms had not signed an agreement with CBA before the start of the new season, Migu temporarily became the exclusive broadcaster.

The influx of a large number of fans also put higher demands on Migu. Many people began to leave comments raising issues such as "live broadcast lag, blurry picture quality, unprofessional commentary" , etc. Although it is human nature that it is difficult to satisfy everyone, Migu did not ignore these small voices. They first posted three posts on Hupu and used super preferential activities such as "1080 free trial and limited 4K free benefits for members" and "three-month membership for 1 yuan" to provide fans with a better viewing experience. The sincere attitude and quick response reduced a lot of negative comments.

Next is the "Ximba selling bird's nest" and "Luo Yonghao selling wool sweaters" incidents that were very popular some time ago. Although they were both top anchors and made the same mistake of selling fake goods, different crisis public relations led the incidents to completely different directions.

Let’s talk about Simba first. When someone first revealed that they were selling fake bird's nests, Simba's team did not face up to the source of public opinion and users' concerns, but chose to deny it first, and only made a decision when the evidence was clear. If we calculate based on the data released in the live broadcast room that a total of 57,820 orders of "Mingzhi" brand bird's nest products were sold, Simba needs to first refund nearly 62 million to consumers. Unfortunately, the topic had been fermenting long before the compensation was paid, causing indelible negative impact on the team.

In comparison, Luo Yonghao's approach of proactively sending the product for inspection, publicly apologizing and directly promising triple compensation after discovering the problem is indeed much smarter. It is understood that the "Pierre Cardin" sweater sold by Luo Yonghao in the live broadcast was priced at 79.9 yuan, with sales of nearly 20,000 pieces, and he needed to pay compensation of about 4.674 million yuan on his behalf. Judging from the public opinion at the time, there were still many fans who understood and supported Lao Luo, which was considered a relatively successful crisis public relations.

I have mentioned to you before that there is a concept in psychology called "defensive attribution" : people simply attribute the results of their mistakes to their own benefit in order to protect themselves. Just like when fake goods appear in the live broadcast room, many anchors will subconsciously think that "there is no problem with themselves" or that even if there is a problem, it is "the problem of the cooperating brand." If you don't face your own problems and always try to find other reasons to excuse yourself, such a public relations attitude will make it difficult for the audience to perceive your sincerity.

When we are doing marketing, we all know that the new generation of consumers prefer brands that have their own positions, attitudes and values, but when we are doing public relations, we are not bold enough. In addition to the cases mentioned above, there were also many communication contents last year that successfully changed users’ emotions and established trust relationships because of their warm attitude. Let’s take a look:

The comment section of NetEase Cloud Music has always been the focus of brand communication - they once printed 5,000 high-quality comments all over the subway, and even the senior copywriter Xiao Ma Song praised it, saying "A ten-year copywriting veteran is not as good as the NetEase comment section." However, the comment section that allows users to vent their emotions also became a "double-edged sword" last year. Because there were too many comments expressing mourning culture and depression in the comment section, many netizens began to use homophonic jokes to call "NetEase Cloud Music" "NetEase Depression Cloud". As negative news spread, the brand also launched a self-help campaign, launching the Cloud Village Comment Healing Plan, using the new concept of "Internet Healing Cloud" to change the public's perception.

Sad culture may touch the hearts of the public and arouse their resonance, but only those things that are warm and healing can leave a longer-lasting impression in the audience's hearts. Just like the topic of "Internet legacy" that everyone is paying more and more attention to, generally speaking, accounts that users have not logged in to for a long time will be reclaimed, but there are also brands that have launched very heartwarming actions. For example, Google launched a “death service” in 2013, which allows designated friends and relatives to take over or delete accounts that have not been logged in for a long time; in February 2015, Facebook also launched a similar “agent” function... In December last year, Bilibili announced that it would retain the accounts of deceased people as memorial accounts, and many netizens felt that the brand was very “humane”.

In conclusion:

At the beginning of 2021, there were a series of public relations failures of Pinduoduo and Quanmianshijie. Although the brand responded promptly, its strategy and attitude seemed to be a bit unsatisfactory, especially the public relations article of Quanmianshidai. It seemed to be an apology, but it failed to let users see the brand's sincere attitude. Moreover, the traces of the brand using the apology topic for marketing were too obvious, which made users feel "annoyed". Crisis public relations is marketing, but how to control the degree of this marketing is a question that brands should think about. It has to be said that most brands still have a long way to go on the road of "crisis public relations". I hope that this year's brand marketing will not make mistakes and will have more products that are recognized by the public.

Author: Marketing Strategy

Source: Marketing Strategy (lanhaiyingxiao)