6.18 Mid-Year Promotion Public Relations Events Review, Galanz Becomes the Highlight!

The most popular e-commerce festival to date is the "Double Eleven" Shopping Festival, so much so that Alibaba actually holds a "festival celebration" in the name of a celebration party after the festival every year. The June 18 mid-year sales in recent years have been even more fearless, not only continuing the consumption incentive effect of Double Eleven after October, but also making the mid-year sales more popular. Every year’s “6.18”, “11.11” and “12.12” are also periods of change between brands and e-commerce platforms. During every festive season, there are not only countless transaction lists but also endless “sourness” between platforms, brands, and even between platforms or brands and consumers.

The creation of festivals by e-commerce companies originated from "festival marketing". The earliest successful case of festival creation in China was the Double Eleven Shopping Festival on the Taobao platform, which originated from the folk entertainment topic "Singles' Day", which came from the anxiety and self-mockery of young people before and after marriage, and thus formed a form of expression of Internet culture.

1. E-commerce platforms may seem peaceful, but they can have a ripple effect on the entire platform

E-commerce platforms have evolved from creating festivals based on the public’s hot topics and hot debates to creating festivals based on digital concepts. This is not only a way to promote consumption performance and material circulation during the period of weak consumption after traditional festivals, but also a game between platforms in terms of brand and market value.

Cats and Dogs

Tmall first publicly announced the launch of the 6.18 e-commerce promotion in mid-May 2019. On May 25, Suning launched pre-sale activities simultaneously with Tmall. JD.com subsequently released the promotion theme song on May 21 and the "JOY and Koi" theme film on the 24th. Tmall's theme film was the "While It's Hot" series of commercials released on the 30th.

The "cat and dog war" between the two representative e-commerce platforms in China officially kicked off after the two platforms released promotional videos one after another. Starting from June 1st, segmented node venues named after major categories were launched one after another. During this period, not only a large number of celebrities were mobilized to assist in promotions, but also sufficient work was done in celebrity live broadcasts and interactive marketing. Off-site promotions by Tmall and JD.com’s advertising, television, video and other media channels are no less powerful than those during Double Eleven. The ubiquitous offline billboards and omni-channel online advertising placements can be said to be the largest in terms of scale and depth among all domestic commercial advertising campaigns.

On Sina Weibo's Tmall and JD's official Weibo accounts, both parties competed to offer various discounts and promotions during the warm-up period, and there were also many interactive communications between celebrities and brands to attract traffic. If we observe carefully, we can also find that in recent years, Tmall’s publicity and promotion has not only begun to focus on the celebrity effect, but also on digital media such as Weibo and video websites, Taobao Tmall’s video and live broadcast sections, etc. There are Tmall brand promotion videos everywhere, as well as promotional videos jointly launched by cooperative brands, which shows its "special liking" for video communication.

In comparison, JD.com did have less video promotion during the 6.18 period, except for launching short videos. Moreover, most of the official Weibo accounts are promotional videos of cooperating brands, while the company’s own promotions are mainly in the form of pictures and texts. I don’t know if it’s due to insufficient marketing funds, or if they are really planning to use short videos as part of their development strategy.

6.18 was the "anniversary celebration" theme festival proposed by JD.com after the success of Taobao's 11.11. It also embodies the entrepreneurial history and struggle history of JD.com founder Liu Qiangdong. In recent years, competitors participating in this event have redefined it as the "6.18 Mid-Year Sale". It can be seen that even when there are no brand public relations wars and performance competitions between the two most representative domestic e-commerce platforms, there is a sense of "competition" for a long time just in terms of history and concepts.

Pinduoduo's promotion

Pinduoduo, which just recently joined the first-tier market, has shown a completely different communication and competition strategy. Not only has it maintained a low-cost graphic and text format for its publicity on its official Weibo account, it has also maintained a much more low-key attitude on social networks than the two major platforms, appearing somewhat tepid, and even giving people a feeling of "normalization."

Most of the variety shows on mainstream media with good ratings have Pinduoduo's brand promotion implanted in them. Can it be understood that Pinduoduo has focused its communication strategy on the basic layer of social networks and high-rated variety shows? Judging from the direct price reduction and fewer promotional methods, Pinduoduo may be deepening its marketing strategies of "private domain traffic" and "cutting off the source of funds", waiting for the ecological system composed of e-commerce platforms and brand owners to change, so that it can emerge as a dark horse.

2. It is too early to determine the beneficiaries of brand merchants' public relations

Public relations and marketing during major events can not only provide long-term support for brand growth and development, but also save companies a lot of publicity and promotion costs by leveraging the marketing power of various e-commerce platforms. The most eye-catching event in this year's promotion should be "Gree sued Aux for product quality issues", two major home appliance brands' ulterior motives, and the subsequent "Galanz accused Tmall of search anomalies".

1. Gree and Aux incident

On June 10, the official WeChat account of Gree Electric Appliances Blue V published a "Report on the Production and Sale of Unqualified Air-Conditioning Products by Aux Air-Conditioning Co., Ltd." directly targeting Aux Air-Conditioning, saying that some consumers had reported that its products consumed a lot of electricity. It then explained that Gree had conducted actual tests on eight Aux products in the laboratory and commissioned a professionally qualified third-party organization, and found that the energy efficiency labels were false.

On the same day, AUX officially responded to the "AUX Air Conditioning Statement on the So-called Complaint Letter from Gree Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. of Zhuhai", stating that Gree is not a relevant national regulatory department, and the so-called consumer feedback is unreasonable. It then not only provided market comparison data showing that online sales of air conditioners increased by 56% in the first quarter, but also showed that Gree Air Conditioners' market comparison data showed a decline of 11.6%. The statement emphasized that Gree’s behavior during the 6.18 mid-year promotion constituted unfair competition, and AUX was willing to accept supervision and inspection by consumers and relevant departments. At the end of the article, it stated that it had reported the case to the public security authorities and filed a lawsuit with the judicial authorities to protect its legitimate rights and interests.

Within just a few hours, Gree Electric Appliances once again released an official response on Weibo and released multiple photos and materials to respond to AUX, saying that it had prepared sufficient evidence for the regulatory authorities to review. In just half a day, both sides expressed their views and presented evidence through official channels, and even used relevant regulatory departments as bargaining chips. The development of the situation can really be described as a series of sharp attacks and stabs at each other.

Behind this incident is not only the sales problem during the 6.18 period that AUX pointed out, but also the long-standing competition history between the two companies. In 2010, the incident of AUX poaching key talents from Gree appeared on the online news client. There is also a patent war between three major domestic air-conditioning brands including Midea. In 2015 and 2017, Gree sued Aux for patent infringement, and obtained economic loss compensation of 2.3 million yuan and 46 million yuan from the Guangdong High Court and Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court respectively.

What’s interesting is that Midea, which is also one of the three major domestic air-conditioning brands, not only did not participate in the public relations battle, but also calmly watched the show. This may also prove the statement that Midea is quietly making money to subsidize its family expenses. After all, the debt limit of "Midea Real Estate" in its 2018 financial report is not low.

2. Galanz and Tmall incident

At noon on June 17, the official Blue V Weibo account of "Galanz" released a "Statement on the Search Anomalies of Galanz on the Tmall Platform", which not only pointed out that anomalies had appeared one after another on the search end of the Tmall platform, seriously affecting normal sales, but also pointed out the three event elements of "visiting Pinduoduo", "ineffective communication", and "preparing 200,000 units".

At 19:00 on the same day, Galanz once again issued an official Weibo post titled "Please ask Tmall executives to speak out", saying that there were intermittent search recoveries and abnormalities again between 16:10 and 16:28, and directly suspected that this was caused by the inaction of the business level that proved "communication was ineffective", and expected Tmall executives to respond publicly, and then issued a related PC Taobao search video.

At 0:00 the next day, Galanz's official Weibo account once again released a video recording of the Tmall mobile terminal, saying that the search problem reappeared after a brief recovery. The first appearing "visiting Pinduoduo" and "preparing 200,000 units" were never mentioned again. I wonder if they gradually calmed down from the speculation, or finally realized that they should not drag Pinduoduo into it again.

At 17:00 on the 18th, Galanz’s official Weibo account released the article “Don’t Play Dirty Game”, which stated that since Galanz issued a statement on the 17th, it has received attention and support from all parties, and expressed two specific attitudes. First, Galanz is upright and reasonable, and hopes to have an open dialogue with Tmall and have Tmall contact Galanz directly. The second one, Galanz, speaks the truth and uses common sense. Galanz is well aware of Tmall's power and strength and will not disclose relevant facts, believing that justice is in the hearts of the people. At the end of the article, it also emphasized the involvement of Tmall's senior management, returning to Jack Ma's original intention of "making business easier for the world." The content of this article gives the public a sense of "warning."

Analysis of Galanz's Public Relations Event

Galanz side:

l The basis of public relations events should be carefully considered before publishing

As of the evening of the 18th, the content of all official statements of Galanz did not reflect the professional public relations attitude that the brand decision-makers and the brand should have. The content was more like that of the staff responsible for store operations or direct operations. While frequently asking Tmall's "seniors" to come forward, the only person who issued the statement was an unidentified person who continued to intensify the problem.

The logic of public relations events should ensure that the public can understand and identify the information easily.

In the search video of the mobile client, Galanz’s public relations or operations staff mentioned the link loss problem that had persisted for five years. This point was not explained in depth, and the public was only shown a few screenshots of the background data trends. At this time, giving the public more simple and easy-to-understand evidence is a normal move in public relations events, but the content provided by Galanz is believed to be "evidence" that most of the public cannot understand.

The second logic of public relations events should be focused on

However, in the search video on the computer side, most of the operations performed by Galanz staff were actually verified on the Taobao platform, which is indeed difficult to understand. The problem in the incident was the Tmall platform, but the staff used the Taobao platform for demonstration. Regardless of whether the public is clear about the technical content, public relations is a channel for communicating with the public, and the public relations logic of sticking to the facts is to ensure that the public can clearly understand the cause and inside story of the incident. Galanz's way of proof is suspicious.

l Review of public relations events should be objective

During the "6.18 Mid-Year Sale" platform system, there should be a large number of transactions occurring every moment. Will Tmall take the risk of affecting the platform operation by targeting Galanz, with which it has cooperated for many years? From a third-party perspective, this situation is unlikely to occur. Especially those who understand e-commerce operations know that rankings can often suffer great losses if the operation method is wrong.

l Keep a calm attitude when handling public relations events

From the earliest statement to the "warning" on the evening of the 18th, Galanz's public relations attitude and emotional fluctuations were too volatile. The suspicion of "visiting Pinduoduo" came to an abrupt end halfway and no further information was released. Looking at the excited emotional changes of the lady in the mobile video, the last sentence was obviously a bit too excited, and the "warning" content issued by the official Weibo on the evening of the 18th made it difficult not to think of the meaning of "there is an inside story", "there is a key person in charge", "Tmall has already had private communication" and so on.

l Relationship with public relations events, reducing unnecessary complexity

Just like Gree dragged the regulatory authorities into a public relations war for interests, Galanz made its own guesses and named Pinduoduo without confirming the exact problem on Tmall's side. Although it can slightly increase public attention, considering the sudden cessation of relevant information in the incident and Pinduoduo's attitude of not getting involved during the period, this is just Galanz's subjective suspicion in panic.

Tmall:

l Keep the public relations event stable and avoid the other party's excitement

Up to this point, Galanz was also unilaterally expressing its opinions, and Tmall did not publicly release any attitude towards the relevant matters. It was only assisting Galanz in solving related problems, and no longer made any statement after the search problem occurred again. Although the handling of public relations events requires grasping the golden period to ensure that the deterioration of the incident is stopped in the bud in time, avoiding emotional excitement is to avoid direct and fierce conflict, and it is also a form of public relations strategy of retreating in order to advance.

l The mentality and logic of public relations events have nothing to do with facts and volume

During the 6.18 mid-year promotion, Tmall should be the most tense and busiest time for all employees. Not only do they have to deal with the technical and operational problems encountered by buyers, but they also have to deal with the technical and regulatory issues encountered by sellers during the period. I believe that more issues are the conflicts between sellers and buyers.

This is the key to why e-commerce platforms have their own experience in handling incidents. No matter how big a deal the Galanz incident is hyped up by the brand, and no matter how urgent the response is, it cannot change the facts and the subsequent accountability. Rather than risking damage to the brand, it is better to wait until the other party's emotions have calmed down, and then take out the relevant background records to analyze where the problem lies.

l The attitude of public relations events: service is the main job

From Galanz's statement, we can see that there was indeed a period of time during the incident when the search returned to normal, which means that the Tmall team had taken action, rather than inaction as Galanz claimed. The key to a public relations event is to actually perform its own business functions and responsibilities.

But then the problem arose again, which did create some suspense, and Tmall did not make any suggestions or responses to it. Whether it is the Tmall "seniors" who were targeted by Galanz, or the emotionally agitated Galanz "operators", their attitudes after the problem occurred again are worthy of reflection.

Conclusion

The 2019 e-commerce 6.18 mid-year promotion will last until around the 20th, and the press release may be later after the 18th. During the rush to publish the press release, Galanz released the latest news. Therefore, the public relations events that have not been concluded during this period may have new developments, and domestic e-commerce platforms led by Tmall and JD.com will also release their own "exciting" performance after the big promotion activities. Let us wait and see.

Author:Leon

Source: PR Home