Top ten crisis public relations events in 2018!

Looking back at the year 2018, the public relations industry was extremely lively, with all kinds of negative events emerging one after another, and even public relations companies joined in the fun. Meihua.com MICE compiled the top ten crisis public relations events in 2018 based on the spread, influence and degree of crisis public relations errors of negative events. Let's take a look together~ PS: The crisis public relations events are arranged in chronological order, regardless of size.

1. Marriott Hotel Incident

Time of incident : January 9

Event restoration :

At 8:19 am on January 9, Weibo user @仲举扫地 posted a group of pictures. In the list of "countries", options for Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet appeared unexpectedly . Afterwards, some netizens revealed that "Marriott Rewards" openly liked the Tibetan independence remarks made by a Tibetan independence account on its Twitter account on the American social network. The statement said: Congratulations to the global hotel chain Marriott International for listing Tibet as a "country" along with Hong Kong and Taiwan.

On the evening of January 19, a netizen posted on Zhihu that he found on the official website of Marriott Hotels that not only was Taipei marked as Taiwan, but several place names in Taiwan, China, such as Taichung and Tainan, were also marked as Japan. Later, Zhihu users quickly discovered that when they entered the word "Taiwan" on the English version of Marriott's website, the "Taichung City", "Tainan City" and "Taitung (County)" that appeared in the drop-down menu were all marked as belonging to Japan.

PR Mistakes:

Marriott Hotels did not recognize the seriousness of the incident, but only issued a perfunctory apology. It also did not immediately restrain the behavior of all company owners to avoid similar mistakes, which led to two similar mistakes being discovered in a short period of time, consuming the last bit of trust that the public had in the company.

Follow-up:

Marriott Hotels quietly went online after shutting down its Chinese website and app for many days. However, Marriott Hotels was exposed to have serious hygiene problems in 2018, and faced a class action lawsuit due to the leakage of 500 million people's information overseas.

2. JD.com’s “fake goods sales” incident

Time of incident : March 13

Event restoration :

At 15:30 on March 13, the well-known female writer Liu Liu published an article titled " Rogue JD ." on Weibo and her personal public account. The article said that his friend bought an American Comfort U lumbar pillow worth RMB 1,489 on JD Global Shopping, but what he actually received was a lumbar pillow with the Contour U logo and a price of US$33.6. Despite lengthy negotiations and solid evidence, the merchant still refused to admit to selling counterfeit goods. Instead, he reluctantly accepted returns and refunds on the grounds that the wrong goods were sent. Regarding this matter, JD.com’s customer service had an extremely bad attitude, apart from insisting that the merchant simply sent the wrong goods. The article points out that the information conversation between the author's friend and the merchant, the part in which the merchant deceived people, was erased by JD.com's data background processing, and the merchant's false advertising information was also erased .

PR Mistakes:

The whistleblower is an influential writer and screenwriter. As early as 2015, she had exposed a similar incident on Weibo, which was quite influential. At that time, the article was even forwarded and supported by Wang Sicong. As the 3.15 Gala approached, JD.com's public relations department did not learn from its mistakes and chose to confront Liu Liu in its first public relations statement, denying the content of Liu Liu's article and stating that it would pursue legal responsibility, causing the incident to spread to a wider range . In the end, JD.com CMO Xu Lei had to give in, apologize, and come up with a plan to improve customer experience.

Follow-up:

Although JD.com apologized late in this incident, fortunately it was able to make peace with the whistleblower, and similar issues have not been widely spread since then. In September, JD.com fell into the abyss of public opinion due to a well-known incident, but in this incident, JD.com’s public relations still did its best, so it will not be discussed here.

3. "Hongmao Medicinal Wine" Incident

Time of incident : April 13

Event restoration :

On January 11, the Public Security Bureau of Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, took Guangzhou doctor Tan Qindong away from his home in Guangzhou on suspicion of damaging the company's credibility and product reputation due to an article he wrote titled "China's magical wine "Hongmao Medicinal Wine", Poison from Heaven". Tan Qindong was taken into criminal custody the next day.

On April 13, Red Star News, a subsidiary of Chengdu Business Daily, reported the incident for the first time. Afterwards, many media followed up on the matter. People's Daily, Guangming Online, Beijing News, Tuanjiehu Reference, Health Times, Xiakedao and many other media published comments, pointing out: " What is the confidence of Hongmao Liquor to arrest people across provinces? " On Weibo and WeChat, big Vs such as Wang Zhian, Zhou Xiaoyun, Dingxiangyuan, and Chunyu Doctor questioned it.

Afterwards, in addition to whether the cross-provincial arrest was appropriate, media from all walks of life expressed doubts about Hongmao Medicinal Wine's false advertising, adverse reactions, over-the-counter drug qualifications, and history of success.

PR Mistakes:

Hongmao Medicinal Wine responded to its doubters by flexing its muscles and putting itself under the media spotlight, but it ended up exposing its own bad deeds.

Follow-up:

As people's attention to the whole incident gradually decreased, the incident gradually died down. In early December, Inner Mongolia Hongmao Medicinal Wine Co., Ltd. was once again questioned by the media after it appeared on the "List of Outstanding Private Enterprises to be Commended in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region" and was subsequently removed from the official list .

4. Blue cursor event

Time of incident : March 15, July 2

Event restoration :

BlueFocus "dismissal"

On March 15, the circle of friends was filled with an article titled "BlueFocus, the so-called largest public relations company in Asia, is cheating its old employees like this. Doesn’t it really hurt its conscience?" 》The article went viral. The author of the article (with the public account “有点自”) claimed that as a Blue Label employee, he was threatened and persuaded to resign by HR and his supervisor, and was unable to obtain employee resignation compensation. Soon, the incident caused heated discussion.

On the evening of March 22, the person involved in the incident issued another statement: "I deleted the article and issued a statement, but in return I received slander and uncompensated dismissal from BlueFocus," causing the incident that had already calmed down to stir up waves again. Soon, BlueFocus was not willing to be outdone and issued a "Follow-up Statement."

BlueFocus was forced to increase sales to satisfy customers

On the evening of July 2, the former special director of "Famous Cars" and car blogger "Juzi" posted an article on his WeChat public account titled "Blue Label, is this how you serve your BMW customer? 》Angrily criticized Blue Cursor. In the article, the author questioned BlueFocus's use of fake internet celebrities to inflate traffic and make money and its disrespect for content entrepreneurs. After the article was published, it went viral and the “fake internet celebrity” was exposed to the public.

PR Mistakes:

In the dismissal scandal, the incident had originally died down and a settlement had been reached with the parties involved, but the situation recurred in the subsequent handling, giving the spectators a good show. The two statements from Blue Label were also criticized by many parties, with many netizens commenting that "the statements are completely cold" and "they show the arrogance of a large company, but lack the magnanimity of a listed company." In the incident where it was accused of inflating the volume to satisfy clients, Blue Label only expressed its firm opposition to data falsification in its response, but did not directly address the doubts, which seemed to lack confidence.

Follow-up:

The financial report released on October 28, 2018 showed that the company's revenue in the third quarter was 17.002 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%; net profit was 413 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48%. Its overseas business grew substantially, and other business segments grew steadily. Overall, negative events had little impact on it.

5. "BGI cancer" incident

Time of incident : July 13

Event restoration :

On the morning of July 13, an article titled "Cancer Transformation at BGI" caused an uproar. The core content of the article begins with a baby boy who was born with a series of defects and diseases including "chromosome 13 long arm deletion syndrome", "brain dysplasia", and "iris defect". Before birth, the mother underwent a non-invasive DNA test by BGI, and the result showed "low risk" . The article stated that the mother was found to have abnormalities in subsequent tests. However, when the doctor learned that the mother had undergone "BGI non-invasive DNA testing", he judged that "the problem should not be serious." After that, three doctors in total made the same judgment, which eventually led to tragedy. On the same day, the board of directors of Shenzhen BGI Co., Ltd. immediately issued an announcement to stock investors. On July 15, BGI sent another article on its official website and WeChat public platform to clarify the incident to pregnant mothers.

PR Mistakes :

In its response, BGI did not consider itself responsible and did not propose any measures for improvement. Even if BGI is not responsible for this incident, given the current impact of the incident and the public's attitude, BGI still needs to take some measures to respond to public expectations . For example, the limitations of non-invasive DNA testing can be popularized through more channels to teach doctors and the public to correctly view the test results. Industry chaos can also be rectified through various channels. This may not necessarily bring about obvious changes, but it can demonstrate BGI's attitude. In other words, the public generally cannot accept witnessing tragedy in an industry while the leading companies in that industry remain indifferent to it.

Follow-up :

As people's attention to the whole incident gradually decreased, the incident gradually died down. On October 24, the Ministry of Science and Technology’s official website updated six penalty information, among which BGI was involved. The announcement shows that it has been found that BGI and Huashan Hospital conducted international cooperative research on China's human genetic resources with the University of Oxford in the UK without permission, and BGI transmitted some human genetic resource information across the Internet without permission. On October 26, BGI released a "Statement on the Lawyer's Letter to Self-Media Reporter "Jin Wei"" on its official Weibo account. It is believed that the article "BGI was fined!" published on its official account The genomes of 140,000 pregnant women have been leaked abroad, which is terrifying! 》 "contains maliciously fabricated facts, blatantly spreads false information about the research project, causes extremely bad effects, and is extremely misleading to the public."

6. “Pinduoduo” incident

Time of incident : July 27

Event restoration :

On July 26, Pinduoduo successfully listed on the Nasdaq and surged nearly 40% on the first day. However, starting from the second day of its listing, news about counterfeit goods on the Pinduoduo platform broke out online, including 7.5 yuan milk powder, Zheng Yuanjie reporting the sale of pirated Pippi Longstocking books on Pinduoduo, and Skyworth condemning Pinduoduo for selling counterfeit goods .

PR Mistakes :

During the press conference where Pinduoduo responded to the incident, inappropriate expressions were made. For example, "copycat does not mean fake goods", "fake goods can also be found on Taobao and JD.com", "the fake goods problem is a social problem, and it is unfair to let the three-year-old Pinduoduo bear the responsibility" and other slanderous statements were seized upon by the media and widely disseminated, ultimately leaving the public with the impression that the company was shifting the blame and shirking responsibility.

Follow-up :

In December, Pinduoduo's innovations in brand upgrading and supply chain transformation reversed public opinion to a certain extent. On the day of Double 12, Pinduoduo announced the launch of the "New Brand Plan" to provide support to "foreign well-known brand OEM factories" in the "manufacturing industry at the bottom of the food chain" and rely on Chinese brands to meet users' demand for high-quality products. On December 26, the "2018 E-commerce Industry Research Report" released by Aurora Big Data showed that Pinduoduo has entered the first camp of e-commerce, with a user share of 33.2%, second only to Taobao's 41.8%, successfully surpassing Tmall, JD.com and Suning .

7. Didi Incident

Time of incident : May 10, August 24

Event restoration :

On May 10, a flight attendant was killed while taking a Didi Hitch in Zhengzhou. On August 24, just four months later, another vicious case occurred on Didi Hitch. A girl from Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang was killed while taking a Didi Hitch. Relevant information disclosed on the Internet showed that before the incident, the victim's friend had asked Didi for help, but Didi not only did nothing at the time, but also shirked responsibility and was perfunctory.

PR Mistakes :

Didi offers a reward of 1 million yuan to find the suspect . The person’s full name, ID number, phone number, and photo were also released. However, this reward has aroused the disgust of many netizens and was suspected of being a show.

In the second incident, Didi’s senior management did not come forward to apologize until four days after the incident, while they did not even come forward in the first incident. This point has also been widely criticized by public opinion, which believes that Didi's attitude towards the incident is still not serious enough.

Follow-up :

Didi has completely stopped its ride-sharing business and announced that Didi's business will focus on safety and will publish rectification results on a regular basis. Didi is piloting a "Public Review Council" and launching multiple rounds of public voting and discussion, such as "Can drivers refuse to pick up drunk passengers?" On December 14, at the Didi Chuxing employee mobilization meeting, Didi CEO Cheng Wei stated that this year's employee year-end bonuses would be reduced by half compared to last year, and Didi executives would collectively not receive year-end bonuses.

8. Ziroom incident

Time of incident : August 15, August 31

Event restoration :

On August 15, a WeChat article titled "Ziroom is destroying young people's urban dreams" circulated on the Internet. The article stated that by comparing the price difference between Ziroom and non-Ziroom rooms of the same apartment type in the same residential complex in Hangzhou, it can be concluded that Ziroom's disguised high-interest loan model of simple decoration + packaged management fees + monthly rent payments has directly increased the rental costs of young people by nearly 20% . On the afternoon of August 19, Ziroom CEO Xiong Lin released a statement regarding rent, the industry, and Ziroom. The statement said that the price increase from RuYu clients over the past six years has been far lower than the overall market increase.

On August 31, the self-media "Yo Yo Lu Ming" published an article titled " Ali P7 employee died of leukemia and rented a formaldehyde-filled house from Ziroom before his death ." The article revealed that an Alibaba employee at level P7 was diagnosed with leukemia after moving into Ziroom and unfortunately passed away on July 13. This Alibaba employee underwent a comprehensive physical examination before checking in, and all his physical indicators were normal. His wife came to Hangzhou and inspected the Ziroom house. The results showed that formaldehyde exceeded the standard. On September 1, Ziroom’s official Weibo account responded to the “Explanation on the Hangzhou Tenant Incident”. Later, Zuo Hui, chairman of Ziroom, responded on WeChat Moments, saying, "We will accept all criticisms and take all responsibilities."

PR Mistakes :

Ziroom’s public relations attitude is too arrogant and conceited. It is arrogant about the rent issue and conceited about the formaldehyde issue . For example, one day before the incident broke out, Ziroom faced many accusations with an angry attitude, saying, "We will never feel sorry for ourselves, and we will not allow ourselves to be called shameless." But the next day, in its "Explanation on the Hangzhou Tenant Incident," it said in response to the public account that exposed the incident that it would avoid fragmented and one-sided interpretations before the final ruling.

What Ziroom was criticized for more was the many problems in the implementation of the subsequent processing plan. "After the formaldehyde controversy began, many tenants who applied for Ziroom's free testing were unable to get a testing schedule, and even after the testing was completed, they were unable to receive the test report. The test results were mostly notified to the tenants verbally by the housekeeper or customer service, but they were only told that the room air quality was "qualified" or "unqualified," and the specific test data could not be seen ." In addition, the reporter also found in the investigation that only some of the testing channels were marked as CMA-certified testing agencies, which was seriously inconsistent with the promise.

Follow-up :

As time went by, the heat of the Ziroom incident gradually subsided and returned to calm. But Ziroom is still facing questions about formaldehyde. On December 6, the case in which Beijing tenants jointly sued Ziroom Holdings Co., Ltd. was heard in the Dongcheng District People's Court of Beijing. A total of 26 Ziroom tenants from Beijing participated in this class action lawsuit. The tenants filed the lawsuit because they were feeling unwell after renting a newly renovated Ziroom apartment.

9. D&G incident

Time of incident : November 22

Event restoration :

At around 6 p.m. on November 17, D&G's official Weibo account released three "eating with chopsticks" videos. In the videos, a Chinese model was eating Italian food with chopsticks in a setting similar to that of a Chinese restaurant. The videos were quite controversial after they were released, and many netizens believed that they were "racially discriminatory." The video of the brand founder's argument with a netizen was posted online. One of the comments, which insulted China, angered Chinese netizens and the government strongly condemned it .

Afterwards, D&G issued the following statement on Weibo:

Dolce & Gabbana's official Intragram account and Stefano Gabbana's Instagram account were hacked , and we have immediately taken legal action to resolve the issue. We apologize for the impact and harm these false statements have caused to China and the Chinese people. We have always loved and respected China and Chinese culture.

PR Mistakes :

D&G's public relations mistakes exist in many aspects, but the main problems are two: One is that there are no regulations or restrictions on the speech and behavior of company leaders, allowing the founder to speak at will without regard for the corporate image and interests. The second is to use lame lies like "account hacked" to try to deceive the public, which has completely destroyed their trust. One is before, one is after, one is during normal times, one is after the incident, and in both of them, D&G is terrible.

Follow-up :

After the incident, D&G products were removed from the shelves by all e-commerce platforms, and it was reported that D&G stores were deserted. According to reports from netizens around the world, we can also see from the video that not only are some D&G stores in China deserted, but even D&G stores in the United States are almost empty. Even in Milan, Italy, the brand's base, other brand stores are bustling with people, but D&G stores are deserted.

In addition, D&G recently shot a series of promotional videos on the Italian island of Capri, which once again caused controversy after they were released and were accused of discriminating against the poor .

10. "Quanjian" incident

Time of incident : December 25

Event restoration :

At noon on December 25, Dingxiang Doctor’s article “The 10-Billion-Dollar Healthcare Empire Quanjian, and the Chinese Families Under Its Shadow” quickly went viral. The main event mentioned in the article happened three years ago. Zhou Yang, a seven-year-old girl with cancer from Inner Mongolia , gave up chemotherapy in the hospital and instead took Quanjian Company's products . Eventually, her condition worsened and she died. In addition, the article also mentioned Quanjian Company's novel products such as negative ion sanitary napkins, health insoles that cost more than 1,000 yuan a pair, and the questionable fire therapy technology , saying that these together have built Quanjian Company's health empire of nearly 20 billion yuan a year.

At 1:29 a.m. on December 26, Quanjian Natural Medicine Technology Development Co., Ltd. issued a "solemn statement" through its official WeChat account, saying that the article "The 10 billion health empire Quanjian and the Chinese families under its shadow" posted by the "Dingxiang Doctor" WeChat account was untrue, and accused it of "using false information collected from the Internet to slander and defame Quanjian, seriously infringing on Quanjian's legitimate rights and interests, and causing misunderstandings about the Quanjian brand among the general public."

PR Mistakes :

Frankly speaking, for Quanjian, a company that has been investigated for suspected pyramid schemes and false advertising crimes and whose actual controller has been criminally detained, the best thing for its public relations personnel to do is to resign immediately and quickly sever any relationship with the company .

But assuming that Quanjian has not committed any crime, Quanjian’s public relations response is also unsatisfactory. First of all, in response to many questions, Quanjian simply denied them and claimed that they were defamation, but it could not provide any evidence to support its position, which makes it difficult to be convincing. As for their own ways of whitewashing, one is to use the guise of patriotism and national enterprise, and the other is to discredit the other party, accusing Dingxiang Doctor of doing this in order to crack down on and suppress Chinese companies, while at the same time taking advantage of the popularity to increase their fame. But this method is really uncreative and only adds to the ridicule.

Summarize:

Looking at the entire list above, the editor has to admire the power of today's self-media. A total of eight out of ten incidents were caused by a certain self-media article that went viral . This is even more difficult to guard against for corporate public relations. In the past, when there was only one channel for public opinion, it was still possible to foresee negative public opinion by controlling relevant media and local reporters. However, nowadays, negative public opinion can happen at any time, and the incident may have happened yesterday or many years ago. It is possible that Quanjian’s public relations department might have guessed that Dingxiang Doctor would publish an article that was unfavorable to it, but JD’s public relations department would never have guessed that a well-known female writer would also publish an article that was negative about it.

In the future, corporate public relations may become more difficult. You may have to think of countermeasures for the company's mistakes at any time, and also clean up the mistakes the company made many years ago. You must not only urge the company's senior management to avoid releasing unfavorable information, but also monitor all aspects of negative news in print, on the Internet, on Weibo, WeChat, on various forums, and on apps of all sizes . At this time, you may need a professional public opinion monitoring platform to help you keep abreast of corporate information and warn of negative reports about the company.

Source: Meihua.com MICE Li Xu