Why is the public relations of that video website so "capricious"?

Yes, when you see this title, you must think of that company. Yes, it is this one. I will not go into details about the recent article "Youth should not be bullied" and the dream of a 19-year-old child. I believe everyone has already seen various versions over the weekend. However, the two big companies involved in this incident, one of which is already listed and the other is an Internet company that is about to go public, do not seem to be so willing to admit the plagiarism of a child's creativity. Especially for the best supporting actor in the incident, Youku, when we all despise the poor public relations of this largest video website, are we thinking about a very simple question: Why are they so willful in public relations? Perhaps, it has a lot to do with a company's willful public relations ability, or the style in its bones.

Restore the 48-hour dynamics of Youku PR Department

Why not, let's first restore the dynamics of Youku's public relations department in the past two days, which will make things clearer.

On November 29, 2014, @NIKOEDWARDS published an article titled "Youth Should Not Be Bullied" on its WeChat public account, which received more than a million hits within 48 hours.

On November 29, 2014, neither Youku nor Momo responded;

On November 30, 2014, @NIKOEDWARDS posted the same article on Weibo - "Young people should not be bullied";

On November 30, 2014, four hours after @NIKOEDWARDS posted the relevant content on Weibo, Momo and Youku made their first statement (Youku's statement was considered too official and cold), with a completely different style, but it had been nearly 24 hours since the incident.

At 21:34 on the evening of November 30, 2014, Youku once again released a piece of content called "Calling the Youth" in an attempt to impress the 19-year-old boy;

On November 30, 2014, various articles suddenly appeared online, questioning whether the 19-year-old boy was self-promoting and that he did not have copyright, and even pointed the finger at another supporting character, Momo;

On December 1, 2014, Youku issued an apology and removed the video content, but did not admit to copyright infringement. The content was accused of being insincere. It had been more than 48 hours since the release of "Young and Dangerous".

On December 2, 2014, Youku’s apology statement was interpreted and ridiculed by all parties.

What mistakes did Youku’s public relations department make?

Obviously, Youku's public relations department failed to meet the standards in terms of response speed and reply methods. The public relations industry has a 24-hour rule, which means that in the Internet age, 24 hours is the limit for the speed of a company's response to a crisis, because a "scandal" will spread to every corner of the world within 24 hours, so companies should activate the crisis management mechanism and make preparations within 24 hours after learning of the crisis (from the concept of "24-hour rule" on Baidu Encyclopedia).

Both Youku and Momo made a basic mistake here. They ignored the 24-hour public relations principle and did not handle the situation properly in the first place. As a result, the crisis became more and more serious. On December 1, which happened to be a Monday, a large number of media found such good material and of course they were unwilling to let it go. The follow-up reports made Youku exhausted. In fact, Youku tried to use the content of "Calling the Youth" on November 30 to redeem its mistakes, but it was obvious that the incident had been paid attention to and infinitely magnified by public opinion and users, and there was no way to resolve it. However, if Youku handled the follow-up properly, there would be a chance for a turnaround, but Youku's approach was once again surprising.

Second, the apology lacked sincerity and became a lie. Youku’s public relations left two statements and an apology letter to @NIKOEDWARDS and us, but the first statement was simply written by an elementary school student. If it weren’t for Momo’s rather literary statement, Youku’s first statement wouldn’t have seemed so low, but the comparison shows the difference.

Third, the handling method is not convincing. Let’s look at a recent crisis public relations case. During the Double Eleven period, Alibaba’s Tmall collectively wore angel sweatshirts for publicity. However, according to a report by a certain online store owner, the wing sweatshirts worn by the Tmall store assistants were fake. Alibaba then made an urgent statement, announcing that “in addition to sealing up these 300 sweatshirts, Alibaba will buy all the inventory (49 pieces) of the designer’s Tmall store as compensation.” Here we can see that when a company makes a mistake, it needs a reasonable solution, not just an apology statement.

Why is Youku so willful?

So, the question is: Why is Youku so willful? I have been talking about this with some friends who work in public relations these days. I personally think that if I were to rate Youku's public relations approach, I'd give it 60 points. You must despise my rating, and perhaps some people think that Youku's performance should be negative, and it would be more appropriate to get out. But you haven't thought carefully, is there no reason for Youku to be so willful in public relations?

I have always felt that a company's corporate culture determines the approach of its public relations department. For example, why are Alibaba and 360's public relations styles praised by the industry? In fact, in addition to their own reaction speed and proper handling, they have a lot to do with the behavior of the company's leaders. Jack Ma is good at using Tai Chi culture to achieve great results with a little effort, and Zhou Hongyi can defeat his opponents with blitzkrieg. These are the marks they have left on the public relations departments of their companies, but what about Youku? Here I would like to make some unwarranted speculations, hoping that they will not be misunderstood by people with ulterior motives. Just treat it as my own speculation. Youku's CEO Gu Yongqiang is good at maneuvering capital and has huge strength in the capital market, which was clearly demonstrated when he worked for Sohu before. According to my understanding, the current vice president of Youku's public relations department is Chen Danqing, who previously worked for Lenovo's public relations department. The styles of the two are almost all regular military methods. For the Internet industry known for innovation and subversion, perhaps the two are not advantages in external public relations. I will not expand on this here.

For ordinary public relations, when a crisis occurs, an official statement is issued and then an apology letter is issued, which basically solves the problem. This is the ordinary public relations method, and perhaps the method that Youku is best at. From this perspective, Youku's public relations behavior this time is absolutely qualified, because from the perspective of the thinking of traditional large companies, the first step in responding to any crisis public relations is to handle it in a low-key manner, keep things quiet, and wait for the development of things to respond. The best way is to remain unchanged in the face of changes. However, for the ever-changing Internet and Internet companies, this is obviously the lowest solution. No company wants a potential crisis to become negative, but it cannot break through the traditional model in its handling. Perhaps this is the reason why Youku seems to be so willful.

There is no perfect PR person, only a PR department that is constantly criticized.

In fact, I can fully understand the difficulties of the public relations industry. Public relations is the most difficult profession in China, no doubt about it. I think if I evaluate the public relations practitioners of major Internet companies in this way, at least 50% of people should agree. What about the other half? They will tell me that it is actually the most difficult profession in the universe!

For public relations, it is related to all external image issues such as a company's brand, reputation, influence, etc., but how to be able to control and turn hostility into friendship when a crisis comes is the dream of every public relations person. However, under heavy pressure, the public relations department of each company will inevitably make mistakes. When we are working on technology and products and see those public relations colleagues every day, do we feel that they have not done anything but have caused a lot of trouble? They can all come up with a set of seemingly reasonable solutions, but in times of crisis, there will never be a perfect public relations person, only a public relations department that is constantly scolded when problems arise, because that is not a problem that can be solved by code. A solution made within tens of minutes or hours is the highest realm of any company's public relations department, and it is something that can only be encountered by chance, and there is no such thing as a permanent 100 points.

Perhaps, the capricious public relations department is around you and me, but this time, a company's rigorous and conventional approach has become the target of public criticism.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.