Firewalls and menial work

Absrtact: At this time last year, Yang, general manager of Booz US PR consulting company, talked to reporters about Mengniu's early market and the development strategy of the factory. A year later, the sound is still in the ear, but Yang phone can no longer dial

At this time last year, boss US public relations consulting company General Manager Yang with reporters about Mengniu early "first market, after the factory" development strategy is worth rethinking, had such a rhetorical question.

A year later, the sound in the ear, but Yang phone can no longer dial.

Boss us, the company claiming to be in Mengniu dairy from 1116 to the "China first" process, "provides a deep and important PR consultant support" of the PR firm, and finally with its big customers mengniu together, deeply trapped in an unprecedented "public relations crisis".

From October 19 to a micro-blog, and then to October 22, the Inner Mongolian police only 3 minutes of the press conference, the following information was confirmed: The police to file a case for reconnaissance An Yong (Inner Mongolia Mengniu Co., Ltd. Market two future stars in charge) with the Beijing Booz US PR Consulting Co., Ltd. Zhaoning, Liping, Mano and Beijing Desprie Network Marketing Consulting Co., Ltd. Li Youping, Zhang Ming and other people, through the forum, blog, wiki questions and so on a variety of forms on the network published a number of articles on Yili QQ star Milk food defamation, suspected damage to commercial reputation of the crime case of merchandise reputation.

Booz US company after 10 years of development, has not been a general public relations circles. Since 2008, it has provided public relations and Conference advisory support to the Boao Forum for Asia for two consecutive years. At the end of 2009, also become the Guangzhou International Friends City Congress (UCLG) public relations consultant support. At this time, Yang fly again, the former CCTV "Focus interview" of the Mirror reporter, often and friends talk about the hardships of the early years of entrepreneurship, see now the company's expanding size, not to be seen.

But all this may be due to Mengniu "PR door" event on a question mark.

In the local government mediation, Mengniu and Yili's saliva station temporarily closed, but its local public relations industry sting still deep fermentation. China's local public relations industry is accompanied by the development of private enterprises gradually grow, because of this, Mengniu "PR door" incident stabbed not only the public relations industry, and even the entire commercial soil of the dark ulcer.

In order to repay evil

For Booz us, this year is the 10th year of the company's establishment, its development trajectory and the main customers are the same as the dairy industry, the early years of hardship, 2005 before and after entering a rapid expansion period, the situation is excellent. Among them, boss US's employees and China's dairy industry have experienced countless big and small disturbances.

A resigned boss US staff is a bit sad about the experience of the old club, "in fact, the industry to do so (attacking competitors) is very common, but someone was caught, some people are smart not found." "This is a common problem in the industry," the employee told the Chinese entrepreneur.

Not only the employee, the Economist has asked more than 10 employees in different public relations companies or corporate public relations departments, these industries, including consumer goods, retail, electronics, automobiles and other foreign-funded enterprises, their answer is surprisingly consistent. Respondents said they knew or heard about it, and even their own company had been subjected to hostile attacks from rivals. But when our correspondent tries to verify the details, few people are willing to give an accurate factual description.

"The Mengniu incident can be substantiated and exposed because of police involvement," said a dairy company's PR employee. Often, she says, FMCG companies are unwilling to touch the judicial process because of this. One reason is that the judicial process is time-consuming and costly, and a consumer new product life cycle is often very short, and so on after the lawsuit is finished may be early in the market disappeared. Another reason is that when attackers use BBS postings in this way to attack, in itself is to walk on the edge of the law. In particular, the attack is a lot of consumer tone to appear, so that the law enforcement department is difficult to distinguish.

At this time, enterprises often have two choices: one is "endure", until the truth, the day of the facts. But some local PR company employees believe that the premise is: The company has strong financial strength and brand support. For some companies in the start-up phase may not be applicable, because it may be a product of the company's full lifeline.

Another way to deal with it is to "reap evil". Mengniu in response to the "public relations door" incident, in the company's statement to recall seven years ago, Yili attack Mengniu "not late" incident. However, an eye for a tooth, often brings about the intensification of contradictions.

Above the boss us before the staff also pointed out that, although Mengniu, Yili high level may not be "malicious against competitors" mastermind, but the dairy industry fierce competition, responsible for specific business staff under the performance and market pressure, often with the relationship between competitors as fire and fire. This, of course, affects the public relations company that serves it, "We are educated to demonize competitors." ”

In the Chinese dairy market and even the entire FMCG market, at present many companies are meager profit status, sales volume is very large, but the view of its financial statements, net profit is not high, at the same time the investment in marketing costs has been increasing rapidly. In the end of the market, a variety of marketing tools in endlessly, in order to compete for consumers. Marketing of the pros and cons even become the company's core competitiveness, dairy enterprises in the early days of marketing as the main line of the development model should reflect-this is also the beginning of this article on the "Mengniu model" and Yang debate the focus.

Behind the marketing drive is the product homogeneity of the serious. In this case, sometimes the marketing driven by a large number of market input, and can not effectively stimulate real business sales growth and profitability, but increased the cost of capital. When the price war and a variety of marketing activities can not be conquer, if the commercial war must have a "life-and-death", which pointed to the other side of the product has "quality problem" is the method of the drastic measures.

After the formation of this "Life-and-death" competition thinking, the local enterprises in the face of negative events, the first response is to habitually find "behind the hand", while the thinking of foreign-funded companies is different. For example, when reunification and the farmer Mountain Spring Encounter "detection gate" incident, farmer spring reaction is fierce, claiming that he was framed by his opponents, and vowed to spend a huge sum of money to find "behind the scenes", and the unified group only repeatedly reiterated that the state's relevant testing departments "mistaken", only based on their own excuses, not to comment more. It turned out that the two companies were wronged.

"China entrepreneur," said Zhang Manhua, managing director of Ogilvy PR China, in the long run, companies should be "calm down" in the face of such negative news, find opportunities to make positive noises, and seek help from industry associations and government departments. Do not attack opponents or both sides to scold, the whole industry "dragged down", In the minds of consumers to form a negative assessment of the industry as a whole.

She pointed out that in some Chinese and consumer-linked industries, because of fierce competition, the attack of a product may be lost in the short term, "Yes, a product life cycle is very short, but for a business, ultimately to protect not the product, but your brand." "Maybe the consumer will forget or call out the name of a product after the event, but if a company does something that violates the ethics of the business, consumers will always remember the negative impact of the brand and the company, which is the most unwise."

Similarly, for a PR company, what really matters is its own brand, not the unconditional accommodation of the client to develop the business. She said that the Austrian United States can not appear to us such things, in addition to regulatory constraints, more importantly, "We spent many years, just hard to accumulate a brand of Ogilvy, if done such a thing, the company's reputation is gone, customers will compensate you?" No, so it's not for you. ”

Firewalls and menial work

As for the media report mentioned Yang again fly "Mengniu Boss assistant" identity, China International Public Relations Association Deputy Secretary-General Chen Xiangyang pointed out, "This is a serious violation!" PR companies, like law firms, belong to service intermediaries and need ' firewalls ' between customers. ”

However, according to our reporter retained by the boss of Booz US company's business card, in this company, not only Yang to fly a person who has the aid of "President assistant" as Mengniu President Yang out work, visitors.

According to people familiar with the situation, Mengniu is not only the first customer of us, but also its largest customer. In the past two years, Booz us has tried to expand its customers ' resources and try to diversify its business, but the story of Mengniu is the most noteworthy case of the company, its spiritual dependence more than financial needs.

However, the former boss of us, mentioned above, denies that "trust" is the root cause of the problem. The other party believes that many PR companies, especially media journalists, have started their own business in the early years by one or two of clients. Even when some foreign companies have just entered China, they are also relying on several major customers from overseas to maintain their business, so the service binding relationship between the customer and the PR company is "very normal", after all, "the longer the service, the more understanding, why change?"

Whether this binding means accommodating clients ' improper demands and losing their professional bottom line is another problem. Although the local PR companies surveyed generally do not feel that the company's big customers than their own strong position. But because of the double restriction of the profit model and the business ability, the local PR company is in the buyer's market when facing the customer's demand.

For the business type of the PR company, the summary of the respondents can be divided into two categories: "strategy" and "execution".

"Strategic" business mainly includes the company's brand positioning and management, including helping enterprises to formulate long-term brand awareness strategy; Implementation of "Business including the implementation of the brand strategy, such as various online and offline activities, but also a specific product marketing and promotion, as well as corporate news release and media communication." A PR firm that usually makes strategic inquiries is like a gold lawyer, who receives an hourly fee, or a long-term cooperation agreement with a customer, and a monthly service charge. And most local PR companies, mainly in the "implementation" of the business level to obtain profits. For example, a PR company organizes a press conference or a product promotion activity, the customer calculates the remuneration according to the actual number of dispatches; if it is a network marketing-some of which meet the needs of customers to use malicious attacks against their competitors, they are paid according to the number of postings.

Industry insiders pointed out that the profit of Booz us, a bit like doctors prescribe medicine. "The doctor itself is not valuable, the drug can be used to collect more money, so doctors can only prescribe more medicine." "According to their estimates, Booz us one-fifth of the number of posts has been enough to drown Yili, why also ask the network Navy to send so many posts on the Internet?-to make money.

There were people in the industry who likened "strategy" and "execution" to the relationship between the brain and the hand. But not every PR company has the ability to be someone else's brain.

From the enterprise level, but also tend to according to different levels of public relations needs, the business decomposition outsourced to different types of public relations companies. Employ the strength of the big public Relations company responsible for corporate image and brand of long-term publicity, with each other long-term cooperation agreement. And in the face of unexpected events or specific business, and then invite more public relations companies to participate.

For example, since 2008, has served the Pfizer acquisition of Wyeth, the British Bo acquisition ab Bogins thinking is gome long-term consultancy company, but after the contradictions between Gome management and Huang Yu intensified, August 2010 Gome has also invited the successful handling of Skyworth Hongsheng crisis PR of the Long Culture Communication Co., Ltd. to participate in it-the company itself is Wanglaoji behind the company's perennial consultant. According to the Division of labor, Longwen is responsible for positive communication with domestic public opinion. Long Wen PR for the United States to set a "restore the facts, establish standards," the character, to avoid the other employed by the network Navy into a deeper, meaningless war of words.

For some companies with strong PR teams and brand control capabilities, the PR business they outsource is often just a specific marketing campaign, because of the lack of manpower to find a PR company to help; some core jobs (including brand management, leadership interviews, important news releases, etc.) are still being done by the company's PR. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Wal-Mart, domestic suning appliances and so on in this column. These companies feel that their employees understand the situation of the enterprise more deeply and more easily control the process and effect of the work.

A story in the circle is: a domestic first-class public relations company to a domestic retail leader "marking" (talk about business), mentioned that the most successful one of the activities of the year is more than 100 effective. Behold the other party's public relations director smiled, said, we have an activity, the media effective press the highest record is 600.

All of the local PR firms seeking long-term development want to get rid of this "menial" dilemma. Longwen General Manager Xiachonghi that the development of public relations companies can be divided into three stages: the early years of the public relations companies are resource-oriented, the most important resource is the media, such companies are not long-term competitiveness; the second stage began to appear in the management of a standardized system of companies, while providing product diversification, Can be targeted at different industries customers different needs, to provide standardized services; The third stage is the capitalization of the PR company. "At present 90% of the local companies remain in the first and second stages," he said. ”

"In the overall relationship chain, all the participants must be held accountable." What kind of business ethics, what kind of social environment, the vacancy in laws and regulations, and how to supervise dereliction of duty are the factors that lead to the occurrence of such vicious events. "Chen Xiangyang said. In some ways, the "truce" between Mengniu and Yili is only a temporary cover-up of the "toxic assets" of the business system. (Fang, Chinese corporate journalist)