Lessons of “Gangsterdom PR” (Part 2)

Author：He Lun, IIA' s Co-Chief Content Officer, Deputy Head of IIA Academy of Auto

Automobile hot topic Q&A (Ep.184)

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Q: The establishment of the "China Auto Industry Self-discipline Alliance" gives people the feeling that it is aimed at Geely. Some people think that this is mainly due to the envy and hatred of Geely. What’s your comment?

A: There is some truth to this. Since Geely has become the NO.1 self-developed brand, it is very natural for the “special care” of the peers and the media. I remembered 10 years ago, Toyota’s PR director, Riko, once told me that Toyota is like a tall tree that catches much wind in Japan, because it is a big company.

However, in this incident, it doesn't make any sense to say that these enterprises trying to slander Geely is to vent their envy. In fact, these companies have been complaining about "Gangsterdom PR" for a long time, and most of them blame Geely. For instance, two years ago, FAW Pentium complained about the attack of "Geely’s Internet trolls”. One WeChat moment was widely spread in the industry. FAW is a big state-owned enterprise with inherent arrogance. Although its self-developed brand business is far worse than Geely, it is not logical for FAW to deliberately provoke Geely.

Q: But so far, no one can provide the most direct evidence that this incident is made by Geely.

A: That's right. It is too difficult to get direct evidence of any relationship between the Internet trolls and relevant company. It requires judicial intervention and the cooperation from the relevant media. But the battle online of the Internet trolls is a reality. It is not difficult to distinguish who is right from who is wrong. Even if all the companies are deploying Internet trolls, however, after one side won, and the rest parties said that they would prefer forming an alliance rather than confrontation. This could also be called a progress, a good start.

As the one implied in this incident, Geely should be first introspect and self-examine. Even if they didn't find any problems, they should be low-key. Especially as a big company, being low-key is crucial. Unfortunately, Geely failed to do this.

For example, after the senior manager of Geely Automobile Products Public Relations Department saw they were blamed by Land Wind executives, he responded on Weibo ironically. On one side, this response means that Geely claimed the name of "Gangsterdom PR", on the other hand, it is also deliberately challenging and stimulating each other, attracting further counterattacks from Land Wind executives and positioning Geely a more passive situation.

For example, Yang Xueliang, the vice president of Geely, responsible for PR affairs, was the person on the cusp of this incident. He should be cautious in his words. But he didn’t. First of all, he said that the screenshot "The green part is screenshotted by the Wechat owner....” There are obvious loopholes, as I mentioned before.

In addition, when reposting the police report of the Hangzhou Police, it added a comment that "以正视听, means to ensure a correct understanding of the facts ", which seemed that things have been made clear, and there is nothing about Geely. But in fact, the police report did not give any conclusions on the most critical issues such as the identity, motives of the suspect and black hands behind the curtain. When reposting such notices, it is best not to say anything, or say it objectively. Sometimes, someone who eagers to disentangle himself from one incident usually be seemed more suspicious.

In addition, as for his attitude towards the establishment of the “China Auto Industry Self-discipline Alliance”, his repost and like of a media person's comments on Weibo can imply: "Make a good product is better than anything else." This is true, but in the context of this sensitive situation, the subtext of this sentence will be understood as: Just a group of weak car manufacturers is getting together. Soft... What’s more, some comments under this Weibo also say so. Isn't this adds fuel to the fire?

I think Yang’s best statement on Weibo about this incident is: “Let the law decide!” No disputes, no clear position, confident, conciseness, and no ambiguity. But he said too much after that.

Therefore, in crisis management, the company that is accused must be low-key, the spokesperson must be cautious, every word must be carefully considered, especially in social media, for it is to avoid the misunderstanding of the general public as much as possible, and to avoid further intensification of contradictions, no matter how much you feel. This is another lesson that the incident has left to the industry.

Q: Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group, said in his internal remarks about the incident: I think that what is real must be true. We must be confident in our work, and not to argue with them on the Internet. We can't care too much about people saying a few bad words about us... High-profile is not equal to self-confidence, while low-key does not mean incompetence. Customer satisfaction is our fundamental pursuit. What is your comment?

A: Li Shufu's judgment was quite accurate, but the situation was unfortunate in his case. Geely was too high-profile, especially when the PR department exposure Li Shufu's internal remarks, leading to more controversy. This is another major lesson in this incident, that is how the chairman should behave in this kind of crisis.