Author: Lao Gu, well-known financial writer
After something happened to Haitian Soy Sauce, something happened to Li Ning !
On October 17, the stock price of the famous sports brand "Li Ning" plummeted 13% during the session. This plunge may be closely related to a newly launched clothing by Li Ning Company.
Recently, a new product of Li Ning’s winter clothing was launched and released.
This product is considered by some netizens to be imitating Japanese military uniforms.
was in a panic, and for a moment, doubts and jokes were flying all over the sky.
Among them, the most widely circulated joke is "I treat Li Ning as a domestic product, but he treats me as a colonel". Some people even found out that the current president of Li Ning's company is a Japanese Chinese, and they also regarded this as an attack point.
Subsequently, Li Ning's executive Feng Ye posted a response on WeChat Moments, but he did not expect that his response further intensified the conflict.
Many netizens commented on this reply, "Do I need you to educate me?", believing that Li Ning does not respect consumers.
01
Is Li Ning unjust?
In fact, only looking at the clothes produced by Li Ning himself, I believe that a few people can think of Japanese military uniforms; but if someone puts Japanese military uniforms next to Li Ning's new clothing, the two can indeed find a lot of connections. There are two key reasons for
, one is the closeness of colors. Although dark green is different from military uniforms, it is still green and easily associated. Secondly, this ear protection. As long as the hat is equipped with ear protection, it will be close to the Japanese military uniform.
For example, does the following product look like a Japanese military cap? It looks very similar in appearance.
But compared with the real Japanese military uniforms in the picture below, at least in terms of hats, Li Ning's product is quite different from it.
Winter clothing and ear protection can prevent wind and cold. In terms of function, this design is not outrageous.
It can even be said that as long as you have ear protection, you can find a place close to the Japanese military cap. With such a design, it is believed that Li Ning is producing "Japanese military uniforms" and his persuasiveness is relatively weak. I think there are at least these possibilities for this kind of public opinion:
One of them is that there are some people in the public opinion field who hold hammers to hit nails. They only have a political correctness in their hearts, they are suspicious of everything, and they are censoring companies online. Anything that has something to do with it can be criticized. Of course, many of these people participate in the hype for traffic.
Second, maybe there is a competitor who deliberately makes trouble.
Because for most people, the most important thing for everyone is to be busy with the work at hand, so how can they have so much time to focus on the company's products and find faults. I believe that ordinary people can do it by turning product flaws into big public opinion related to politics and making companies a big hat of traitors selling the country and pro-Japanese.
Third, Li Ning has always labeled himself as national and national trends in brand promotion, and has captured the hearts of some patriotic consumers.
Because of this, after the launch of the product suspected of imitating Japanese military uniforms, these consumers suddenly felt that they were deceived and were very injured, so the joke "colonel" quickly spread.
For this point, it is not particularly unfair to Li Ning be scolded, because you started by playing patriotism, of course you have to be more careful in this area.
02
Why can a small matter be so big?
First, online public opinion is a fission-like growth public opinion mechanism.
The influence of traditional media is often limited by its circulation and distribution location. An explosive news is often the result of the continuous dissemination of many traditional media.
But the online public opinion is different. A small flame may form an exponential fission development direction in the network.
The more well-known the company is, the stronger the fission is.
Because as long as it is a well-known company, the chance of jumping out of countless information in various social circles is very high. Who said you are already well-known?
Therefore, the larger the company, the more likely it is to cause public opinion storms.
Second, negative news is easier to spread.
Good things don’t go out, bad things go through thousands of miles. For a content full of positive energy, such as a charity event that a company has conducted, it is difficult to spread on a large scale. On the contrary, if it is a bad thing or a negative news, it is more likely to be spread.
Because people prefer to see bad things, it can drive people's emotions and participate in communication actions.
In the WeChat group, you rarely see news dissemination of any company that has achieved what achievements. What you can see is almost a collection of all kinds of negative news.
Third, rare phenomena are more likely to spread.
You should know that dog bites people is not news, people bites dogs is news .
As a domestic brand, Li Ning is often a representative of national brands, which forms a strong contrast with the imitation of Japanese military uniforms and is easier to spread.
Fourth, people like to express their positions by spreading negative news.
It is even painful to not express your opinion in specific incidents like Li Ning.
Are you not patriotic? I wanted to defend Li Ning, but I felt that some criticism was really unreasonable, but because it involved patriotism or not, I chose to shut up.
If you defend it, you will often face moral accusations. There is no profit, but there is a loss. Then it is better to use this kind of news to express your same moral sense. Social networking like
is safer.
So, you will see that there are actually many similar events.
But the brand's sales did not suffer much impact, or they recovered after being impacted, because people's verbal positions and actual actions are not so consistent.
When people consume real money, they will obey their hearts more, rather than being completely influenced by online public opinion.
Of course, I am not saying that Chinese companies should not pay attention to this matter. On the contrary, I want to say that Chinese companies should pay more attention to current public opinion than ever.
03
How enterprises deal with the complex online world
When you understand the mechanism of the above-mentioned public opinion dissemination, you will find that to deal with these public opinion, enterprises must have a keen sense of the Internet.
Some people say that companies should apologize quickly and bow to consumers. Is that true? Of course not.
Because this kind of public opinion is dominated by emotions, not because the company makes an unforgivable mistake. What the company needs to do the most is to comfort the emotions.
apology is to think that the company is wrong, so you can't bow your head easily. But not bowing your head does not mean you have to confront consumers. The statement of the Seasoning Association is to directly argue about public opinion. This method of quarrel has pushed the incident to a greater climax.
states that the creativity of the product comes from the hat-shaped helmet, which is traditional Chinese clothing, which has explained the source of inspiration.
Then explain that in order to calm public opinion, the product will be removed from the shelves.
does not admit his mistakes hasty, but at the same time, it can show weakness under the situation, which can arouse a counterattack from another part of public opinion. If you act too strongly, another group of network opinion leaders in the public will not have the desire to protect you.
Just relying on the guns of a corporate public relations department, you will not have any advantage in the noisy online public opinion.
And the more you fight, the more energetic the other party is. What netizens who are ruthless are energy, time and trash talk.
The more you fight, the better the more you play, the more intense they forward and spread the situation, making small things bigger, and the end the company suffers real losses.
04
Online public opinion is a new world
Traditional media has declined, and it is the case all over the world.
The traditional media model is that journalists pursue objective truth, and then experts in various fields comment on it, and the boundaries between news and comments are clear. But online media are different.
Online public opinion often has a strong subjective value bias at the starting point of events. It even precedes the facts and leads the facts by emotions.
It is difficult for companies to predict the outbreak of the incident because it is not issued by the process of review by traditional media reporters, editors and editors, but can launch public opinion attacks by any person.
. The initiator does not talk about the facts first and then comment. It is often driven by strong emotions, and can detonate the Internet in a short time as soon as it appears.
cater to emotions first rather than discussing facts first, which is often the key to ignite online public opinion. At this time, they are information products that satisfy emotional value to the audience.
Whether Li Ning’s product imitates Japanese military uniforms is not important at all. It is important to forward this incident to prove that he is patriotism.
Globally, the power of traditional media has been declining, and most people receive information through online media. Traditional authoritative experts also disappeared, replaced by countless small online opinion leaders.
No matter how authoritative experts and scholars are, they may be scolded on the Internet. People no longer believe in traditional authoritative experts, and the expert system used by many traditional media to calm disputes is also disintegrating.
Li Ning's response is actually an expert response, which is high-ranking, unearthly, and even less understanding of online public opinion.
How to survive better in the new online public opinion, attach importance to understanding online public opinion, and learn about the differences in crisis public relations in the Internet era, this is a difficult problem facing Chinese entrepreneurs.
