The Internet has never been short of water wars. But recently, a Weibo post by Luo Yonghao single-handedly brought three well-known consumer brands into public opinion.
On September 12, Luo Yonghao posted on Weibo that after trying Mr. Savage’s ice cream at the airport, he found it “very average, and even unpalatable considering the price.” He also mentioned the former top star Zhong Xuegao, “It feels much more unpalatable than Zhong Xuegao. I miss Zhong Xuegao.”
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What is surprising is that after this Weibo post quickly became popular, the style of painting in the comment area was surprisingly consistent. A large number of netizens flooded the comment area with the famous quote “Don’t answer” from the science fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem”.
A year ago, also in September, Xibei was criticized by Luo Yonghao for its pre-made dishes. Xibei Chairman Jia Guolong chose to be tough, which caused public opinion to overturn and the company finally issued a letter of apology. Netizens used it as a textbook admonishment.
With one complaint, Mr. Savage, who was criticized in the front, Zhong Xuegao, who was compared, and Xibei, who was used as a negative example, all three brands stood in the spotlight of public opinion.
Same names, different fates
As the center of this storm, Mr. Savage seems to be listening to the advice of netizens.
Two days after the incident, “Mr. Savage, cold treatment” went directly to the top of Weibo’s hot searches. Faced with Luo Yonghao’s roll call, Mr. Yeren did not immediately launch a public rebuttal. Only customer service said to the media that “relevant issues will be recorded and fed back to the leadership.”
What’s even more dramatic is that Luo Yonghao’s rant brought surging traffic to Mr. Savage.
According to reports, on September 13, Mr. Savage’s official video account gained nearly 30,000 followers in a single day, and the cumulative number of followers in the past 30 days exceeded 400,000. The brand WeChat index once soared by 579.29%.
It was not until September 16 that Mr. Savage officially issued a message on the official channel, saying, “We will listen carefully to the opinions and suggestions of our customers, strive to do better, and bring more delicious Oriental Gelato to consumers.” He ended the discussion with a relatively restrained attitude.
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If Mr. Savage unexpectedly caught a sudden wave of traffic during the turmoil, then Zhong Xuegao, who Luo Yonghao said was used as a benchmark, ushered in a real turning point in fate in reality.
Just when the outside world thought that this former “ice cream Hermès” had completely come to an end, on September 14, the National Enterprise Bankruptcy and Reorganization Case Information Network announced that 508 intangible assets of Zhong Xuegao Company had been officially transferred to the name of the buyer.
Then on September 16, at the 28th China Ice Cream Industry Expo, the Zhong Xuegao brand officially announced its restart, and brought flavored products such as light milk, velvet cocoa, and semi-semi-qiaoqiao. Different from the high price positioning of 13 yuan to 20 yuan in the past, the recommended retail price of its first batch of products expected to be launched in the fourth quarter of this year has been significantly reduced to 6.9 yuan to 7.9 yuan.
The former representative of high-end ice cream finally chose to return to the mass market with a significant price reduction.
The reality of Xibei, who was not directly named by Luo Yonghao but was mentioned repeatedly in the comment area, is equally complicated.
The reason why netizens urged Mr. Savage to “don’t answer” is precisely because Xibei’s previous overreaction in the face of controversy caused the incident to continue to ferment and had a substantial impact on Xibei’s operations.
Just recently, it was revealed that Xibei was in arrears with the compensation of some resigned employees, and even offered a plan to postpone payment until 2028 with 8% interest. While funds are under pressure, in order to stabilize terminal operations and cash flow, Xibei is still promoting the opening of new offline stores as planned.
One year has passed, and the Internet memory left by Xibei due to the public opinion storm has not completely disappeared, and the business challenges it has encountered since then are still continuing.
When a brand is named
The three brands that were linked by Luo Yonghao’s complaints have found themselves in completely different situations, which makes people start to think: when KOLs with huge traffic suddenly make comments related to personal experiences about brands and products, how do brands deal with it?
Yao Suxin, a senior public relations practitioner and the chief writer of “In Public Relations”, analyzed from the perspective of brand public relations. Usually when measuring whether a negative evaluation requires a response, the primary consideration is not “who said it”, but “what” the other party said.
In other words, the most important thing is not that Luo Yonghao said this sentence, but what Luo Yonghao said. Yao Suxin said that the “unpalatable” and “expensive” Mr. Savage mentioned by Luo Yonghao essentially belong to the category of personal experience. The authenticity cannot be verified through objective facts, and there is no fulcrum that requires legal rights protection.
In the early morning of September 16, Luo Yonghao posted on Weibo to talk about relevant content. Picture/Weibo
Under normal circumstances, if it involves food safety or product factual issues, companies must quickly clarify. However, as for subjective experience, even in the face of a highly influential person like Luo Yonghao, it only needs to be regarded as a reasonable expression of consumers, and brands should not try to clean up or be overly confrontational.
Lin Qian, the public relations and marketing director of a leading public relations company that has long served consumer goods companies, agreed.
Lin Qian believes that unlike incidents involving information asymmetry, the prices and tastes of consumer goods vary from person to person. On the premise that the company itself has no hard violations or safety issues, it is difficult to characterize this as a vicious public relations crisis, but more of an emergency incident.
“If handled properly, it can actually make the brand known to more potential consumers and achieve objective recognition. This time, Mr. Savage’s natural popularity is obviously there.” Lin Qian said.
Even for Mr. Savage, who has given the latest official response, Lin Qian said that the brand’s public statement without substantive confrontational content is actually a reasonable continuation of the cold treatment.
However, Yao Suxin also reminded that brands need to be cautious when facing sudden public opinion dividends. Excessively taking advantage of the situation or prematurely converting public emotional attention into traffic realization can sometimes easily lead to a re-examination of business motives by the outside world.
More importantly, if we look beyond the public relations perspective of whether to answer and how to answer, there may be more issues worth discussing behind this storm.
Zhu Danpeng, vice president of the Guangdong Provincial Food Safety Promotion Association and a food industry analyst, said that the reason why a comment from a KOL like Luo Yonghao can trigger so many online discussions is that there is a social background that cannot be ignored. That is, China’s fast-moving consumer goods and catering industries are currently entering a new cycle in which cost-effectiveness and quality-price ratio must be balanced.
“Behind the price-performance ratio, there must be quality-price ratio as the support, and the realization of quality-price ratio cannot be separated from the perception of cost-effectiveness. The two may seem contradictory, but they must be integrated in the current market.”
Zhu Danpeng pointed out that there are natural differences in the cognitive dimensions of brands, quality and value among consumers in different circles. The personal evaluation of KOLs cannot directly determine the market outcome of a brand. However, whether it is the quality requirements of high-net-worth individuals or the balance between price and experience among mass consumers, the market is becoming more pragmatic and picky.
In the final analysis, Luo Yonghao’s complaints are just a pebble thrown into the field of Internet public opinion. Whether it is Mr. Savage who has caught the traffic, Zhong Xuegao who has cut prices and restarted, or Xibei who continues to open stores despite financial pressure, they must return to the most real market after the hustle and bustle.
