Inside the War Against China's Blogs

Vengeful bloggers? Flaming posts? PR firms help global brands navigate the country's perilous Web

BEIJING - It had the makings of an online crisis that could spiral out of control. A man in Tianjin had put a deposit on a Toyota (TM) Corolla, then started venting on the Internet when the car failed to show up after three months. Given the anti-Japan sentiment that rages in China's cyberspace, the griping created a big risk for Toyota—something the company learned four years ago when it was attacked for ads seen as disrespectful to Chinese.

Enter Daqi.com. The Beijing-based firm spotted the disgruntled consumer's postings in one of the 500,000 online forums it regularly searches. Before the topic could draw much attention, Daqi put the buyer in touch with Toyota, which pressed its dealer to deliver the car. "Even one negative consumer comment online can end up influencing many customers," says Zhou Chunlan, Daqi's CEO. "This is a great challenge for global brands." A public-relations agency representing Toyota says the company has worked with Daqi but declined to address the specifics of this incident.

Daqi is one of a new breed of company that helps multinationals navigate China's perilous Web. Nike, (NKE) PepsiCo (PEP), McDonald's (MCD), French cosmetics maker L'Oréal (LRLCY), and others have hired the likes of Daqi, fellow Beijing outfit Chinese Web Union, and Shanghai-based CIC. These companies charge $500-$25,000 monthly to monitor postings and squelch negative information or to create positive buzz.

This year has brought the Net monitors plenty of opportunities to win clients as hot-tempered bloggers have attacked global companies for perceived slights to Chinese culture. Coca-Cola (KO) and French retailer Carrefour were lambasted for what was seen as support for Tibetan independence. McDonald's, KFC (YUM), and Nokia (NOK) have been tarred for allegedly being stingy with relief money after the Sichuan earthquake. And Citroën had to apologize for an ad featuring a scowling image of Chairman Mao. "If it touches on nationalism, or if the client clearly made a mistake and disrespected a customer, that's dangerous," says Sam Flemming, CIC's founder.

WINNING SYMPATHY

When online commentary turns negative, the monitors assess whether it might flare up. They figure out who's generating the criticism—an irate consumer, a nationalist teen, even a rival. Then they consider how fast the complaint is spreading, and whether it's likely to be picked up by Web portals such as Sohu and Sina. "You know it's a crisis when Sohu (SOHU) or Sina (SINA) has created a special page to collect all the news articles and aggregate comments," as they did when bloggers angry about Tibet called for a boycott of Carrefour in April, says Flemming.

The companies also can help clients win sympathy. Metersbonwe Group, a domestic apparel retailer, faced eviction from its flagship outlet in Shanghai last year when the local government wanted to replace Chinese-owned brands with big names such as Nike and Adidas (ADDDF). Daqi seeded the Net with opinions linking the issue to a simultaneous controversy over Starbucks' (SBUX) presence in Beijing's Forbidden City. While Metersbonwe ended up losing the space, Daqi says the pressure helped the retailer win a lease for a larger store. "In Internet forums we said: A Chinese brand is being pushed out while a foreign brand is still located in the Forbidden City,'" says Daqi's Zhou. "We got intense and rapid response. People were very angry." Metersbonwe confirmed that Daqi helped with the Shanghai case but declined to comment further.

Plenty of companies are willing to pay for positive spin. PR outfits hire students to write postings that boost certain brands and criticize the competition, says a staffer at a Western PR firm in Beijing. The job description of one online help-wanted ad reads: "Publicize and popularize [products] via online forums and blogs. Send at least 50 propaganda posts per day." Workers are offered 1.5 cents per post.

Chinese Web Union is candid about doing this. It pays thousands of people to write nice things about clients, and it compensates forum leaders who spread positive information and quash bad publicity, says CEO Zhong Zhaochuan. "We write out topics and give them to members to put on forums," says Zhong. That's what CWU did for a big Subaru dealer last year. The Japanese automaker had raised the ire of Netizens because its Chinese name sounds like "death to the Eighth Route army," which was perceived as insulting to a Chinese unit that battled Japan in World War II. CWU urged forum leaders to delete negative comments, then asked its writers to post positive news about Subaru, Zhong says.

Daqi and CIC say they don't pay bloggers, but both companies acknowledge pampering online opinion leaders. The Internet companies invite these people to sessions where they can test and discuss new products. CIC, for instance, introduced L'Oréal to a popular blogger on women's makeup, a twentysomething man who calls himself "big brother Nicole." The French company has invited Nicole to events for its Lancôme brand and even flew the makeup-wearing Netizen to Paris. Conventional advertising "is focused on saying: My brand is good,'" says Philippe Lamy, a vice-president at L'Oréal China. "When someone on the Internet says it—an independent voice—it's different in terms of the credibility and influence it has."

中国互联网上的公关战争

报复心强的博客作者？言辞偏激的帖子？公关公司帮助世界品牌小心航行于这个国家充满危险的网络之上。

大旗CEO周春兰：她的公司为客户追踪50万个在线论坛的舆论动向。

摄影：MarkK Leong/REDUX

【北京】：网络危机也可螺旋升级直至失去控制，一个天津市民在支付丰田公司的卡罗拉轿车的定金之后的三个月内没有收到商品，他随即在网络上发泄不满。考虑到在中国网络上激起的反日情绪，这一抱怨给丰田产生了极大的风险--四年前丰田公司因其广告被视为对中国人不敬而遭人指责，丰田公司已经从中深刻的了解到这一点。

进入DaQi.com,这家位于北京的公司定期搜索五十万个论坛，辨别出其中不满的消费者发出来的帖子，在这个话题能获得更多关注之前，大旗撮合购买者与丰田取得联系，丰田则向经销商施压，使其向买家交付汽车。“在互联网上，即使只有一个消费者的负面评论，它最终也回影响成千上万的消费者。”大旗的CEO周春兰说道。“这对世界著名品牌而言是一个巨大的挑战”。代表丰田的公共关系机构说公司已经与大旗一起合作，但是拒绝进一步说明这件事由的来龙去脉。

大旗只是帮助跨国公司在中国的极其危险的互联网上小心行事的新类型公司的其中之一，耐克，百事可乐，麦当劳，法国化妆品制造商欧莱雅，以及其他一些品牌也雇用类似大旗的机构，比如同在北京的机构中国网盟（China Web Union），以及在上海的CIC。这些公司每月收取500到2500美金的费用来帮助客户监视帖子以及压制负面消息或者制造一些正面的言论。

今年已经给网监者带来丰富的机遇来赢得客户，因为火气正旺的博客们攻击跨国公司，因为他们对于中国文化不甚了解。可口可乐以及法国零售商家乐福被严厉谴责其支持藏独的行为。麦当劳，肯德基，诺基亚因在四川地震后捐款小气而遭羞辱。而雪铁龙因其一副以毛主席的皱眉为特色的广告而不得不道歉。“如果这触及民族主义的底线，或者他的客户犯错而对顾客不敬，那是极其危险的。”CIC[2]的创始人费嘉明说道。

赢得同情

当网络评论向负面方向转变时，监测人员评估负面言论是否可能爆发。他们找出是谁发布这些批评——非理性的消费者，愤青，甚至是竞争对手。然后他们考虑这些抱怨目前传播的速度有多快、以及它们是否可能被新浪或者搜狐这些网站门户看中。“你清楚的，当搜狐或者新浪为此专门开辟一个页面来收集所有的新闻文章，聚集评论时，这就成的危机了。”费嘉明说道。四月份的时候，当博客们因西藏问题发怒，并号召抵制家乐福时，这几个门户就是这样干的。

公司也可以帮助客户赢得同情。去年当地政府想要将中国民族品牌用诸如耐克，阿迪达斯的知名品牌代替时，国内的服装零售商——美特斯邦威集团面临着被迫从上海旗舰店驱逐出去的可能。大旗在网上拟定好看法，并将其链接到与此同时正在发生的紫禁城中是否应该有星巴克的论战边上，虽然美特斯邦威最丢掉这个旗舰店，大旗说着些施加的压力至少帮助该零售商赢得了更大的店面。[5]“在互联网论坛上，我们说中国的品牌被挤出来了，而与此同时国外的品牌仍然呆在紫禁城里。“大旗的周春兰说：”我们得到了强烈而快速的响应，人们非常愤怒。“美特斯邦威承认大旗帮助了这个上海的案件，但是拒绝做进一步评论。

许多公司愿意付钱买正面评论。公关公司全班人马雇用学生来写些可以提升某一品牌并诋毁竞争者的帖子，就职于北京一家西部公关公司的职员说道。一个在线招聘广告的职位描述这样写道：“通过论坛和博客宣传推广（产品），每天至少发帖50篇。‘每篇1.5美分。[4]”

中国联合网盟[3]（China Web Union）对此很坦诚。它花钱请成千上万的人为客户写些好听的东西。并且他们将对传播正面消息，平息负面消息的论坛版主提供报酬。CEO仲昭川说；“我们写出主题，然后将它们发送给成员，让他们发送到论坛上去。”仲说道这就是中国联合网盟去年为一个大的富士（Subalu）经销商所做的。这个日本汽车制造商激怒了网民，因为他的中文读音听起来像”死八路“，这被视为对在二战中同日军作战的中国军队八路军的侮辱。中国网盟敦促网站版主删除负面评论，并且要求写手们张贴关于富士的正面新闻。仲说道。

大旗和CIC称他们没有收买博客作者，但是两家公司都承认他们比较迁就这些网络意见领袖。网络公司邀请这些人参加一些会议，在那里，他们可以试用和讨论新产品。例如，CIC就将欧莱雅介绍给在女性化妆方面非常有名气的博客作者，一个二十多岁的自称“尼可GG”的年轻人[1]，这家法国公司邀请尼可为其兰蔻系列品牌造势，以及将这个对化妆品颇有了解的网民送往巴黎。常规的广告方式“将焦点放在说：我的品牌很好。“欧莱雅中国的副总裁Philippe Lamy说道，”当某个人在互联网上谈及这个商标时——它是一个独立的声音，它所有拥有的可信度和影响力是完全不同的。“

《商业周刊》中文版的翻译版本=>点击这里

[1]，这里是尼可GG的博客地址，目前PageRank值为4。

[2]，CIC的官方网站上自称是中国第一家网络口碑研究和咨询公司。这是它向外界展示的以往成功案例。

[3]，该公司的正式名字是北京联合网盟科技有限公司，公司的网站非常简陋，而且公司CEO仲昭川采访时并没有把商业周刊的这位记者给”口碑“掉。此篇报道给公司带来的并非是所想的那样是正面的。参考链接

[4]，按照文章发布时的汇率算，大约每篇枪手文章是1角2分钱（RMB）。

[5]，这是此事件的国内报道链接。