China's Clothing Brand &Nbsp; Crisis Public Relations How To Turn Danger Into Opportunity

Over the past year or more, over the past year or so, Chinese clothing brands have not been tranquil, and one after another crisis has left businesses unprepared. This reporter started last year at the end of 7 wolves incident, clockwise combed the past few years in the industry occurred several representative crisis.

　 Seven wolves "Quality gate" in July 27, 2010, the Beijing industrial and commercial bureau announced on the official website of the 2010 circulation clothing quality monitoring results, this is a common routine inspection report, but for the seven wolves, from that moment, it was "standing on" the cusp of public opinion. As one of the companies exposed to the incident, Quanzhou seven wolf sporting goods Co., Ltd. is the authorized operator of Fujian seven wolf industrial Limited by Share Ltd. The product was manufactured in July 2007, and the reason why Quanzhou's seven wolf sporting goods Co., Ltd. was "on the list" is that the company's female POLO short collar T-shirt is not qualified. In July 28th, the publicity result was cited and reported by the media. Although the specific contents reported by various media are not the same, most of them especially highlight Quanzhou's seven wolf Sports Co., Ltd., one of the "litigants". In content reporting, especially on the title of the article, we must say that it is sensational, and even explosive.

The death of Karl Denton's "fake foreign brand" in March 15th this year, CCTV news channel broadcast "News Live Room", the men's clothing brand Karl Denton shot. Reported that the card Dan Dan just registered in Italy, but the production and operation is only in China, not "Italy brand", but "foreign goods in the skin", selling high prices to obtain "huge profits". Subsequently, CCTV's "focus interview" also broadcast such a "foreign goods" and repeated reports.

The controversy over the "JEANSWEST building" in May 23rd was accompanied by a plaque marked with "JEANSWEST building" in English and Chinese, hanging on the outer wall of the fourth classroom building of Tsinghua University. In the poll of "micro-blog building" and "listing what you think" in the fourth teaching building of Tsinghua University, sponsored by micro-blog Association of Tsinghua University, 24% voted netizens thought, "naming is no problem, but don't crown the name" JEANSWEST ". At the same time, it was also focused on almost all mainstream media such as people's daily, Xinhua news agency, CCTV and so on, which triggered a very small discussion in the society. Finally, the Tsinghua University concluded that the "JEANSWEST building" nameplate does not hang back and the name of the building does not change.

ONLY agent dispute in July 18th, Beijing World Trade Street, a number of people wearing "ONLY also my fair, and my hard-earned money" banners attracted pedestrians in succession, originally they are from Hunan, Loudi, Yongzhou, Chenzhou three ONLY area agents, the exaggeration stems from dissatisfied with the company suddenly terminated their agent management rights, especially to ask for a view. They questioned the contract period of ONLY for 3 months as the overlord clause; when they started making profits, they suddenly had to withdraw their agency rights; if they want to terminate the contract, why do they have to order the agent? In the afternoon, events even developed into a physical conflict between these agents and the employees of the company.

Lining NPE crisis in August 23rd, the international environmental protection and Greenpeace organization announced that Adidas, Lining and other brand clothing were detected with a toxic substance called NPE (Chinese name is nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether, a recognized environmental hormone). After being discharged into the environment, it quickly decomposed into NP, which interferes with the endocrine of organisms and is toxic to reproductive system. The news was reported by China's voice of the national news network, and was quickly spread by other media. Some netizens even ridiculed: "Adidas, Lining, unification, Shengyuan, Jissbon......" The famous companies in these industries, though their main businesses are different, now have the same attribute: they have all created "sexual harm".

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　 High Crisis Era

Next, it may be you.

"This is the best and the worst of times." Charles Dickens's comment on Britain in nineteenth Century also applies to many aspects of contemporary Chinese society. For brand enterprises, this is the best era because enterprises can freely gallop in shopping malls, and those who are highly skilled become the leaders of the industry and enjoy the material achievements of the market economy. This is the worst time because the highly developed social information network can magnify any small flaw on the enterprise and let the brand building collapse in an instant.

So, for Brand enterprise To remind yourself, danger is like a shadow of success. Especially in the rapidly developing economy and society, small businesses running on the "high speed" brand may become the "lethal weapon" that tripped over any road.

Over the past few years, crisis events that have been endless have covered many industries, including electronics, electrical appliances, food processing, automobile manufacturing, daily chemical industry and so on. As the garment industry, many well-known enterprises have encountered unprecedented crises. Some people say that 2008 is a strong detonating year for China's enterprise crisis, 2009 is the escalating year of enterprise crisis, 2010 is the high incidence year of crisis events, and more than half of 2011.

From the "Sanlu melamine crisis" in 2008, to the "Johnson poison door" in 2009, to the "TOYOTA recall door" in 2010 and the "carcinogenic event of shampoo of the overlord shampoo", this year's "Shuanghui lean meat essence", "Da Vinci fraud" and "the thousand thousand noodle soup" are able to clearly see that the frequency of the crisis has accelerated, and the number and level of the enterprises involved have also been rising.

Faced with the "crisis gate" staged every day, enterprises and brands can not be worried - will the next one be me?

No one likes crisis, but the crisis is not transferred by human will. Western proverbs are well said - crises are like death and taxes, which are unavoidable by enterprises, organizations, governments and even individuals.

Especially in the highly developed modern media, the diffusion power of the media has aggravated the speed and scale of the enterprise crisis. If an enterprise fails to deal with the crisis it is facing, it is very likely that if it is pushed to the "Domino", disaster will rapidly appear in chain related reactions in various fields related to the enterprise, and it will collapse and become unmanageable, which will destroy the corporate image and brand reputation, and even endanger survival. Among all kinds of media, enterprises are the weak side. In particular, clothing enterprises, compared to those "big money" and "long history" of enterprises, clothing enterprises crossing the pass is even more difficult.

Fluke psychology is useless. In addition, the "ostrich policy", shirking responsibility and concealing facts are undesirable. Murphy's law tells us that if something goes bad, no matter how small the possibility is, it will happen. In other words, it is always the right thing to do. As an enterprise, the only thing that can be done is to make adequate prevention before the crisis comes and find out the mistakes in production, management and execution, and then constantly improve. Only in this way will it become the next "bad egg" hit by the crisis.

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　 Brand business, can you afford to hurt?

Once the crisis occurs, for the "leading role" brand enterprises, the impact can be described as "all-round and three-dimensional", not only has the loss of corporate reputation and brand reputation, but also "massive blood loss" on material interests, and even let a thriving enterprise die ahead of schedule.

In 2008, the "melamine milk powder", the main character of the incident, Sanlu Group, the brand fell, the company went bankrupt, and the head of the enterprise was in prison. A struggling enterprise ran out of the historical stage like this.

Not only domestic brands, but also internationally renowned brands and multinational companies can not be affected by the crisis. Data show that in less than a month from the "recall door", the sales volume of TOYOTA motor in China has plummeted, and sales in the United States have been falling rapidly like parachutes. Even if Akiotoyoda, the head of TOYOTA, apologized to the consumers, it was not easy to restore the image of TOYOTA in the eyes of consumers. On the other hand, after the crisis, TOYOTA's direct competitors increased their market share by dividing the cake that belonged to TOYOTA.

As a listed company, the impact of crisis events on its performance is more concrete. At the end of 7 in 2010, "the wolf wolf's clothing toxic" network report was reprinted by several media, and the market value of seven wolves dropped 2%. The seven wolves had previously disclosed this in an interview with our newspaper reporters.

In April 28, 2011, after only one month after the lean meat incident, Shuanghui development dropped 0.21% to 57.85 yuan, which has evaporated more than 18 billion compared with the "lean meat essence" incident.

In July 23rd this year, when the "bone soup gate" was released from the noodle soup, its share price fell all the way, plummeting 40%, and at one time it had fallen by more than 10% a day. The stock market value of the company's chairman and chief executive, Pan Wei, has shrunk by HK $2 billion 750 million. In the past, the personal wealth of HK $4 billion 500 million has become the richest person in China's catering industry. Moreover, international investment banks have also lowered their target price. Among them, the Bank of France, Paris, has lowered the target price of $19 from HK $13.30 to HK $. Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch raised the price from "buy" to "big market", and the target price was reduced from HK $16 to HK $8. Goldman Sachs also lowered its target price by 40%, and the target price fell from HK $18.2 to HK $11. What makes the enterprise "can not afford to hurt" is that after the "bone soup gate", its shop door is cooled, and other families are queued up, but few customers are patronizing.

Although it has been reported that the stock market has narrowed down in recent days, there are signs of improvement, but the overlord is not so lucky. Since July 2010, after the overlord's products were exposed to two oxane containing carcinogens, the frenzy of the crisis began to rise, and the share price of the overlord dropped 14% in a day. But more seriously, the impact has lasted until now. In a year, its market value has shrunk by 14 billion Hong Kong dollars. According to the analysis, the "two oxane storm" has a wide range of influence, and consumers' doubts about the brand have not yet been completely eliminated.

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     How to turn danger into opportunity

Crisis public relations requires integrity.

In the face of a sudden crisis, many enterprises will fall into a state of confusion at the beginning, and how to take the first step to deal with the crisis is particularly important.

In recent years, the hot bone of the non clothing industry and the same bone soup crisis in the non clothing industry were taken as an example. The different practices and attitudes adopted by the two enterprises made the enterprises get different results in this crisis.

In July this year, "a bowl of soup has 4 times the calcium content of milk and several times of ordinary meat." It is this bowl of "delicious thousand noodles" vigorously publicized, consumers familiar with the delicious soup, but was questioned is the use of special soup powder modulation.

In July, a media broke the news that "the bottom of the soup was modulated with soup powder and soup". However, under the pressure of increasing public opinion, the head of the Chinese headquarters of Wei Hao said in an interview that the soup bottom of the "Ji Wan Ramen" is indeed made by the concentrated liquid made from pig bone. Meanwhile, the authoritative identification result of China Agricultural University's School of food science and Nutritional Engineering published on the official website shows that the bone paste soup of the flavor thousand noodles is rich in collagen, which accounts for 15.5% of the total protein content.

But then the China Agricultural University School of food science and Nutritional Engineering issued a statement on its official website, saying: "it has never carried out any cooperation or cooperation with the enterprise of the thousand thousand noodle noodle, and has never made any certification and recommendation to its products, nor has it provided consulting services and consultancy services to the enterprise." And requested the "side of the thousand" to stop immediately using the "China Agricultural University Food Institute Accreditation" and "China Agricultural University Food Institute test results" and other infringing statements to clarify the truth, and openly apologize to our hospital in the media to eliminate the adverse effects.

After that, Mr. Pan Wei, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, talked about the event. Pan Yu said he had no experience in crisis public relations and did not attach importance to public relations activities, which led to the expansion of the incident.

Coincidentally, the hotpot restaurant chain has recently been reported by some media that its bone soup and drinks are all punching. According to the speculation of Yi Wei Qian Ramen incident, consumers will surely let the sea bottom catch up. But the development of the situation is beyond everyone's expectation. First of all, seabed quickly made a statement to the society through stores and micro-blog, in addition to thanking media supervision, it also showed that the blending of soup pot and lemonade was raw materials provided by regular enterprises, and was publicized in accordance with the provisions of the State Food and drug administration. We also provide telephone and mobile phone for 3 contacts at headquarters. We welcome you to visit the logistics base and store kitchen to release the public's doubts.

Secondly, the practice of Zhang Yong, chairman of seabed fishing, is amazing. After the incident, Zhang Yong said on micro-blog that "the full guarantee for the legality of the drinks and white flavor soup bottom" is assured, and the responsibility for the incident is not in the store. So they will not track down their responsibilities, and send a counselor to a shop to prevent the pressure of the staff.

Seafloor fishing has been understood by consumers without being concealed, not being held responsible by employees, and sent by psychological counselors to comfort employees' sincerity and responsibility. Netizens are struggling to catch up with Zhang Yong and micro-blog on the micro-blog. They even offer advice on how to deal with employees' stealing. This is totally different from previous netizens' exposure to similar problems.

Longxiao, a senior public relations manager of a public relations company, believes that in the era of information, decision-making in the face of crisis requires management to abandon the original idea that it is possible to rely on personal relations to "fight fire and plug up", and prepare for the worst. "Now 80% to 90% of the public relations crisis in the country, the company thought it can rely on the relationship to solve problems, maybe two times is OK, but this attitude often leads to the loss of the whole campaign."

After making preparations for the concept, whether or not it can react quickly becomes the key to the company's initiative to win the battle. The event of "noodle noodle" exposes the problem of too long internal reaction process. The image of dragon whistle is likened to: "the nerve terminals of the noodle and the conduction pathway of the brain are obviously longer than those of his ramen."

The success of seabed is that after the salvage of the seafloor, the media do not blame the two. They do not complain of their opponents, but do not feel sympathy for the three. The first time the enterprises admit that they are inadequate, and the founder Zhang Yong is responsible for them. These are enough to show the sense of responsibility and the level of management of the entrepreneurs.

What many enterprises in China lack at present is a true sense of crisis public relations, lack of responsibility and lack of sincere communication with the public. Truth, sincerity and change are the key to the success of crisis public relations. "Concealment of errors by mistake" will not only make the two fermentation of "crisis", but also add insult to injury.

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　 Properly handled, Fang can Turning danger into opportunity 

At the first time of the general crisis, many enterprises do not know much about the situation. They often adopt an attitude that does not make any statements before they understand the situation. They often miss the best time to deal with it. But in fact, the release of "we are investigating, if it is true, we will be responsible" attitude to the public will often achieve better results.

In the past, there was not a lot of mass media bombardment in garment enterprises, but in recent two years, such events became more and more common because of the development of information industry.

In July 27, 2010, Beijing industrial and commercial bureau released the monitoring results of clothing quality in circulation area, and the 65 brands of seven wolves were listed on the black list. Seven wolves responded second days after the incident. First, it is clarified that the products produced by Quanzhou seven wolves sporting goods Co., Ltd. were all slightly exceeded the standard of spandex components, and all the other indicators were qualified, proving that they contained no toxic substances. The two is correction. "The problem of non conformity of spandex ingredients is a problem between the old and new standards." Three is to explain, "as of May 2010, this product has been completely stopped in the market sales, now there is no such product in the market."

The seven wolves made a rational and convincing statement in such a short period of time, which played the greatest role in saving the brand image. The seven wolves first grasped the speed factors of crisis public relations, and reversed the majority of people's negative position on the matter at the first time. Then they took charge of the direction of public relations and formulated PR steps. It was precisely because of the positive response of the seven wolves company that the incident quickly changed in a clear direction. As time went on, positive reports began to show an upward trend, and the wording and tone of the quality of the reports began to ease. China's clothing brand has gained due trust.

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　 However, many clothing companies face silence when they are faced with events.

After being exposed to fake foreign brands by CCTV in March this year, Karl Denton chose the silent policy which was not explained, but clearly made his own Chinese identity in advertising. JEANSWEST remained silent in the "JEANSWEST building" incident in Tsinghua. This low-key way of dealing with silence will bring great harm to enterprises if they encounter quality problems. On the contrary, when some business crisis comes, it will be very wrong to advertise a lot of advertisements immediately. The role of advertising is to enhance the brand, public relations is the management of credit, this is the two level of things.

Recently, Lining, the leader of China's sports brand, was caught in the door of environmental protection. A survey released by a NGO Organization raised public concerns about the safety and environmental protection of "clothes". The report refers directly to Nike, Adidas, Puma, CONVERSE, KAPPA, Lining, H&M and other world-renowned clothing brands, and claims that its products contain nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPE) residues.

Among the clothing brands involved, Li Ning Co is the fastest performing Chinese enterprise. In August 22nd and 24th, they issued a statement on the official website, which not only answered the focal points of whether the product conforms to the EU REACH standard, but also made a positive commitment to achieve environmentally friendly emissions in the supply chain.

In August 26th, the Li Ning Co made a new statement, further complements the previously proposed environmentally friendly emission commitments: to make greater efforts on the basis of the original commitment, to finally eliminate chemical substances affecting the environment in the supply chain in 2019, to achieve environmentally friendly emissions; to place NP and NPE in the chemical control list, and to push suppliers to strictly abide by this requirement in all links; in the next 4 months, close communication with more than 200 suppliers, industry authorities and NGO organizations to discuss the specific implementation measures for achieving the goal of environmental friendly emissions in 2019 and release them to the public in the social responsibility report at the end of 2011.

In the era of crisis, Chinese clothing brand enterprises, which are caught in various kinds of doors, have shown a more mature attitude to face the crisis.

In recent years, in China, the most classic case of "danger" as "machine" is the reversion of Nike during the Beijing Olympic Games: the Liu Xiang Olympic Games's loss of competition due to injury in Beijing has upset all promotional products including Nike. However, on the morning of the second day, there were two big pictures on the cover of the newspaper advertised on Nike: one was Liu Xiang's lost figure after retiring from the match; the other was Liu Xiang's strong frontal feature, the left side was an advertisement, "love competition, love all the dignity, love to win it back again." Love gives everything, loves glory, and loves setbacks. Love sports, even if it hurts your heart. This is exactly the new advertisement that Nike FireWire has replaced. It has been able to stand up to Liu Xiang from a caring angle. At the same time, it has also set up a more positive image for its own brand. Within 24 hours, Nike responded quickly and started the crisis public relations perfectly.

Timely reporting in the face of crisis is the best way to fight for the initiative with the media and the public. For many companies, the mentality of unwilling to release bad news should change in the age of information transparency. In fact, compared with people being dug up, they are better able to grasp the initiative of news transmission.

Faced with the crisis, public relations experts suggest that apologies should be made as soon as they confirm that they really hurt the interests of investors. At the end of many events, the parties will have to apologize to the public with a grievance. In fact, it is not necessary to disclose it as early as possible. It is the best way to make an apology at the same time as an attitude consistent with the mainstream values.