Last night on the CCTV evening program “3.15” Chinese consumers could see McDonald’s* using old butter and serving expired pies; and the Carrefour staff* leisurely giving new life to expired chicken with new packaging and labelling.
The fact that many companies in China, domestic as well as international, have serious issues with food safety is no news. The fact that CCTV has the resources for investigative journalism is also no big surprise. The interesting ingredient of this story, at least for a communications geek, is how McDonald’s and Carrefour responded.
During the evening after the story run on CCTV both the defendants responded, not with a press release or a statement on their website, but with a post on their corporate micro blogs. The undisputed emperor of the Chinese micro blog-platforms is Sina Weibo and this is the channel they both chose.
From a crisis-communication-perspective the two companies score high on “when” and “where” – they were both quick to post their apologies and they did it where their customers hang out. But what happened with the “how”!?
Both the apology letters are generic texts about “taking problems seriously” and “launching investigations”. In an environment like Weibo they could have freed themselves from the corporate jargon and instead adapted to the language and tone that belong on a micro-blog. That would most likely have helped them, and their apologies, to come across as sincere.
Another issue is the communication that then followed – or rather didn’t. It’s in the nature of the media in question to encourage and facilitate conversations, you could even argue that that’s the whole point, but both companies have up until now missed out on that opportunity.
In the first 14 hours** that passed after McDonald’s posted their apology it has generated 7 433 comments and it has been forwarded 14 611 times. In the same time Carrefour’s statement have received 1 352 comments and it’s been shared 2 930 times. At the time of writing the number of responses from the companies amount to – zero, nil, none.
How can they, in the midst of a crisis, forfeit this golden opportunity to re-build trust and rescue the brand’s remaining credibility?
Anyone choosing to enter an arena like Weibo must understand the nature of that media. It is not a corporate billboard. It is a place for conversations. If you do not respond when spoken to you are, at best, perceived boring and you will quickly be forgotten. To ignite a conversation, by for example posting an apology, and then ignore the reactions from your audience – that is just plain rude.
Now the question is why two multinational consumer brands of this calibre would be so negligent.
Do they lack the resources necessary to have the right people engage in conversation on their own Weibo? Probably not.
Was this their first encounter with the media? No, they both opened their corporate Weibo accounts about one year ago (Carrefour: March 20, 2011, and McDonald’s: Apr 8, 2011).
Is social media, including Weibo, and prioritized and integrated part of their branding and communication strategy. I sincerely hope so, but at the moment I am not so sure.
*The CCTV story was based on one McDonald’s restaurant and one Carrefour shop, both in Beijing.
**McDonald’s posted their apology March 15, at 21.50 and Carrefour at 22.25. This was written at lunchtime the day after.