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China: Case Studies
Contents
- 60th National Day: China Blocks Twitter, Facebook
- Lancome social media marketing in China
- Travel industry and China's social media puzzle
- Death Blog Sparks the First Case of Cyber Violence
- China Blogger Beaten
- Tencent/QQ and Micropayments
- Baidu vs. Google
- Starbucks and the Forbidden City
- Dell Computers
- Xcar.com
- Social Media and Personal Lending
- China Youth Daily
People who are not competent with the Chinese language face difficulties when accessing the local internet as most popular sites are in Chinese languages. Similarly, businesses who wish to engage the Chinese blogosphere often employ the local language rather than English. As a result, they face difficulties when gathering information regarding successful examples and campaigns. Often businesses choose to ignore the local social media, given the low internet penetration rate and since mainstream media is deemed more effective. However with an uptake in social media, it is only a matter of time before businesses can attribute their success or failure to a social media campaign. Our team was unable to come across a business success or failure of a social media campaign. But since this is a wiki, we encourage those with any knowledge to put up examples.
The following are some examples of companies/industries who have been impacted by social media.
Case 1- 60th National Day: China Blocks Twitter, Facebook
October 1st is China’s 60th National day. If the nation’s age happens to be a multiple of 5, celebration tends to be of a larger scale, which includes a military inspection at Tiananmen square.Security in the capital has been unusually tight with submachine gun-toting SWAT units patrolling through the crowds.To protect sensitive content, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have also been blocked.
Other interesting restrictions from AP:
“Residents have been barred from flying kites as a precaution against aerial hazards, and those who live in the diplomatic apartments that line the parade route have been told not open their windows or go out on their balconies to watch. Knife sales have been restricted, and notices in apartment lobbies urge residents to report anything suspicious.”
Source: 60th National Day: China Blocks Twitter, Facebook
Case 2- Lancome social media marketing in China
Cosmetic brand, Lancome, has entered the social media in china. In year 2006, Lancome already built its own Chinese community (www.rosebeauty.com.cn) in 2006. It allows consumers to not only get to know Lancome products but to interact with the brand and other consumers. The website contains beauty knowledge, Lancome products information and news & events.
In 2009, Lancome used popular China SNS site – Kaixin001 – to drive potential consumers to this community. It has recently launched an online beauty contest that required participants to have as many votes as possible in order to win.
- In the short run - the SNS campaign and the community increase the interaction with targets; getting them involved and increase their engagement with the brand.
- In the long run – This increases the brand awareness. Furthermore the community will keep on growing, which means Lancome will always have a solid “launching pad” for any future promotions.
Case 3- Travel industry and China’s social media puzzle
From travel booking sites like eLong and Ctrip to airlines and hotel review sites, China’s travel industry players are experimenting with using social media to attract and engage travelers.
At the China Travel Innovation Summit in Beijing, one social networking was a major topic discussion. However, it is still undecided which are the best social media strategies that should be used. Many airlines have started Twitter streams without delving much into market research. As a result, issues such as addressing complaints and concerns are not well addressed.
Source: Travel industry and China's social media puzzle
Case 4- 'Death blog' sparks the first case of 'cyber-violence'
On December 29, 2007, a Beijing woman, Jiang Yan, committed suicide by jumping off a building. In early 2008, her personal diary was published on a site revealing the cause of her suicide to be of an extra marital affair by her husband, Wang Fei and his mistress.
The "death blog" stirred the Internet blogosphere. Wang Fei was pursued by a "human flesh search engine" – a term used to describe Internet users who hunt down Chinese citizens from love triangles to political scandals.
Personal information about Wang Fei and his mistress, including their addresses and workplaces, were exposed on the Internet. In the period that followed verbal abuse on the Internet escalated into violence in the real world. Outraged "netizens" besieged Wang's parents' apartment with protests, threats and obscenities.
On December 18, Beijing Chaoyang District Court fined two websites and an Internet user for posting personal and intimate details about an unfaithful husband Wang Fei, his mistress, and his spurned wife who had committed suicide.
Source: Death Blog Case
Case 5- China Blogger Beaten
It was being at the wrong place and at the wrong time for an unfortunate Chinese blogger. He was beaten to death by Government authorities for attempting to record a protest on his mobile phone. It was reported that more than 50 municipal inspectors turned and attacked him for five minutes.
The Chinese Government has taken steps to detain those involved, arresting 24 municipal inspectors whilst investigating more than 100 others inspectors in relation to the incident. Although this does show that the Chinese Government does not condone these actions, the damage has been done. The killing has spread across internet forums and chatrooms, venting anger towards the government.
Source: Chinese Blogger Beaten To Death By Government Officials
Case 6 - Tencent/QQ and Micropayments
Tencent Holdings Ltd., owner of China's most popular instant messaging service- QQ, had devised a payment system in 2002 to allow its 233 million regular registered users to shop for treats in its virtual world. These coins were retailed for 1 yuan each and were a big hit, perhaps too big a hit. Soon, these coins were being accepted by sites outside the Tencent network. People began exchanging them for real cash based on discount rates and traders began hopping onto the bandwagon to make a quick buck. The situation soon spun out of control when gamblers and private chat room girls among others, soon converted QQ coins into an alternate currency to the Yuan forcing a Government crackdown on sites brokering the currency. (Source: QQ: China's New Coin of the Realm?, by Geoffrey A.Fowler and Juying Qin - The Wall Street Journal)
Case 7 - Baidu vs. Google
In the Search Engine Category in China, Baidu is the undisputed leader. Despite its global fame and dominance, most Chinese outside Beijing and Shanghai have never heard of Google.
Favoritism to Home Grown Brands
The government seemed to have protected Baidu from copyright infringement rights, allowing Baidu to operate its user music search long enough for it to accumulate a large user base. In 2005, some U.S. based music companies sued Baidu and lost. In 2006, Baidu sued Yahoo China and won.
On the other hand, in June 2009, the Chinese Government banned Google for a period of time for making Pornographic material available. This support from the Chinese Government means that Google will not be able to take the lead anytime soon.
Social Media Software and Branding
Baidu has continually been making available Social Media Software such as Baidu 知道(http://zhidao.baidu.com) to ensure its market dominance. Baidu's advantage lies in the fact that it understands the Chinese market, in which Chinese netizens use the Internet as a social device. Further, as soon as Baidu went public, they invested in advertising.This is in contrast to Google who has not bother much with raising its brand awareness. For Baidu's sales force, it has thousands of people hired to persuade SMEs to buy keywords, as compare to Google's 500 sales force.
Internet Censorship Regulations
Undoubtedly, internet censorship and regulations play a important role in China, which is giving comparative advantage to Baidu in some respect. For instance, since not everybody can access everything of the most popular wiki in the world : Wikipedia, the dictionary and FAQ forums invented by Baidu (百度百科& 百度知道) could fill in and are now performing very well. Also, as the mp3 search function is the 1st service Baidu began with , Baidu still provides this service + the new function of videos and being very successful in that, but Google as a American company would have more trouble with intellectual property rights than profit if they would do the same.
Sources: Jordan Calinoff, September 29 2009, "Where Google Loses", Foreign Policy
Case 8 - Starbucks in the Forbidden City
Starbucks had opened an outlet in the Forbidden City, Beijing on September 18, 2000. This lead to an outcry, as citizens felt that it went against China's 5,000 year old tradition and their very own cultural fabric. A survey by Sina.com showed that over 70% of the 60,000 respondents were against Starbucks opening in this location. The irony lies in the fact that the city authorities themselves invited Starbucks to open an outlet as they needed the funds for running the city. However the attention was centered on how this commercialization went strongly against culture. KFC too came under fire, and ceased its operations almost immediately.
In July 2007, Starbucks finally closed its Forbidden City outlet in Beijing due to an online petition led by TV personality Rui Chenggang, which may not have been possible with traditional protests, given the size of China and the diversity within the country. The petition was started online, and gained popularity through the mainstream media.
Source: Starbucks in Forbidden City
Case 9 - Dell Computers
Dell Computers tainted its credibility when they falsely advertised their laptop processors, which was picked up by the online community. The laptop processor for their Inspiron 640M model were not fitted with the CPU which was mentioned in their advertisements (online and offline).
Consumers’ vented their grievances online. This was picked up by the mainstream media and resulted in the company being sued by over a score of consumers (the exact number is unknown). Subsequently however, Dell Computers set up a blog to garner consumer opinions and address concerns. The company now claims the blog is an important channel of communication whenever problems concerning its product have arisen.
Case 10 - Xcar.com
The automobile industry in China is quite lucrative as the Chinese community becomes increasingly affluent. Often it is probably the first time that a Chinese household is purchasing a car, hence they have high expectations of the product and customer service, and are highly involved in the purchase process. There are many bulletin boards where people discuss their automobile likes and dislikes as well as form fan clubs. A popular site is www.xcar.com.cn (a non-English site) which gets millions of hits per month (Alexa).
Using this opportunity to better understand the customers, automobile manufacturers can invest in social media in order to come up with better products as well as understand their target market better.
Case 11 - Social Media and Personal Lending
Two Chinese portals: PPDai and Qifang, hope to revolutionize the systems of microfinancing currently in place in a developing country such as China. Microfinancing has not developed at the same rate as in other Asian countries and these websites hope to build on the communities that are created through social networking sites in order to bring borrowers and lenders together. The success of this project remains to be seen however, as lending systems in China have historically relied upon trust that is built up through physical contact between parties.Qifang.com describes itself as 'China's first peer-to-peer student lending community.' Both websites are expected to be active by mid 2008, however more information can be obtained here.Source: Personal Lending + Web 2.0 + China=?
Case 12 - China Youth Daily
The editor in chief of the China Youth Daily had recently outlined a plan to dock reporters' pay if their stories took issue with any Communist Party officials. One of the senior editors, Li Datong, had posted a memo on the company network that berated the plan. This was an act that could potentially lead to the closure of the newspaper. As soon as the chief editor discovered this information he attempted to have the memo removed but was too late. It had already begun spreading throughout the internet via instant messaging services and social networking sites. Within hours Li Datong had received millions of supportive messages via email. The party attempted to stamp it out by ordering one website after another to delete the letter, but ultimately succumbed to public pressure and ordered the editor in chief to scrap his plans.
(Source: "The Click That Broke a Government's Grip" on the Washington Post).
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Latest page update: made by ahmadtan
, Nov 19 2009, 10:40 AM EST
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