Time – the best Public Relations in China

Since China adopted the opening policy in early 1980s Western public relations firms, big and small, have set their foot in China, while domestic born public relations agencies also have risen from nothing. About three decades later today, while we are witnessing so much drama in China – sociopolitical, financial and many more – people tend to talk about who has done a great PR, or a poor one, after each event.

On one hand, for nearly four decades public relations have not really stood out from the traditional “propaganda” type of work in most Chinese minds; and on the other end, in recent years as some critics have noted, public relations have fallen in this country as some, together with their ‘clients’, were willing to resort to unscrupulous “dirty tricks” to get things done.

In such contexts, who would be able to do a great job?

Fresh in our memory was the recent death of a 22-year-old student who was mistreated by a hospital he found on China’s most powerful search engine Baidu.com (Nasdaq:BIDU) and the high profile events in the aftermath.

With the latest incident all eyes were on Baidu for its paid ranking though many argued it was the hospital and the deep-rooted medical system of the country that should be blamed. Baidu’s stock price plunged about 10 percent in a couple of days, especially when the government sent inspectors to their offices.

Before the company issued even a slow response with standard PR language as the event evolved, out there in the Internet space, a major competitor of Baidu did a “much better PR” that came with great “social responsibility”: it proactively announced that it will completely suspend all paid ranking service especially regarding medical services, with immediate effect.”

Another competitor of Baidu did something more “creatively”: if you search “Baidu” in Chinese on that platform, it will return a good description of Baidu’s profile, along with a line of fine prints: “Kind reminder: it is risky to search for medical services on Baidu.”

On Baidu’s end it was an “internal” letter to the staff by Baidu’s CEO that was considered a solid “PR action” that addressed the public anger: “put value before profit, or prepare to die in 30 days.”

But eventually it was the time, and timing, that Baidu got to thank because time brought up another, bigger crisis settling all the dust around the company all at once - before everyone cared to follow up on what would happen next, another major social incident broke out, just in time, that made people forget about Baidu or the bad hospital completely – a young man named Lei Jun mysteriously died “of heart attack” when policemen tried to arrest him for rushing a visit to the sex-worker on his way to the airport!

Do public relations work?

To address that question, some would even argue if public relations really exist in China. Valid as it is, the answers to such question is definitely “yes”. However the key is down to what (to work on), and how (it works).

World companies and brands still come to China, and they are still looking to public relations to tap the market and establish their brand, nurture government relations, and most frequently tackle issues and crises. And Chinese companies alike, just started to realize it has to learn and follow certain rules even when facing the home audience and stakeholders as what they do at home could harm their interest away from home.

For most Chinese businesses, there is still no clear concept of public relations with standard practice away from the traditional propaganda or even the more professional sales promotion. I have had real-life experience of working with a big Chinese IT company that is going to list in New York in two months but still without a proper investor relations and public relations team, let alone a professional firm to advise them. Having listed, they hired a public relations agency but ask them to do the “dirty work” such as removing undesired stories from the Internet.

On the government level, the authorities are paying more attention to professional public relations too. It was reported the Chinese government called for proposals from several top international PR agencies to help the Chinese government with increasing their image and message delivery abroad. Almost at the same time, the media in the UK reported that the British Queen once commented that the Chinese officials are “rude” during the Chinese president’s last state visit. It’s not hard to imagine what a challenging task it is for a Western PR advisor to help deliver Chinese propaganda in a Chinese way.

With one of the world’s strictest controlled media landscapes, many high profile social incidents at the national level in recent years that would require a proper public relations and communications solution left unanswered - from the tainted milk powder, to the “toufu-piece buildings” discovered in the Sichuan earthquake debris, to the vaccine scandal this year, just to name a few – were all left behind one after another, only for the time to make amends.

As time will cure. And only time will tell.