For Roche, attitude may be more important than the truth now.

Missed opportunity

When giving their own solutions, many netizens lamented that Roche lost a good opportunity for event marketing and a good opportunity for public relations. It is natural for enterprises to use emergencies for marketing, but if enterprises use people's panic psychology to create rumors and seek benefits, they will be suspected of hitting people when they are down. Once the rumor is exposed, the brand image will be greatly damaged.

In fact, there are better marketing methods. Netizen "Yin Sheng" and netizen "own company" asked why Roche didn't consider investing a sum of money to support the infected citizens, or still gave Radix Isatidis at the usual price or even free of charge (its original cost was very low). Or set up an epidemic relief fund? Or provide free infection testing for the public? Or give the public a specially disinfected mask? Or send a few mobile epidemic detection stations? Or set up an expert group to tackle the epidemic? Or sponsor a TV or newspaper column to spread the knowledge of infectious disease prevention and control? Because enterprises do good deeds in public crisis instead of putting profits first, it can greatly enhance the reputation of enterprises and is more in line with their long-term interests.

Two attitudes towards public relations

The significance of public relations for enterprises lies in spreading the mission and values of enterprises to the public through the media, increasing the public's credibility of enterprise products or services, thus shaping a good corporate image as a whole, and the promotion of the latter will greatly contribute to the achievement of enterprise goals, and correspondingly, the profits of enterprises will also increase. At the current level of enterprise management, the public's understanding has been greatly broadened, paying attention to stakeholders rather than just pleasing shareholders, and it has gradually become a kind of knowledge. What are stakeholders? In short, it is organizations and individuals related to the survival of enterprises, such as governments, non-governmental organizations, customers, suppliers, competitors and so on. And, of course, shareholders.

Good public relations must be active, not passive. Globally, pharmaceutical companies have been spending a lot of money on public relations. But it is puzzling that we haven't seen much of Roche's public relations activities in China. On the contrary, we have seen it many times in the media. For example, a competitor sued Roche for violating the goodwill of the other party when promoting its own diet pills, or Roche and a former partner are now in court because of the ownership of the trademark. Compared with Xi An Jansen's large-scale theme activity of "Re-taking the Long March Road", Roche at least lacks a clear and vivid image in China.

Roche's Three Prescriptions

What attitude and method should a serious and responsible company take to deal with the crisis after an emergency? Tylenol, the flagship brand of Johnson & Johnson, was once put into a capsule containing hydride, causing many deaths. In the face of a huge crisis, the company resolutely recalled all the products outside, losing hundreds of millions. However, the company's crisis public relations has achieved considerable results. After a brief decline in sales, Tylenol regained its position as the first in the market in less than two years. So emergencies are inevitable, and the key is how to deal with them.

First of all, we must not avoid the problem. Netizen "own company" believes that no matter whether Roche violated the relevant drug management laws, it is undeniable that the "Tamiflu" incident has brought adverse effects, and the debate can only be a side effect. The product characteristics of pharmaceutical companies determine that they must be more responsible than enterprises in any industry, and Roche must be brave enough to assume this responsibility. Similarly, many netizens believe that even if Roche has nothing to do with this matter, it should not be brought to court at this stage. Roche may not lose in court, but "even if Roche's lawsuit can win, it is more likely to lose people's hearts."

As for how to deal with it, netizens such as "City Prawn" and "Miaoshan" think that Roche should set up a crisis public relations team, actively cooperate with the investigation of the administrative department, and strive to clarify the truth as soon as possible. At the same time, the company's top management should sincerely apologize to the public, and deal with the responsible person, "give my life to protect the handsome" and give the public an account.

The netizen "own company" who has a benign interaction with the media believes that this incident was triggered by the media. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts in the media, actively inform the media about the company's investigation and handling of this matter, take the initiative to invite the media to interview the company, and constantly emphasize Roche's sincerity in paying attention to public health to the media, so as to urge the media to gradually turn to positive reports. On the contrary, the netizen "Wolf King" said, "In China, some things can easily make you end up as a Reservoir Dogs out of the water because of your high profile. If you are too sincere, you will only be punished by everyone. " How to treat this problem, we might as well refer to a crisis public relations of Nestle.

During the period of 1973, a group of charities and religious groups launched a campaign to boycott Nestle milk powder on the grounds that Nestle's sale of milk powder violated the principle of "breastfeeding", which was comprehensively reported by the media and called Nestle milk powder a "baby killer". At first, Nestle instinctively resisted with a defensive attitude, and took the relevant media to court, and the court ruled that the media lost the case. But in the public mind, Nestle lost. Subsequently, the company's milk powder sales declined all the way. The serious consequences made Nestle reflect. The company made great efforts to investigate and found that more than half of mothers used breast milk substitutes in the first four months after the baby was born, which was not caused by the publicity of the milk powder company. However, Nestle did not use this as an excuse to excuse itself. Instead, while actively explaining to the public, we strengthened the introduction of "good breastfeeding" and emphasized balanced publicity in product promotion. Through the efforts of 10 years, the activity of boycotting Nestle milk powder disappeared. Mao He, the chairman of the company, said frankly that when the media reports something, the opinions of the media themselves are often far more important than the facts, and the opinions of the media always tend to gradually become facts.

However, the positive image has been reshaped, and Roche's urgent task should be to study how to turn passivity into initiative. Netizen Mpaluo's suggestion is worthy of attention: "The company can try to cooperate openly with the pharmaceutical department and the government, and provide funds to help relevant departments carry out pathological research on SARS. Netizen "Lao Dai" also believes that it is necessary to "actively carry out public relations activities, strengthen positive image, and strengthen public welfare public relations activities, so that the public can believe that Roche has proved its purpose of serving public health with practical actions. "

Subcolumn: Expert Comments 1: "Danger"+"Opportunity"

In response to the crisis public relations, Mr. Song Zongcheng, the public relations director of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the top ten public relations companies in the world, expressed the following views:

All major companies may have crisis events, which will test the crisis prevention system of enterprises. Crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. It is a "double-edged sword". The first is a kind of danger. Enterprises may get into trouble or even be irretrievable. But if handled well, it may bring positive opportunities to enterprises.

I'm not sure about the cause and effect of the Roche incident, and it's not convenient to jump to conclusions about it. But if it is as Southern Metropolis Daily said, I guess the company may have made the decision under the condition of insufficient information. Actually, it's not terrible if something happens. What matters is the means to solve the crisis and the handling process. Take the initiative to find out the problem and give you a clear explanation. As long as there is a frank attitude and action, the public will understand.

There are many reasons for the public relations crisis of multinational corporations in China. A common reason is that the top management of the company lacks a deep understanding of China's cultural background, and their understanding of an event is quite different from that of the public, so they are irresponsible and even considered to discriminate against China consumers at the public relations level. On the other hand, the reason is that some people in the public relations department are inexperienced and have a weak sense of crisis, so they can't grasp the best opportunity. There may be insufficient localization here. The strategic leaders of many multinational companies are foreigners, and their sensitivity to the crisis is not high enough. Although local employees have their own expertise, they have little experience in dealing with crises. To do things in China, you need to know the national conditions. In case of crisis, many experienced companies will hire professional public relations companies to provide consultation. In fact, the focus of crisis public relations efforts should be prevention, and many first-class enterprises have a complete set of crisis early warning and emergency treatment programs.

When there is a crisis, the rational judgment of the enterprise itself will be affected and it is easy to make rash decisions. It is more appropriate for professional public relations companies to intervene. They are more localized, experienced and objective when dealing with crisis events. When there is a problem, as a party, any negotiation of multinational companies will be pale and powerless. Professional public relations companies often advise them to jointly publish news with prestigious third-party independent institutions to set the record straight. Even if multinational companies do have their own responsibilities, they will find the best solution. (Interview with Jack Li)

Subcolumn: Expert Comment 2: "Respect"+"Honesty"

Liu Binghua, manager of Sina's public relations department, combined Sina's experience in dealing with crisis public relations and talked about his personal experience:

When a crisis occurs, the attitude towards the media and the public is very important. I think we should pay attention to two points first:

First, to show respect for the media, take the initiative to communicate directly and face to face with them at the first time. The media is the disseminator of public opinion. If you want to influence the audience, you must first strive for the understanding of the communicator. The so-called first time is that it is best to contact the media against time after the crisis, and it is often too late to do the work after the media reports. A sincere gesture makes it easier for the media to feel "respect" and communication will be more effective.

Second, be honest with the public, and the information conveyed must be accurate and clear, so as to strive for public understanding. The occurrence of crisis often stems from the misunderstanding of facts by the media and audience and the opacity of enterprises. No matter whether the enterprise makes mistakes or not, it needs to have a correct attitude, increase transparency and be honest with the public. People will applaud for "daring to admit mistakes, correct mistakes and take responsibility", but they can't forgive irresponsible concealment and evasion.

Sina is one of the most famous brands in the network industry. Because of its numerous content products, it is popular and often goes through the test of crisis.

The most unforgettable thing is that in August of 20001year, Sina just launched the mailbox charging service. Coincidentally, at the same time, Sina's free mailbox has a rare failure, almost all of which are paralyzed. More than 90% users can't log on to Sina's free email for more than 30 hours, which is called a historic disaster since Sina was founded. Users questioned Sina's deliberate destruction of its free service in order to push the fee-based service, and the media felt anxious and angry about being unable to log in and use the mailbox.

After the incident, yan wang, president of Sina, met with the media immediately before the media reported, and frankly explained the cause of the accident, emphasizing that it was not a prank, but a server disk failure. The staff stayed up all night to repair it. At the same time, he immediately sent an apology letter to tens of millions of netizens on behalf of the company, explaining the reasons, reporting the progress to netizens at any time on the news webpage, and sincerely apologizing for delaying the work of netizens again and again, and finally winning the public's understanding.