Hello everyone, I'm Lao Ding.
After making a wave of "quick money" through "hard and rigid" out of the circle, the "patriotic personality" of the well-known domestic milk tea brand Xiangpiaopiao, which has risen rapidly in the past few days, is now a little precarious. According to a report by "Blue Whale News" yesterday evening, Japan's Kyowa store Okubo store denied selling fragrant Piaopiao satirical Japanese cup set of milk tea.
Let's start with a brief recap of what happened. During the past May Day holiday, some netizens found in some supermarkets in Japan that Xiangpiaopiao's Meco juice tea products were printed with slogans mocking Japan's nuclear sewage discharge into the sea, including "shameless", "0.1% of the land pollutes 70% of the ocean", "you can't do without Japan, you can't do without the ocean", etc. In the "anti-Japanese" atmosphere that has been rising among the people in recent years, the shock effect of this news can be imagined. A topic called "Xiangpiaopiao Japanese Supermarket Irony Nuclear Sewage" not only topped the hot search list on Weibo for a time, but also reached an astonishing 200 million readers, and netizens also started a heated discussion on "Chinese companies harden Japanese nuclear sewage".
Xiang Piaopiao's "reception" of this can be said to have pushed the whole thing to another climax. On the evening of May 4, Xiang Piaopiao released a company "red-headed document" through its official Weibo, in which the words "Our employees are good!". In the early morning of the next day, some netizens photographed Jiang Jianqi, chairman of Xiangpiaopiao, holding a banner of "Welcome to the return of Xiangpiaopiao Warriors!" at the airport to pick up the returning employees who went to Japan. On the evening of the same day, Yang Dongyun, president of Xiangpiaopiao, walked into the live broadcast room and said that he would reward 100,000 yuan for "good employees".
After a series of operations, Xiang Piaopiao not only instantly won the reputation of the so-called "light of domestic products", but also brought considerable benefits, which can be described as fame and fortune. For a time, reports about Xiang Piaopiao's "soaring sales", "sold out of goods", and "stock price limit" can be described as a flood of ears.
It's just that although this "patriotic" or "anti-Japanese" traffic is good, once it is suspected of posing for photos, it is likely to shoot itself in the foot at the moment. After all, after experiencing a series of incidents such as the "War Horse Operation", many people have a deep hatred for the ugly practice of "touching porcelain" patriotism and eating patriotic traffic rice.
After the release of the above-mentioned report of "Blue Whale News", not only did there appear on the Internet many voices questioning the hype and posing of Xiang Piaopiao, but even Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, made heavy remarks about it. In his opinion, the brand's suspicion of using "employees' personal behavior" to create gimmicks to consume and fool the public's patriotic feelings is very debatable.
Hu Xijin said: We are upright and upright in opposing and condemning Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea, but taking a cup sleeve and posing for a photo, pretending to be sold in a Japanese store, and pretending to be a "hard bar" are suspected of deceiving domestic consumers out of commercial interests and seriously violating business ethics. He pointed out that the pursuit of netizens is patriotic and straightforward, which is very worthy of cherishing, and the behavior of the poser did not have any impact in Japan. At the end of the post, Hu Xijin even said, "To be honest, this kind of posing is not much different from making up 'primary school students throw their homework books in Paris'." ”
Lao Ding noticed that in the media reports around Xiang Piaopiao in recent days, many of them mentioned that this company has worked marketing in recent years. According to Xiangpiaopiao's 2023 annual report released in mid-April, its sales expenses in 2023 will be about 860 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 53%. Among them, the advertising cost alone reached about 220 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 88.5%.
However, compared with such a large amount of money spent on marketing, in the opinion of some analysts, Xiang Piaopiao's performance in recent years is not impressive, although it has achieved certain results in product innovation and upgrading, but it still takes a while to cultivate the user group of the ready-to-drink sector.
Based on this, is Xiang Piaopiao's sword going off the rails to a certain extent this time also a big gamble on the future and fate of the enterprise? This may require it to show the vigorous and resolute strength of the previous two days to clear up doubts and doubts for the outside world.
Of course, Lao Ding has no doubt at this moment that some netizens will crusade against Hu Xijin from the perspective of so-called "motive theory" and "conspiracy theory", and he has no doubt that someone may say something like this - "Is it important to be true or false?
It can only be said that for those voices who "put aside the facts", it is Lao Ding's turn to have nothing to say.