Summary: Even if you are disrespectful internally, you can't show off (welcome to pay attention to the leverage game)
Written by Zhang Yinyin & Editor | Xin Xinran
Baidu is on fire, and it's on fire, Baidu is always on fire every once in a while, and it's always a little weird - is this a business or public relations?
I always feel that Baidu is a company with great potential for AI development in China, how can it produce a "very unintelligent" public relations general (vice president). To be honest, the vice president in charge of public relations has a bit of a problem with his professionalism.
Here's the thing, recently, Xuan Jing, vice president of public relations at Baidu, was accused by countless netizens of being "ruthless" and "too indifferent" because she posted a number of videos on her personal Douyin account, such as "I approve the employee's breakup and resignation", "Why should I think about the employee's family, I am not her mother-in-law", "The company and the employee are just an employment relationship", etc., have been accused by countless netizens of being "ruthless" and "too indifferent".
Subsequently, Xuan Jing deleted all video content on her Douyin account.
After Xuanjing's workplace remarks appeared on the hot search, Baidu's public relations team fell into a "one-finger Zen" storm again. Screenshots of relevant information show that Baidu's public relations team probed and collected the family and personal privacy information of media personnel, made files and kept them, and named some of the information materials of self-media personnel as "One Finger Zen".
In the early morning of May 9, 2024, Xuan Jing explained and apologized in the circle of friends.
In addition, after this happened, the leveraged game noticed that the stock price of Baidu Group fell, and I don't know why, until today (May 9) Hong Kong stocks closed and rose slightly.
1. "Very unintelligent" public relations general manager (vice president)
Let's first take a look at Xuan Jing's explanation and apology in the circle of friends in the early morning of May 9.
Hello everyone, in the past few days, because my personal short video has caused such a big storm, I sincerely apologize to the majority of netizens. On various platforms, I have carefully read everyone's opinions and comments, and many of the criticisms are very pertinent, and I have deeply reflected and accepted them with an open mind.
Before publishing the short video, I did not seek the company's opinion in advance, did not comply with the relevant process, and did not represent the company's position, I hereby clarify and apologize. There are many inappropriate and uncomfortable points in the video, which have caused serious harm to the company's values and corporate culture, and I sincerely apologize.
The original intention of posting a short video was to do a good job, but I was too anxious and the method was inappropriate, which brought discomfort and distress to everyone, and I sincerely accepted all kinds of criticism. I will conscientiously improve my personal communication and management methods, correct mistakes, care more about my colleagues, humbly listen to everyone's valuable suggestions in practice, and hope that everyone will criticize and correct. Thank you.
1) I won't talk about the routine of the first two paragraphs, I mainly want to talk about the third paragraph, do you feel like you were criticized by your teacher when you were a child, and then you were forced to write a letter of repentance or something? Or is it like self-criticism in meetings after entering the workplace?
Oh yes, that's right, Xuan Jing is "self-criticism" after something happened in the workplace.
Therefore, there seems to be nothing wrong with her apology, everyone is in such a stylized style, nothing more than hoping that things will pass soon.
However, as a public relations copywriter who always has such an apology, it probably seems mediocre. This is one of them.
2) Then I want to say that Xuan Jing's Douyin account name is her own, but netizens found that in addition to the 5 videos she posted this month, the historical content of the account also includes clothing sales.
Media inquiries found that as early as March 2022, the account had more than 900,000 followers. In addition, the fan portrait shows that the account has a majority of female fans, accounting for 93.65%. The original name of the account was "Xinxia Original Clothing".
In other words, it is suspected that it was a clothing account before, and Xuan Jing was also caught in the "buy account" turmoil, and netizens questioned her buying fans for data.
As a vice president and a public relations leader of a large enterprise, I can't hold on to my face if I don't have many fans, so how can I do communication without "fans"? It's understandable, and a lot of people are pretty much the same.
But the key is but—don't leave too many clues, you can see it at a glance. Doing public relations is not just to ask you to be good, I am good, everyone is good.
3) The original intention of marketing may indeed be "for the public", but this time it is really out of the circle and has become an "Internet celebrity public relations". According to media reports, at the beginning of the year, it was learned that Baidu required the public relations team to make a self-media account, and it could publish other content on a daily basis, but the account needed to be used by Baidu at a critical time.
For example, when Baidu held the Create AI Developer Conference in Shenzhen, the media noticed that Baidu's public relations personnel had released short videos of related activities.
Baidu's internal personnel confirmed to reporters that Xuan Jing is promoting the "short video project" within Baidu's public relations, requiring all employees to open short video self-media accounts, and the operation of the short video account will affect the performance appraisal.
Doing a video for half a day or a few months has no effect, but this time it has an effect, but it belongs to the object of criticism.
On May 8, rumors spread that Ms. Xuan had been fired from Baidu. A number of media Baidu insiders asked for confirmation, and the person said that the rumors were fake, "still in the company, and I came to the meeting today."
Xuan Jing herself said that she is still engaged in Baidu's normal work.
Although the above leveraged game wrote about some unprofessionalism of Teacher Xuan Jing, whether it is an excellent public relations depends on whether she can dedicate her "traffic" to Baidu in the future.
She said that "the company and employees are only an employment relationship", Baidu really needs to ask her to do this, since it is an employment relationship, then you have to do a good job, and if you don't do it well, you can "resign - second approval".
2. Make efforts to AI, Baidu's direction is really right
On February 28, 2024, Baidu released its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023.
In 2023, Baidu's total revenue will reach about 134.6 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to Baidu will be about 20.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 168.75%. Everyone noticed that Baidu's revenue and profit exceeded expectations.
If you go back to 2022, Baidu's annual net profit at that time fell by 26% year-on-year.
Looking at the details, you will find that Baidu's online marketing revenue in 2023 will be 75.1 billion yuan, an increase of 5.6 billion yuan from 2022 and a year-on-year increase of 8%. Non-online marketing revenue was 28.4 billion yuan, an increase of 2.5 billion yuan from 2022 and a year-on-year increase of 9%; iQIYI's revenue was 31.9 billion yuan, an increase of 2.9 billion yuan from 2022.
Non-online marketing includes businesses such as smart cloud. Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said, "Recently, we have started to generate incremental revenue from Wenxin Yiyan. In 2024, it is believed that this incremental revenue will increase to billions of yuan, mainly from advertising and artificial intelligence cloud business. ”
Robin Li revealed in his speech in November 2023 that there are more than 200 large models in China, and "the number of calls of Wenxin large models alone is more than the combined number of calls of these more than 200 large models." ”
To this end, Leveraged Games noticed that Baidu has invested a lot of money in R&D, and its R&D expenditure in 2023 will be 24.2 billion yuan, an increase of 4% year-on-year.
This was mainly due to an increase in R&D investment to support generative AI.
Baidu disclosed that as of the end of December 2023, the number of users of Wenxin Yiyan has exceeded 100 million.
Driven by AI, the growth momentum of the intelligent cloud business is strong, and the cooperation between Baidu's intelligent cloud business and B-end manufacturers such as mobile phones and automobiles has also brought incremental growth. Baidu Intelligent Cloud's total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023 was 8.4 billion yuan, of which the large model brought about 660 million yuan of incremental revenue to the cloud business.
For 2024, Robin Li believes that the focus is on the transformation of mobile ecological services with AI large models as the core and the development path of intelligent cloud.
According to the financial report, as of January 2, 2024, the total service volume of Radish Express exceeded 5 million; In the fourth quarter of 2023, the number of Radish Express service orders increased by 49% year-on-year to 839,000, and the proportion of fully driverless orders in Wuhan reached 45%.
Recently, Baidu has launched two MaaS products, Qianfan AppBuilder and Qianfan ModelBuilder. The strategic direction of AI is undoubtedly the right one.
If the direction is right, it depends on whether it can really make commercial achievements and successfully turn the tables. After all, Baidu has been criticized and considered to have fallen behind in recent years.
3. The general professionalism of the public relations of AI companies must also keep up with the rhythm of artificial intelligence
This year's Baidu PR doesn't seem to be good, it's not good.
There may be many twists and turns in the development of artificial intelligence, but it must not hurt customers. If it hurts customers, it means that it is not intelligent, and if it hurts not only customers, but also their own employees and their own companies, such artificial intelligence is probably in the wrong direction.
Xuan Jing's small video swiped the screen, so that Baidu's market value evaporated dozens of small goals, no matter how developed Baidu's artificial intelligence is, I didn't expect such a thing from the executives of my company.
I don't know if AI can train its own company executives in addition to evolving and training itself. Baidu is also a big factory, and the general public relations officer, how can it let itself get out of the circle in an "anti-PR" way?
Is this a problem with common sense and basic literacy? In this way, Baidu's corporate image has been ruined, not to mention Baidu's corporate image over the years......
In my opinion, a good PR is to help the image of the company you work for better, at least not to attract public anger.
Then, shouldn't being a business executive treat employees with a little respect? Even if you don't respect it internally, you can't show off it and show off, "I'm like this", isn't this looking for smoking, scolding?
Xuan Jing probably really wants to do a good job and be good for the company, because what she said is the invincible wolf nature and oppressing employees, is this when employees are people? It's really a business benefit. And isn't she just provoking the confrontation between labor and capital, which is like an "undercover agent"?
People are people, not AI, not tools, although they are inevitably treated as tools.
People don't understand the world, regardless of the feelings of the employees, it also touches the anger of the public, netizens are not easy to bully, and the beating will come.
This year's Baidu PR made such a mistake, and I hope that the next Baidu PR can improve the reputation of the company, and please build a better image of the AI company.
We don't want the AI giant of the future (I wish it becomes) to be like this, what should this AI product look like?
The financial charts not attributed to the source in this article are all from Baidu's relevant announcements, and are hereby explained and acknowledged
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