Text/Wei Han
Editor/Lu Jia
Recently, Mercedes-Benz has been involved in controversy over a Weibo video related to talk show actor Yang Kasa. Terms such as "Mercedes-Benz Yang Kasa", "Yang Kasa Studio Statement", "Mercedes-Benz Yang Kasa Video Controversy" and other terms have occupied the hot search high for several days, causing widespread concern among netizens.
The cause of the incident is that on October 14, Mercedes-Benz's official Weibo forwarded a 10-second video, there were no lines in the video, the content was that Yang Kasa walked into the Mercedes-Benz car from the red carpet, and the scenery outside the car played a "new chapter of comfort" in the copywriting. It is understood that the video is from a fashion event, in addition to Yang Kasa, there are a number of stars involved in the filming of promotional materials, the content and copywriting are basically the same as Yang Kasa, and are forwarded by Mercedes-Benz.
Surprisingly, Yang Kasa's simple video has caused great controversy. In this series of star videos forwarded by Mercedes-Benz, Yang Kasa's video playback and comments are far ahead.
It is reported that the comment area under Yang Kasa's video is like a social science debate competition full of smoke, and the discussion of netizens has gradually risen from Yang Kasa itself to the level of equality between men and women, male rights and women's rights.
The reason for such a big controversy is because on the variety show "Talk Show Conference", Yang Kasa became popular with a series of satires on men, and her sentence "Why do men obviously look so ordinary, but they can be so confident" has become a golden sentence. Therefore, many men also think that Yang Kasa, who has become popular by "scolding men", is not qualified to serve as a product spokesperson for male users.
At a time when public opinion was rapidly fermenting, on the evening of October 18, Yang Kasa Studio issued a statement saying that Yang Kasa and Mercedes-Benz did not have commercial cooperation and did not endorse Mercedes-Benz, and the video was only a promotional material for fashion activities.
Coincidentally, at the same time that Mercedes-Benz was in controversy, another well-known luxury car Rolls-Royce also "overturned" in public opinion.
On October 14, the day mercedes-Benz forwarded Yang Kasa's video, Rolls-Royce Motor Weibo issued a statement saying that it would "listen to everyone's feedback and take off the test drive video recently released offline". Despite closing the Comments section on Weibo, Rolls-Royce was still spat upon by the public in the retweets.
According to a Rolls-Royce statement, on September 24, a promotional video was released on its official Weibo. In the video, The internet celebrity Wanwan and her husband Lin Han, as the test driving guests of Rolls-Royce's model Cullinan, shared the feeling of driving to Xinjiang. As soon as the video came out, Rolls-Royce Weibo immediately attracted thousands of comments, most of which were disapproval of asking the couple to promote. Some netizens said that they are the owners of Rolls-Royce, and they think that the promotion of the late couple has lowered the brand style.
At first, in the face of such a big controversy, Rolls-Royce did not respond. And just after people slowly forgot about this matter, on October 11, Wang Sicong commented that "I suddenly feel that RR (Rolls-Royce) is very low, and I will not buy it later" ignited the topic again, and landed on Weibo hot search. Subsequently, Rolls-Royce issued a statement and took the video offline.
This is the end of a farce. In this incident, in addition to accusing the late couple, many netizens accused Rolls-Royce of not doing the PR background check carefully and lowering the brand tone.
But is inviting late couples to promote it really a dereliction of duty for PR backtracking?
In today's era of high-end brands gradually sinking, how to attract young customers has become the subject of major brand research. Cooperation between brands and traffic influencers is not new. At the end of August, Volvo officially announced a new group of spokespersons, in addition to celebrities such as Gao Yuanyuan and Lang Lang, the list also included Luo Xiang, an internet celebrity professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, who has millions of fans, and Luo Xiang's popularity in the comment area even surpassed Lang Lang.
For Rolls-Royce, the Chinese market has long been its largest market in the world. According to statistics, Rolls-Royce's global sales volume in 2020 fell by 26.4% year-on-year, but the Chinese market did not decrease but increased, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year, and the proportion of market sales increased to more than 30%.
In 2020, the average age of Rolls-Royce Chinese car owners is 39 years old, and car owners under the age of 30 account for 16%. This also shows that Chinese young people will become the main customer group of Rolls-Royce. In order to adapt to the trend of rejuvenation in the Chinese market, Rolls-Royce launched the Cullinan SUV model in 2018, that is, the model in the late promotion video.
The test drive guest started late in 2007, as the first generation of "Douban Goddess", she not only did not become the tears of the times with the rise of self-media, but relied on topics such as "Morandi color dressing" and "lying to show off wealth" and so on, and has been active so far. Along with her, there are also her opponents, in her birthplace of Douban, there is a group called "Late Study Doctor Defense Scene", the group has 20,000 members, the activity is very high, and the only theme of the group is the evening couple, the group members mock and share the new and old black materials of the late couple, and ridicule it as the so-called "late learning".
Huge controversy also means huge traffic. In addition to attracting the young group radiated by the head of the Internet celebrity, the controversy of the evening itself has also brought great attention to Rolls-Royce.
The same is true of Mercedes-Benz and Yang Kasa. In the context of today's gender equality has become a social issue again and again, Yang Kasa's identity that relies on the golden sentence of "Puxin Man" to become popular has long been more than a simple stand-up comedian. Those who supported her defined her as a "feminist pioneer", while those who opposed her believed that her passages created "male and female antagonisms" and should be resisted by society as a whole. Under such a polarized evaluation, Yang Kasa's every move can set off a bloody online scolding war, although she herself responded that writing that text only felt funny.
After forwarding Yang Kasa materials on October 14, Mercedes-Benz's entanglement with the huge traffic she brought can also be seen. From the initial inaction, to the 17th turned into a fan visible, opening a selection of comments and other behaviors, it seems to be a submission to the voice of opposition, but the promotion video about Yang Kasa is still reluctant to delete.
So far, in a series of promotional videos forwarded by Mercedes-Benz official micro, which is rarely asked, the number of video likes of traffic star Zhang Yixing is only 89, while Yang Kasa's video likes have reached 23,000, which is still a non-public Weibo that only fans can see. Rolls-Royce also has the same attitude towards the late couple, doing nothing after causing controversy, allowing public opinion to ferment and enjoying the exposure of traffic. If there is no sudden comment from Wang Sicong half a month later, the promotional video of the late couple will most likely not be deleted.
However, in the Internet where information is rapidly transmitted, it is easy to create marketing hotspots, and it is equally easy to "roll over", and if you are not careful, there will be a large area of negative effects. After the video of the couple was sent, a rolls-royce search was searched on Weibo, and most of what I saw was negative reviews. And the vast majority of the users who participated in the discussion were the post-85s and post-90s groups that Rolls-Royce wanted to attract.
In the era of luxury goods competing to seize the young market, how to attract heat, how to maintain brand tone, how to get traffic without being eaten by traffic, is actually a science.
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.