Chinese Milk Company's Campaign Leads to PR Exec Arrest

China Mengniu Dairy, the top dairy company in China, is under investigation by Chinese authorities over a devious PR strategy: capitalizing on lingering fears about the safety of Chinese dairy products by spreading false rumors about others in the industry. In 2008, contaminated milk made hundreds of thousands of children sick and is blamed for the deaths of six children. According to Forbes, police are looking into whether Mengniu started a story that certain milk products caused premature sexual development including "the growth of breasts." The head of Mengniu's child dairy department and members of the PR staff have been arrested. The department head has also been fired. A Chinese financial news outlet reports that the rumors can be traced back to the PR executive targeted by the police investigation, Yang Zaifei of Beijing BossePR Consulting. The article, quoted by Forbes, reads: According to [a] document, an Internet campaign named the “731 Plan,”was to be conducted for up to ten days at the end of last July, and included the use of online articles written by fake consumers and fraudulent blogs in order to trigger public fears over the product safety of rivals. The total budget of the campaign was 250,000 yuan. [USD $37,500] However, the credibility of the document has yet to be verified by the public security department. Mengniu has released a statement apologizing, but one PR pro, Alistair Nicholas, chief executive of Beijing's AC Capital Consulting, told the Economic Times, "There is a mentality in China that one of the ways you do PR is to get bad stories out there about your competitors. PR is played in a pretty dirty sort of way in this market sometimes." The Forbes story points out that, in reaction to the 2008 dairy disaster, the products had to improve. That story, in and of itself, would normally fuel media and consumer interest. Basic tenets of PR and human decency were violated here. It looks like there's a growing need for PR education or standards that are set by groups like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Many PR firms have Chinese operations, and holding companies like Publicis have identified emerging markets, such as the BRICs, as an area of growth. As the practice of PR grows, some ground rules need to be set.

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Chinese Milk Company's Campaign Leads to PR Exec Arrest

Tonya Garcia

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Tonya Garcia