Author: Meicat
There are many controversies in the luxury car industry.
Recently, two major public relations disasters of luxury car brands have gone viral on social media platforms.
On the one hand, Rolls-Royce removed a promotional video shot by the influencer couple Wawa and her husband for the art gallery run by Wood Wood. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz deleted a video related to the celebrity Yang Li, a popular talk show host, which has sparked much discussion on the internet.
These two incidents are probably familiar to everyone in terms of their causes and consequences.
There is an interesting phenomenon worth mentioning.
Few people can afford luxury car brands, but everyone can discuss them endlessly.
As for public relations disasters of these two car brands, these two cases have something in common, but also differences. That is to say, both brands made mistakes, but in different ways.
Therefore, let’s provide some sober reflection behind the scenes of these two PR events.
Let’s start with Rolls-Royce.
Rolls-Royce should not only avoid being overly focused on popularity, but also choose the wrong person, which eventually hurt its fundamentals in the Chinese consumer market.
The reason was that Rolls-Royce released a promotional video for its model Cullinan on its official Weibo account.
In this video, the brand invited the founder of Wood Wood, Lin Han, and Wawa and her husband to participate in the test drive. However, this later prompted many car owners to criticize it, with a Weibo celebrity Wang Sicong commenting that “RR is very low, I won’t buy it anymore.”
What was even more embarrassing was that Lin Han had previously posted negative comments about Rolls-Royce on social media. He even clashed with car owners on social media this time, causing the brand to be caught in a public opinion vortex and ultimately to remove the related video.
What does the “Lin Han and Wawa Incident” mean for Rolls-Royce? To put it bluntly, this is the first PR crisis the brand has encountered since its inception in 1906, which can be called a “once in a blue moon” event.
As a luxury product, Rolls-Royce has always been at the top of the luxury car brand hierarchy, being the top luxury category of “showing off wealth”. It has little to do with many netizens or potential car consumers.
To be honest, many consumers may not know that Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Maybach belong to the same level of luxury cars, and these three brands are incomparable to the more well-known “must-have luxury cars for showing off wealth” such as Porsche or Ferrari.
If it weren’t for Weibo celebrity Wang Sicong getting involved in the debate this time, many netizens might not have paid attention to it.
They may have never heard of Lin Han or Wawa and her husband. Of course, they would not know anything about the so-called “Lin Han and Wawa are too low-key to match with Rolls-Royce”.Lin Han and his wife Wang Wang are not necessarily in line with the Rolls-Royce brand image, but the key issue is how Rolls-Royce defined them during their preliminary research, as social media influencers or artists, what is their identity?
To understand this, we need to start with the characteristics of luxury brands. In fact, top luxury brands and artists are a natural match. Firstly, they both possess rarity, heritage, and irreplaceability; secondly, it is an unspoken truth that art has always been for the consumption of the social elite and the wealthy, making famous artists surrounded by the affluent. This is a historical tradition, such as the Medici family in the West, who have always been the patrons of artists such as Da Vinci; in ancient China, there were institutions such as the imperial painting academy, not to mention that artwork has a gray area of “corrupt gift-giving.”
Now, with the economic downturn and the end of the era of fossil fuel cars, expanding the consumer base, especially the younger generation of new money, and partnering with artists, particularly young artists, can reach a new market and is completely understandable.
However, the question is, in China, how many artists or art professionals possess both artistic and commercial value, and public celebrity? Luxury brands like Rolls-Royce and art, whether Western Fine Art or traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, are niche markets; it is extremely difficult to make these two small circles intersect. Besides, the public is not knowledgeable about artists at all.
This time, the brand was a bit sneaky, trying to find Lin Han and his wife, who are social media influencers, to bridge the gap between the art circle and social media influencer fans. They thought they could kill two birds with one stone and win big without much effort. The reality is a slap in the face; the incident got out of hand, and there are rumors that the car owner reported it to the Rolls-Royce headquarters in the UK, demanding the removal of the video, apologizing to the owner, and even seriously punishing the relevant staff, causing a huge fuss.
Notice that the “Rolls-Royce incident” was initiated by the car owner’s complaint; then, public opinion escalated, becoming a PR crisis.
This raises another question, who are the fundamental consumers of the Rolls-Royce brand? This question can be easily answered in the Western world, i.e., Old Money. Especially in the UK, where there is a deep connection between the social structure and aristocracy. As one of the few constitutional monarchies in the world, Britain has a more profound tradition of aristocracy, and thus they have preserved ancient aristocratic families. It is very appropriate for these feudal lords to drive a Rolls-Royce. However, the situation in China is much more complicated.
A century of wars and a series of movements have actually broken the inheritance of the old money class, so it is a difficult task for brand managers to decide whether this class exists in China, and whether this class has a new definition. In social media discussions, the Rolls-Royce car owners despising Lin Han and his wife happen to be part of this class, who may be wealthy businessmen, or belong to the second generation of officials and businessmen; they look down on Lin Han and his wife who do not have a family background.Even they regard couples like Wang Wang as “newly-wealthy through deceit”, tarnishing the brand’s pure luxury feel.
For the general public, they may not understand the disdain between the wealthy. They are all wealthy, but the wealthy can also look down on each other, they also need to stratify, reject mobility, and desire solidification.
I once heard a rumor about a luxury watch brand.
Previously, a certain brand was in contact with a young wife of a 90s commercial tycoon, hoping to strike a business deal. The brand hoped to gain a foothold in the youth market through this nouveau riche. Unexpectedly, the planned deal was reported by the watch’s old customers – some middle-aged wives who were the original wives of big businessmen. They jointly threatened the brand, that if they dared to do business with this young wife, they would collectively boycott the watch brand and roll it out of the mainland market.
The implicit meaning is that the original wives hate the up-and-coming mistresses.
In the end, the brand had to make concessions.
Because for old luxury brands, the brand’s tone is relatively stable, and the loyalty of old customers is everything. For new consumer groups, even if their spending power is up to par, they must also be screened.
Because the top luxury consumers are a very small circle, it is necessary to ensure that a brand’s buyers can play together.
Therefore, brands like Rolls-Royce do not need to be bound by traffic at all. Instead, they need to maintain their mystery and scarcity, making it impossible to predict.
If the streets are filled with Kullinans, then the car will be cheapened. If the brand premium is weakened, Rolls-Royce will lose its shine.
So, can luxury car brands like Mercedes-Benz ride on traffic?
Actually, they can, especially Mercedes-Benz’s cars below the C-Class, which are already bestsellers. For the current development of the brand, traffic can be harnessed, but how? In my personal opinion, the handling of the Yang Li incident was inadequate.
Let’s reconstruct the scene of the story.
Yang Li is not the spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz. She was only invited by Vogue magazine to participate in a media event, which was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz, which means that all the guests were transported to the event in a Mercedes-Benz car and each made a short video.
It was just Mercedes-Benz’s official WeChat account that reposted Yang Li’s video. After being criticized by netizens, they deleted the video, which seemed to be succumbing to online noise.
I want to say that Mercedes-Benz’s handling of this incident has made things worse.
Returning to the media event, the guests invited by the fashion magazine were mostly women, so Mercedes-Benz’s sponsorship had a certain bias towards female consumers.
And everyone knows that Yang Li is a very controversial public figure. It can even be said that the more girls love her, the more boys hate her.“`
Then it is inappropriate for the Mercedes-Benz official account, which is seeking to enter the female market, to delete the video of a female representative of feminism under controversy.
As a traffic celebrity, you cannot enjoy the traffic dividends while unwilling to bear the possible backlash from traffic.
In fact, this handling will have a certain negative impact on the Mercedes-Benz brand, especially in the minds of women. Putting a video of Yang Li, many women may not care, just regard it as a public figure participating in a commercial endorsement, after all, Yang Li will participate in many activities; but deleting it, women may feel emotionally that the brand is fickle and does not have the courage to stand up: If the Mercedes-Benz brand is just about stability without controversy, then why bother to put Yang Li’s video? It’s a slap in the face to put it and then delete it, right?
So shitty.
Speaking of traffic, this is a wealth code that makes any brand love and hate.
Everyone wants traffic, but it is difficult to control.
Traffic means conversion rates, and marketing personnel of brand owners must ask themselves several questions: Is top-level flow good? Is it suitable? Will top-level flow collapse the house?
Rolls-Royce invited the Wanwan couple, and Mercedes-Benz sponsored an event to invite Yang Li (in accordance with commercial practices, inviting guests will always achieve the recognition of advertisers), they did not receive serious negative response, but still did not receive recognition, causing a public opinion crisis.
Marketers need to deeply reflect on the issue of “good traffic” and “bad traffic”.
To distinguish traffic, this is not just a matter of numbers, but also requires a very deep understanding of the brand itself, a deep understanding of human nature, and a basic judgment of Chinese society.
In summary, I would think that the problem with Rolls-Royce lies in the oversight of the analysis of the social strata in China, attempting to expand the new rich market but causing strong emotional backlash and resistance from old customers, while the problem with Mercedes-Benz lies in the lack of understanding of netizens’ human nature (keyboard warriors), or the brand’s inability to withstand the mixed reputation of Yang Li.
When these two media incidents gradually cool down, I thought of another big pit in automotive marketing, or a problem that marketers often encounter— they are very worried about being abandoned by new marketing technologies and strategies, and are eager to pursue youthfulness and embrace young people.
This is not wrong, the problem lies in whether the specific behavior matches the brand tone. For example, live broadcasting, various video platforms, and co-branding with much-followed celebrities…
We are always learning, worried that we are not fast enough, and will be abandoned by this rapidly developing world. But many times, fast and slow are relative.
And if you don’t act recklessly, you won’t die.
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This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.