The Weekly Buzz 2 September 2010

Here is our “The Weekly Buzz” column.

Past articles can be found here.

On August 23^rd, Hong Kong tourists on a tour bus were taken hostage by former police officer. The buzz around the incident showed increasing trend throughout the crisis, with netizens criticizing the overall handling of the incident by police as well as the safety and security of the Philippines.

The buzz contains many criticisms, vulgarities, and expression of hatred from Chinese netizens, especially in response to photos uncovered by netizens that showed Pilipino’s, inlcuidng the police, taking photos at the scene of the disaster.

Buzz around Chinese tourists and business people cancelling their Philippines trips due to the negative comments and safety warnings as well was mirrored by reports travel agents and call centers being flooded with calls.

The lesson here is that a negative story can not only be reported by netizens in social media, it can be amplified and even contributed to by netizens.

Seeing the importance of how netizens are using the social media in sharing news and crises that can affect certain industry, businesses must integrate a comprehensive strategy to defend its reputation and image against any unforeseen situations by hearing more about their customers.

 The Weekly Buzz 27 August 2010

Here is our “The Weekly Buzz” column for Campaign Asia.

Past articles can be found here.

Chinese Valentine’s Day is also known as the Double Seven Festival as it falls on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month on the Chinese calender.

The 16th was the buzz peak for the holiday and it is interesting to see that buzz on this day was dominated by BBS. Of the 3,371 total mentions of Valentine’s Day, 68 per cent were found on BBS versus blogs, microblogs, news, social networking and video site channels.

Analysis of buzz content saw that much talk was driven by romantic and colourful posts on BBS, with a number of retailers leveraging this channel. Examples include retailers selling apparent Louis Vuitton and Apple products, small retailers selling cosmetics and other gifts, and restaurants promoting couple meals. KFC leveraged the ‘copy and paste’ BBS phenomenon around the news of a man proposing to a woman at a KFC restaurant to promote its Valentine’s meal special.

While microblogs, SNS and blogs are relatively new social media channels compared to BBS, we see that BBS still has an important role to play within the social media landscape. According to Interfax China, registered BBS user accounts surpassed three billion with 80 per cent of Chinese sites running their own BBS. BBS has a massive reach that cannot be ignored.

 The Weekly Buzz 20 August 2010

Here is our “The Weekly Buzz” column for Campaign Asia.

Past articles can be found here.

On 9 August, news outlets in China reported an issue with Nasdaq listed Chinese infant milk formula brand Synutra.

The reports pointed to parents blaming Synutra for their daughters’ abnormal sexual development. The news reported that extremely high level of hormone estradiol was found in the girls after consuming Synutra product. Total mentions of the crisis on social media and news channels peaked at 257 on 10 August with the announcement of a fourth affected infant.

Compared to the buzz around the catastrophic Sanlu melamine crisis of 2008, which saw tens of thousands affected infants including deaths, the Synutra issue’s buzz volume was minimal and short in length. This is perhaps due to the much smaller impact coupled with a lack of released evidence in putting the company at fault.

Analysis of the buzz content saw that much talk around the crisis was comparing international brands to local brands. Such discussions reflect the research done by CIC’s IMF research team who has seen an overall increase in discussions on international brands since the Sanlu crisis. In fact, ‘country of origin’ (domestic or imported) and ‘trust’ are the most discussed themes covered in the research.

From the buzz analysis, it appears that while this particular issue was not a huge problem, it is yet another chink in the armor for local brands trying to rebuild their credibility in the wake of the Sanlu crisis.

 The Weekly Buzz 19 August 2010

This is a bit late going up, but here is our “The Weekly Buzz” column for Campaign Asia.

Past articles can be found here.

ChinaJoy is the event for anyone interested in the massive Chinese gaming world, from consumers to industry professionals.

Prior to and during the event, the biggest online buzz driver turned out to be the ‘show girls.’ Like their counterparts at the Beijing Auto Show, game promoters made extensive use of sexy women dressed in miniskirts to promote hardware and software brands at the event.

On 28 July, 14 per cent of all comments tracked through CIC’s IWOMdiscover tracking platform were guessing what type of girl will be promoting the IT products. This was fueled by a listing of many of the girls’ Sina Weibo accounts.

The trend scales up on the second day of the event after participants actually saw and shared their experiences. 25 per cent of comments started to sing the beautiful event promoters’ praises. Indeed, the tracking of the buzz around ChinaJoy seems to support the age old adage that sex sells.

 Industry Watch 17 August 2010

In this IWOM Watch, we look at the “69 Jihad” incident that broke out on the Chinese Internet and triggered hundreds of thousands Internet users collectively scheduling attacks (spamming and tarnishing) on well-known forums and websites relating to Korean celebrities. The slogan of 69 Jihad, “NC don’t die, Jihad never ends” (NC: mentally ill, brain damaged), has become a piece of history in the Chinese Internet.

Next, we have monitored one article written by a student for this year China’s college entrance exams causing a high volume of buzz among the netizens. Meanwhile, we have uncovered some interesting interactive events happened during the World Cup; and a PR war took place between 360 Safety Guard and Kingsoft Antivirus using microblog channels. Finally, we examine how Carlsberg’s viral videos are designed to expressing its brand as “having fun” to its stakeholders.

Here are some excerpts from the IWOM Watch report.

Sample article: World Cup online events

During this summer, the 2010 World Cup event inspires some online marketers to create interesting interactive programs on the internet. Sina microblog launched a campaign “Choose your favorite team and promote its national flag on your micro-blog” has drawn more than 2,455,639 participants.

Another topic with loads of buzz is about the North Korean player Zheng Dashi who becomes famous by being a ”North Korean Wayne Rooney”. His popularity increases widely after he has given a strong impression to the netizens by weeping while playing Korea national song. In addition, a rumor about North Korea soccer players being sent to work in coal mining after losing in a world cup game further circulates the images of Zheng Dashi across the Chinese Internet.

To get a complete version of our IWOM Watch or register for a long-term subscription, express your interest at info@cicdata.com.

IWOM Watch table of contents screenshot: