Social Media MC -- Monitoring Project Post 2

Social Media Approach to Image Rebuilding

1.General Information


KFC pioneered Western-style fast food in mainland China when it opened its first outlet in Beijing in 1987.Since then, it has been doing successfully in China.







KFC is the largest restaurant chain, with 4,200 branches, and China is one of the only countries in the world where McDonald's is not the dominant fast food chain.

Updated by 11:56 AM January 27, 2013

2.Website

KFC believes it has been successful in China because it has adapted its menu to suit local tastes. Since 2006, Yum! has also operated the East Dawning chain, which incorporates Chinese cuisine alongside the traditional KFC menu items. Its website is bright, colorful and delightful, which match their idea of being healthy and young. With many sections, KFC China gives visitors an impression that we are not only making food, but also caring about you. All kinds of food in the picture look so good, and KFC also provides offers which are healthy and price-reasonable. On the right side, a lot of updates from different social medias are rolling. 

3.Incident Review

In December 2012, the chain was hit by allegations that its suppliers injected antiviral drugs and growth hormones into poultry in ways that violated food safety regulations. This resulted in the chain severing its relationship with 100 suppliers, and agreeing to "actively co-operate" with a government investigation into its use of antibiotics. KFC China sales in January 2013 were down 41 per cent against the previous year.

                                 KFC Launches "Operation Thunder" To Fix Image in China

4.Trends and Analytics

Following the launch of "Operation Thunder" and a chicken-themed poetry contest, fast feeder KFC appears to be recovering from a food safety crisis in its most important market. Parent company Yum Brands announced this week that same-restaurant sales in China were down 20% in January and February 2013, better than the 25% plunge previously forecasted. KFC China sales were flat in February, after sliding 41% in January. The news sent its stock price soaring.

Operation Thunder 

KFC China Official Website

Chicken-Themed Poetry Contest

started on February 27, 2013 

KFC Sina Weibo

(The little chicken in the picture cries and says:"I'm innocent." Expert pointed out that we should blame on the drugs instead of chicken. )

a. Yahoo!

I captured this image on Yahoo! Finance. It shows Yum! stock prices varies from February 27th to March 25, which is getting better. Just right after they launched the two activities.

b. Google Trends

KFC China Crisis

As you can see, there are two red-marked points in the captured picture. The first peak shows the Sudan Red Incident which happened in 2005. The second peak is the recent "45-day chicken" food safety scare.

KFC Chicken

c. Social Mention

By searching Social Mention and changing key words, I could tell positive sentiment are getting stronger from last December to this March. Especially the duration from February 27th to March 25th.

d. IceRocket

e.Addictomatic

I used the Addictomatic again this month, and there is a big difference from last month. There are more reports or news showing that KFC is doing quite well on image rebuilding, and that it is having many interactions with consumers.

5.Social Media Use

a. Official Website
KFC's official website releases very serious and formal news which can be used in reports or in interviews. They are more like statements and announcements.  In recent weeks, KFC has begun unfolding a campaign to reinforce its food safety bona fides. Dubbed "Operation Thunder," it includes a mini-site detailing steps the company will take to ensure the safety of its chicken, including working with only the best suppliers and stepping up coordination with regulators. It also pledged to better inform consumers about product safety issues.

KFC China News Center

It immediately releases any trends about KFC.

Mini-Site Of Operation Thunder

b. Sina Weibo and RenRen

Sina Weibo

RenRen

KFC started a poetry contest on social media. The company asked fans to pen poems that include the phrase, "The chickens are innocent," laying the blame on illicit drug use at the farms. Best poem wins an iPad mini. After a slow start in reacting to the crisis late last year, KFC has taken on a more active approach to social media to face the issue directly. They have increased activity on their own Weibo and RenRen accounts, including responding to many of the comments about the crisis and by engaging media key opinion leaders. They will share news articles about the crisis on their Weibo account which in turn creates more buzz. Instead of giving more details about the story behind chickens, KFC keeps saying on their social medias that we are taking action to protect our customers, that you can join us to witness our progress.

Sina Weibo

RenRen targets on students. KFC's main job on RenRen is to introduce new products to audience and to give health tips to students.

c.

KaiXin

6.Tone, Message and Feedback

a.Tone

No matter it is Weibo or RenRen, KFC acts like your neighbor or friend in your daily life. It says things in a very nice and friendly tone. Also, it talks about such daily things as weather, holidays, or current events, which generates a feeling that KFC always stays with you and KFC is part of your life. 

b. Message and Feedback

KFC updates very quickly on Weibo and RenRen on daily basis, and it response almost every comment. Some of comments were very negative, and others are positive, and KFC or Little K- its nick name- responded kindly. 

7.Conclusion and Recommendation

This kind of incident happened few times to KFC China, and it seems that there exists a fixed procedure for KFC to solve the crisis. Issue bursts out, statement, apology, clarification, being honest and humble to give a promise, and finally having interactions with customers. Now, the difference is that social media plays a more important role of solving crisis.  As I mentioned in last blog, rebuilding reputation is really hard, and especially people in China are really sensitive about food safety recently. Plus, the peer competition is quite fierce. 

I think that KFC could establish some philanthropic organizations to help kids living in rural areas, by doing charity to rebuild brand image. Regaining trust from consumers is important, but I believe that the priority is to establish a strict self-examining system to ensure future products.  

Social Media MC - Monitoring Project Post 1

Reputation Rebuilding is a huge task 

Horsemeat Scandal has swept out the entire Europe recently. This scandal affects so many brands. Ikea became the latest company involved in the horsemeat scandal as it confirmed a batch of its meatball contained trances of the meat. The UK, Czech Republic and France are among over 20 European countries where Ikea products are affected.
Video From The Guardian: Ikea Meatballs Found to contain Horsemeat

This scandal reminds me of KFC China. In February, Yum was off to a rocky start in trading as the company reported surprise weakness in China, where its business is expected to shrink this year. It is possibly worst case for Yum in China.

Video From CNSBC: YUM Addresses China Crisis 

Many of the reasons for KFC China's recent troubles are macroeconomic. However, there was the recent "45-day chicken" food safety scare – an episode that laid bare the fragility of brand reputation. In late November 2012, Chinese media accused one of the chain's Shanxi province-based suppliers of pumping its chickens full of noxious chemicals to ensure they were fully grown within 45 days. Reports from Xinhua, the country's official newswire, claimed that the feedstuff Suhai prepared was so toxic it could even kill flies. KFC immediately denied the allegations about Suhai. 

   

But it was enough for social media users to take a hatchet to KFC's reputation. There is a massive social response against fast-growing chicken. One called the chain Kentucky Toxic Chicken. "American people don't eat it, so they take their poisonous garbage and bring it to China?! Resolutely do not eat it!" wrote one user on Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblog, which has 400 million users. 85% of respondents to a Sina Weibo poll said that they believed KFC and McDonald's chicken products were unsafe. Three quarters said that they would stop eating them.

YUM! makes half its profits in China and the pace at which it is opening new outlets is still ferocious – it plans another 700 outlets there next year. They want to restore trust, they want to come back with a very strong recovery. Noting that the company is planning a public relations campaign after the Chinese New Year. They believe that they need time to rebuild trust, Not cash.

KFC Launches "Operation Thunder" To Fix Image in China

This page is form the KFC China official website. The main idea of this page is to ensure the supplies of safe chicken.

Yum! Brands pledged to ramp up safety and tighten requirements for suppliers in China to win back consumers after a probe into chicken providers dragged down local sales. The company will work with suppliers to phase out smaller chicken operators that aren’t sufficiently modernized, the company said in a statement today. The supplier review process will put a “more stringent emphasis on food safety,” it said. KFC is trying to revive revive results in the Asian nation after a former chicken supplier was found to have supplied meat with too much antibiotics.

However, the rebuilding is a really huge task to accomplish. First, food safety is a really sensitive topic in China. It is very hard to regain trust under this kind of circumstance. Second, most difficulties are from Competition. McDonald's has promised that by 2015 it will be opening a new restaurant in China every day. Burger King has announced plans to open 1,000 outlets by the end of the decade, presenting itself as a fresher, classier alternative to McDonald's. Chargrilled burger chain Carl's Jr has started popping up in Shanghai, and Californian chain Fatburger in Beijing. It is not just western style chains. Dicos, a Taiwanese chain which sells cumin-flavoured chicken fries and pineapple-chicken-mayonnaise sandwiches, has more than a thousand outlets in China, most of them in small cities. At the same time a number of domestic fast-food restaurants have emulated the type of brightly lit, sanitized, plastic environment that was once the exclusive province of western brands.


Resources:
http://www.kfc.com.cn/kfccda/index.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100434722/039Worst_Case039_Possible_for_Yum_in_China_Analyst
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/12/07/kfc-in-china-its-not-just-the-economy/#axzz2MD54yH5P
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/02/25/KFC-Tries-to-Rebuild-Brand-in-China.aspx

Social Media MC - Reading Reflection 3

The Future of The Groundswell

Social technologies are exploding.They are embedded within every activity, not just on computers, but also mobile devices and in the real world. This is the ubiquitous groundswell. 

Take Weibo as an example.  I need to explain a little here. Weibo is known as microblog. People usually take it as Chinese "Twitter". Not necessarily. However, if it is easy to understand what Weibo is and how Weibo works, it is fine.

I have people following me who are nothing more than an online presence, and I follow people who I do not personally know as well. Yet it connects us in our daily lives. We are all connected somehow; internet, social media sites, jobs, friends, the possibilities are truly ‘ubiquitous’. 

As ubiquitous as the groundswell is, what comes next will be interesting. Think how our lives were a decade ago. Facebook wasn’t invented yet. Nor was Twitter. The revolution of the internet truly expanding across the globe and the cost of electronics to access the internet advanced. This in turn set the stage for social media applications like Facebook and Twitter. 

This reminded me of a video I watch in the first class. Although the video was made in 2011 and the statistics were probably not correct up-to-date, I see it still a good one to know how the internet or social media change our life.

Plus, the "ubiquitous" rendered me think of another show named The Virtual Revolution, which is BBC documentaries. It talks about, twenty years on from the invention of the World Wide Web, how it is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives.

Social Media has its critics. Take Central Social Hall’s approach to social media and the art of public conversation: ‘Talk, Don’t Text‘ video that exemplifies texting, or being too involved in social media takes away from the person to person aspect of conversation and communication. 

As the chapter outlines (pg 280) “First, never forget that the groundswell is about person to person activity. This means you as a person must be ready to connect to people you haven’t met”. The groundswell is about person to person contact . 

“Second, be a good listener. Marketers sometimes have trouble with this, they think their job is about talking to customers” Listen closely. The best listeners will end up on top. If you care about your followers/ customers they will hopefully care about you.

“Third, be patient. The technology moves so fast it’s easy to think you’re about to fall behind” 

Practice Patience.Take your time. Not everyone within your organization is going to buy in right away. You need to be patient with them and allow them to buy in slowly. The more people who you have on your team, the better. That being said, don’t be afraid to be the leader of this slow-developing team. Take charge and help them along. Encouragement is key.

One site; “Inkling Media” speculates and talks about what will be ‘the next big thing‘. And really, nobody will know until it happens and becomes viral, much like the Youtube videos we all enjoy so much. It’s power in the numbers behind anything, especially for Social Media. 

Be opportunistic. Start small but plan to grow. This will keep costs down and leave room for growth. The key here is growth, make sure you bite at every opportunity you get.

Be flexible. If you’re not changing your falling behind. This is a quote every organization should live by. Adjust and learn from the positive and negative events that you face.

Collaborate. Once you start, don’t ever stop. This includes collaborating with people within your organization and outside. Pretty much anyone who can contribute some sort of benefit. There are powers in numbers and there are good ideas everywhere. Embrace good and bad ideas. This will only encourage your employees to dream big.

Be humble. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can never control it, your only along for the ride. This Groundswell belongs to everyone and it has a mind of its own. If you can keep this in mind, you will be fine.

Charlene Li is one of the co-authors of the very popular Social Media and Web 2.0 book, Groundswell - Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, that came out earlier this year. She co-wrote Groundswell with Josh Bernoff while they were both at Forrester Research. Li has since moved on to create her own company,Altimeter Group.

Li was asked to speak at Google. Following is her very interesting presentation where she spends some time looking at what potential future groundswells will arise: Authors@Google - Charlene Li

Reference:
Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Wining in a world transformed by social technologies