Internet giants no longer have internet celebrity PR

As the Internet industry changes, the once-popular Internet celebrity PR role is quietly leaving the stage, and corporate leaders are taking the lead in the battle for traffic. This article deeply analyzes the industry logic and PR strategy behind this phenomenon, and explores how Internet PR roles can adapt and transform in a complex public opinion environment.

Thanks to four Tik Tok videos, Baidu’s public relations “number one” position dominated the Internet hot spots for nearly half a month.

Subsequently, the protagonist Qu Jing's career at Baidu fell at the speed of a meteor. On May 9, Qu Jing was revealed to have resigned from Baidu. That afternoon, Baidu founder Robin Li and head of the human resources department Cui Shanshan held a small-scale employee communication meeting, and the farce that attracted the attention of the entire network came to an end.

However, Qu Jing did not intend to calm the storm. On May 13, Qu Jing hit back at the remarks of a former Baidu blogger. She commented on a video, "Please stop taking advantage of others, stop spreading rumors, and be a decent person. Do I know you? What qualifications do you have to comment on me?"

The reason behind Qu Jing's eagerness for quick success and instant benefits in making videos may be Baidu's anxiety about traffic. However, as Internet PR leaders focus on the behind-the-scenes, Qu Jing's overly high profile and publicity are no longer appropriate, and it is difficult for her to break through the siege on the road of "black and red".

Before Qu Jing exploded in the media circle, the public relations of large companies had not been active for a long time. They changed their tune to follow the pace of the company's business development and no longer acted as high-profile corporate influencers. The internal speeches of Li Yanhong, Ma Huateng, Jack Ma, and Liu Qiangdong once again became the focus, and the company's helmsmen gradually transformed into real public relations.

1. A risky test

Looking back at Baidu’s previous public relations directors, from Liang Dong, Zhu Guang to Wang Lu, all of them are people with a strong presence in the circle.

Zhu Guang is Baidu's longest-serving PR figure. After joining Baidu, he deepened the corporate image slogan "Baidu it and you will know", and then obtained the sponsorship spot for the 2009 Spring Festival Gala, which also allowed founder Robin Li to frequently appear in front of audiences across the country.

At that time, Baidu was in the golden period of business development. Google withdrew from the Chinese market, and Baidu took advantage of the opportunity to seize 75% of the search market share. The company's public image was also relatively positive. In March 2011, Baidu's market value reached US$48.1 billion, making it the Chinese Internet company with the highest market value.

Wang Lu, who took office as Baidu's top public relations officer in 2016, is also a tough guy. On the one hand, he repaired the company's trust crisis caused by the "Wei Zexi incident", and on the other hand, he magnified Baidu's image as an artificial intelligence company.

Compared to Baidu's PR team, which has experienced many battles, Qu Jing's record has not yet reached the level of her predecessors. Her last PR experience was as vice president of Huawei's Public and Government Affairs Department, and handling her own PR crisis has become one of the biggest challenges she currently faces in her career.

In fact, as early as March this year, Qu Jing required all employees in Baidu's public relations department to transform into video self-media. Except for senior management, every employee was required to open his or her own video account. If the operation is good and the number of fans is high enough, it can promote Baidu products. The performance of employees' video accounts affects the year-end performance.

"Qu Jing's quest to become an internet celebrity was a process of starting from scratch. She had almost no online voice or discussion before, so she tried her best to highlight opposition and conflict in her topic selection." Xiao Xiao, who runs a Douyin account with tens of thousands of followers, told Times Finance that in her opinion, every piece of content published by Qu Jing contains the fuel to ignite the emotions of ordinary people.

Yanan has been working in the public relations industry for nearly 10 years. She described this industry as becoming increasingly precarious, and it is not appropriate to publicly criticize competitors even in one's own turf.

“If a PR manager makes radical remarks publicly, they can easily be amplified and misinterpreted by the public. The outside world will elevate personal ideas to the level of the company’s values. When posting on WeChat Moments, one must also consider whether the words used are reasonable and try not to reveal too many personal opinions.” Yanan told Times Finance. She believes that even the number one PR person is still a behind-the-scenes staff member of the company.

"For executives of Qu Jing's level to express their views to the outside world, they must obtain internal approval in advance, and it is difficult to completely separate her behavior from the company. It's just that this time she turned it into a personal workplace show and completely ignored the public sentiment, so it backfired," a former Baidu employee commented to Times Finance.

Facts have proved that being pushed to the forefront before building audience appeal is a high-risk test.

Ni Jing, who had not yet been scrutinized by the public, had to temporarily leave the Internet after being widely exposed, and fell from a high position with an annual salary of tens of millions; even Dong Yuhui, who had a certain fan base, was pushed to the forefront because of controversial topics in the live broadcast; Dong Mingzhu, who has always been resolute and outspoken, also encountered verbal criticism for standing on the opposite side of the working people.

Unlike Qu Jing, Dong Yuhui has already established a firm foothold in the live broadcast track and has become the top IP representing Oriental Selection; Dong Mingzhu has been the helmsman of Gree Group for nearly 10 years and has absolute say in the business level.

"If you are not very sure, it is better not to touch it and just do a good job of defense. The current network environment is very complex, and the attributes of the participants are diverse, so it is difficult to control the development of public opinion." Yanan told Times Finance.

2. Big company PR retreats to the background

While Qu Jing was making high-profile moves on the Internet, a group of old underworld generals had already quietly disappeared.

In 2022, Wang Shuai and Cheng Wu successively retired from the top public relations positions. They led the public relations teams of Alibaba and Tencent respectively to expand their territory and fight their way through the smoky battlefield of public opinion.

Wang Shuai was once the mainstay of Alibaba's public relations team. He quelled the corruption scandal within Alibaba and established a corporate image for Alibaba that values ​​integrity, fairness and justice. Later, he helped Taobao to be associated with the Double 11 shopping spree, and has long enjoyed a good reputation in the circle for his "god replies".

In the eyes of the outside world, Cheng Wu is a cautious person who never lets slip anything. His strategy is not to cause trouble for the company and to adopt a defensive strategy. However, during his tenure, Cheng Wu also contributed countless textbook-level public relations to Tencent. Whether it was the Lao Gan Ma incident that shocked the entire Internet or the last stand caused by the celebrity scandal, Tencent's public relations team repeatedly resolved the crisis in a self-deprecating and humorous way.

Compared with his predecessors, Zhang Jun, the current number one public relations officer of Tencent, is more keen to express his own opinions. He once posted a microblog on May 4th Youth Day, "When we are busy planning various tributes to young people, young people are sleeping." This statement caused dissatisfaction among netizens. Since then, Zhang Jun's personal social media account has gradually returned to Tencent's business and products, and has become a propaganda platform for Tencent products.

2022 is a turning point in the development of Internet companies. The revenue growth of many established Internet companies has fallen below double digits. The outside world's admiration and respect for entrepreneurs has also subsided, and a wave of layoffs has followed. When the cold wind blows through every corner of the Internet, most of the public relations No. 1s who are active in the front desk gradually disappear, hiding among tens of thousands of ordinary employees, responding to the violent storm of personnel changes with a calm attitude.

It is undeniable that the activity of Internet public relations is often linked to the state of business development. When the industry just entered the competitive period, public relations was busy charging forward, firing at competitors, and striving for a voice space for the company's main business. However, when the market was gradually divided up by various players, public relations gradually withdrew its edge and no longer showed up.

From 2010 to 2020, Chinese Internet companies lined up for listing, and unicorns in niche fields sprang up everywhere. Public relations teams received glamorous words such as growth, expansion, financing, and transcendence every day. They urgently needed to create a public impression that the company was thriving, innovative and enterprising.

Xiaoting, a public relations practitioner, has witnessed the rapid expansion of the team. During the business expansion, her team grew from 3 to 20 people in half a year. Now that the industry tide has receded, the workload has been visibly reduced, and the tense atmosphere with competitors has gradually disappeared.

"In the past, the company would rush to hold a press conference whenever there was a new move, wishing to let everyone in the entire circle know. The budget for the public relations team was also sufficient. In recent years, it has become more and more low-key. Either everyone has no achievements, or they are making a fortune in silence." Xiaoting said.

"There is no sign of the company's business expansion, and the public relations department has less and less room to operate. It only has to do some basic media maintenance every day, and it is difficult to tell new stories during performance reports." Another Internet public relations officer told Times Finance that his company has bid farewell to its rapid development period, and he chose to leave because he could not find any incremental business.

3. In the race to chase traffic, the top leader is the best PR

However, no leading company is willing to give up the traffic position. Even the successful Dong Mingzhu has always been eager to create the next Internet celebrity and open up online sales channels for Gree's small home appliances. After parting ways with Meng Yutong, Dong Mingzhu continued to fight on the front line.

In 2024, the trend of everyone vying to become an internet celebrity has spread from the Internet circle to the automotive circle.

Lei Jun, who entered the car manufacturing industry, stole the limelight. He has been immersed in the Internet public opinion field for more than ten years and is well versed in traffic. He also made Xiaomi Automobile the focus of attention. Xiaomi's new product SU7 became the hottest product in the automotive industry as soon as it came out, making a beautiful start.

The phenomenal popularity attracted many car industry bigwigs to join the live broadcast, including Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motors, and Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue Automobile. In addition, the first generation of Internet tycoons with a certain mass base are also ready to move. Recently, in order to build momentum for the 618 e-commerce promotion, Jack Ma and Liu Qiangdong both made high-profile appearances in another way.

An old post by Jack Ma on "Taojianghu" attracted outside attention. The content of the post was that the biggest beneficiaries of e-commerce should be users, which once again strengthened Taotian Group's strategy of "returning to users"; Liu Qiangdong's digital man appeared in JD's live broadcast room and achieved the first battle result of 50 million in sales.

Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 Group, who has never left the front line, left early. At the beginning of this year, he came to the headquarters of Dongfang Zhenxuan to ask Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui for advice on the secret of online celebrity traffic, and set a goal for himself to increase his fans to 10 million. According to Zhou Hongyi, people's brains have been formatted by short videos and live broadcasts. If entrepreneurs don't become online celebrities, no one will know about their products.

Last month, Zhou Hongyi began to attack the Beijing Auto Show. From being a male model in red at the auto show, auctioning a Maybach for 9.9 million yuan, to test-driving a flying car and expressing his emotions on live broadcast, Zhou Hongyi has packaged himself as a top figure in the automotive industry, creating one online hot spot after another.

At present, Baidu, which missed the mobile Internet boom, has got the ticket to the Thousand Model War. After releasing the Wenxin Yiyan model, Baidu has been showing off its muscles almost every once in a while, but Baidu, which claims to surpass OpenAI, has not yet delivered an answer sheet that can match it.

At this year's Global AI Developers Conference, Robin Li reported on the achievements of Wenxin Yiyan one year after its release: the number of users exceeded 200 million, the average daily API calls exceeded 200 million, the number of service users reached 85,000, and the number of AI native applications developed on the Qianfan platform exceeded 190,000.

In addition to the star effect of Robin Li himself, Baidu has not promoted any Internet celebrities to represent the company's position, which makes Baidu lack an excellent communication window in the era of celebrities. Baidu's key businesses for future development include driverless cars and artificial intelligence, which are also aimed at C-end users.

Under the influence of public opinion, the personal color of the number one public relations person gradually dimmed, and Alibaba Group's public relations lost its soul. With the great changes within Alibaba, the public relations power became dispersed; Tencent's public relations director Zhang Jun put away his edge and focused on promoting corporate products and responding to external rumors. The return of the bigwigs once again confirmed that they are the trendsetters of this era and the safe trump card of corporate public relations.

Perhaps, in the future, there will no longer be the title of number one public relations figure in the Internet world.

(All interviewees in this article are pseudonyms.)

Author: Xu Xiaoqian; Editor: Shi Chengchao

Source public account: Times Finance APP (ID: tf-app), focusing on corporate financial news, produced by Times Media Group.