Taking stock of the entire "Small Composition" incident, why is Oriental Selection, which understands crisis public relations, no longer effective?

The crisis that Oriental Selection is facing this time stems from a video promotion copywriter. This article will sort out its various crisis public relations practices, and at the same time alert the live streaming e-commerce industry to think about how to handle internal company relationships and connections with fans and consumers to ensure sustainable development.

"Yuhui is the reason for success and failure", Dong Yuhui undoubtedly played a key role in New Oriental's re-entry into the new track of live e-commerce after the Waterloo of its education and training business. However, recently, Dongfang Selection also mishandled the "mother-in-law" fan group's fanatical love for Dong Yuhui, allowing the "small essay" incident to spread into a surging public opinion crisis, and thus suffered heavy losses in stock prices, live e-commerce business and brand image.

Why did Oriental Selection, which is very good at crisis public relations, suddenly become ineffective? What did it do wrong in this incident?

1. Event Review

Dong Yuhui improvised a short essay during a live broadcast, which showed his excellent knowledge and accomplishment. The talented and eloquent Yuhui was loved and praised by the audience who valued talent, and the "short essay" became a personalized label for Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Zhenxuan's live e-commerce. This time, Dongfang Zhenxuan suffered heavy losses because of the "short essay".

First, let’s summarize the direct causes and development of this crisis:

The Oriental Selection business is highly dependent on anchor Dong Yuhui, and Dong’s fans cannot tolerate the editorial team behind him taking away the “talent halo” that they believe belongs exclusively to Dong;

The editorial team was unwilling to be an unsung hero and even more unwilling to be attacked by these fans and fight back. The management of Oriental Selection failed to control the editorial team and was unable to meet the fans' demands (make the editorial team shut up and officially acknowledge that all talents belonged to Dong). In their response, they also criticized the fans for engaging in "fan culture", which triggered fans' speculation and critical attacks on the official intentions.

The following is a timeline summary:

1. On December 5, 2023, the short essay controversy began.

Oriental Selection released a warm-up video about Oriental Selection’s Jilin trip on its official account, and pinned a comment answering the question “Who wrote the promotional copy?”, saying that most of the classic essays were created by the copywriting team, not all by the anchors.

This statement caused dissatisfaction among Dong Yuhui's fans. One netizen responded by saying: "Yu Minhong said that the Shanxi essay was written by Dong Yuhui. Are you lying, or is Yu Minhong lying?"

Subsequently, the "small essay" incident of Oriental Selection continued to ferment, causing quite a stir on the Internet.

2. CEO Sun Dongxu and Dong Yuhui tried to put out the newly ignited flames

On December 9, Dongfang Zhenxuan CEO Sun Dongxu successively refuted the rumors in the live broadcast room and video content, clearly stating that Dong Yuhui participated in the copywriting and the company's success was inseparable from Dong Yuhui's outstanding contribution. However, Sun Dongxu also emphasized that there is a clear division of labor within the company, and there should be no phenomenon of flattery or demotion.

In another live broadcast on the same day, Dong Yuhui himself also briefly responded to the operation editor's "taking credit", believing that it was a "nonsense reply" by the editor who thought he knew the business very well. Dong Yuhui used the story of the team's offline snowball fight to show that the negative emotions within the team had been resolved and they were still united and friendly.

3. The editor of Oriental Selection Operations added fuel to the fire

On December 10, the editor of Oriental Selection's operations was not convinced and left a message to netizens again, saying: "I was already feeling aggrieved, and this time the comment section is so chaotic, I can't stand it! Yuhui said in front of the camera last night that the editor 'claims to know the business very well' and 'replied nonsense'. It is one thing that the editor had a pleasant cooperation with the anchor, but the editor did not 'replied nonsense'. " Afterwards, the editor listed the writing process of several original copywritings, including both independent creation by the team and collaboration with the anchor.

4. Dong Yuhui's fans "rebelled" and flocked to Gaotu Jiapin, causing Dongfang Zhenxuan's stock price to plummet

On the evening of December 11, Gaotu Jiapin's live broadcast room was flooded with Dong Yuhui's fans. Many netizens with orange "selection team" signs on their heads rushed into Gaotu's live broadcast room to "report", saying "You must catch the overwhelming wealth sent by Dongfang Selection". Compared with 27,000 people the day before, Gaotu Jiapin's live broadcast room attracted 600,000 viewers. When the broadcast started at 7:30 am on December 12, netizens from the selection team continued to pour into the live broadcast room, with nearly 5,000 people online at the same time, while the peak number of online people in the live broadcast room two days ago was less than 100.

The fans of the selection team flocked to Gaotu’s live broadcast room not to switch jobs to support Gaotu, but these fans who claimed to be "Dong Yuhui's mother-in-law" were "challenging" Dongfang Selection by "climbing the wall". They believed that Dongfang Selection was stabbing Dong Yuhui in the back.

On that day, the share price of Oriental Selection fell sharply, with the change reaching -7.13%.

5. Sun Dongxu speaks out again, trying to contain the crisis

On December 12, Sun Dongxu once again made a positive response to the "small essay" controversy.

Sun Dongxu said: "I want to criticize the editor of the company first. It is understandable to have emotions at work, but the communication method is wrong, and you can't complete your work with emotions." "I understand Yuhui very much, it's the editor who did something wrong." At the same time, Sun Dongxu also admitted that everyone in the team shares honor and disgrace and achieves each other. However, due to his negligence, he did not notice the dissatisfaction of the content editing team, which led to Dong Yuhui's refusal to broadcast on December 10. He also criticized Dong Yuhui's emotional performance and believed that any internal problems should not affect the established arrangements for the live broadcast.

However, fans are not buying it, the traffic of Oriental Selection's live broadcast room is still difficult to recover, and the stock price is still falling.

6. Dong Yuhui officially responded to express his support for the company, but fans did not buy it and the stock price plummeted

In the early morning of December 13, Dong Yuhui posted a picture and text on his Douyin account in response to the "short essay" controversy.

He once again detailed the division of labor between himself and his team in the copywriting process, and expressed his support for the company's difficult transformation and entrepreneurship. "I am one of the participants and builders of the company. It is my wish that the company develops well and more people benefit. I will work hard for it every day I work here."

At the same time, he expressed that "it was not the intention of the company, nor the fans. I don't want to steal the show and I don't want to respond too much."

But the fans did not completely buy it. Sun Dongxu and Dong Yuhui criticized the "fan circle" at the same time, which made some fans of the mother-in-law very disappointed. They pointed out that it was the active support of the fans that made Oriental Selection what it is today, and it was also because of the support of the fans that the "small composition" incident forced the company to resolve internal conflicts more quickly. However, the anchors and executives of Oriental Selection instead accused the fans of being "fan circles", which seemed to be a case of "killing the donkey after it has done its work".

On that day, the share price of Oriental Selection continued to fall, with the change reaching -12.96%.

2. What did Oriental Selection lose because of the “Small Composition”?

Oriental Selection is a Hong Kong-listed company. This incident has posed a huge challenge to its market value management in the short term. Since December 11, Oriental Selection's Hong Kong stocks have fallen for three consecutive days, from the closing price of HK$33.65 on December 8 (the market was closed on the 9th and 10th for the weekend) to the closing price of HK$27.20 on December 13. The stock price has fallen by 19.2% in total, and the overall market value has evaporated by more than HK$3 billion, which can be said to be a heavy loss.

From the perspective of its main business of live e-commerce, the loss is also quite heavy. According to third-party data statistics, the number of viewers of Dongfang Zhenxuan's live broadcast room on December 12 was only 7.941 million, which was nearly 9 million less than the peak number of viewers on December 9; the sales of live broadcasts for three consecutive days on the 10th, 11th and 12th dropped from the peak of 50 million to 75 million on December 9 to 10 million to 25 million, only 1/5 to 1/3 of the peak period, and the number of account fans decreased by more than 100,000, which is not a small loss.

The brand image of Oriental Selection was also greatly damaged in this incident. The single business structure and corporate governance problems led to over-reliance on individual anchors without effective control; the lack of sufficient team cohesion when the business was booming, coupled with internal management omissions, led to increased friction between teams; when public opinion risks emerged, it was difficult to effectively control and deal with them, resulting in spillovers into crises; the demands of consumers who drove the growth of Oriental Selection’s business were ignored, and even despised by consumers...

I would like to state here that the following content is not objective information, but a subjective analysis based on the information I have. It does not involve any judgment of stance or values, so you do not have to think it is absolutely correct. Exchanges and discussions are also welcome.

3. Why did Oriental Selection encounter this crisis?

In fact, as early as February this year, there were online rumors that Oriental Selection was getting rid of Dong Yuhui, which caused quite a public opinion crisis at the time, but was cleverly resolved by Yu Minhong. Oriental Selection was therefore considered to be very good at crisis public relations, which led to the current turmoil at the end of the year once again exposing the hidden risks at the bottom.

In fact, I think this incident revealed two conflicting contradictions at the public opinion level: the contradiction between the editorial team and Dong’s fans, and the contradiction between the official Oriental Selection and Dong’s fans.

I believe that the core reason for these two contradictions is indeed the problem of "fan culture" pointed out by the senior executives of Oriental Selection, that is, fans are too fanatical in pursuing idols and deifying them and so-called defending them with all their strength. On the surface, this seems to be a love for the idols themselves, but in fact it is satisfying this group's pursuit of a certain perfect image. In addition to some fans who will attack people who offend their idols, even extremely fanatical fans will attack the idols themselves who do not match their fantasy image.

The causes of this problem and how to solve it are too complicated to be discussed and analyzed here. Let us take a look at why Oriental Selection was hurt by the "fan culture".

1. Creating idols to chase profits also creates risks of backlash

Just as Dong Yuhui signed before this incident, "I used to be a teacher, now I am a salesperson", this sentence vividly illustrates the career transformation journey of Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui.

When New Oriental encountered a huge setback in the education and training industry, it began to try to transform itself, hoping to tap into the purchasing power of its accumulated fans to break through in the e-commerce live broadcast track, and also provided a new stage for many former training teachers including Dong Yuhui. I believe that Dong Yuhui, like his colleagues who transformed into anchors, was confused about Oriental Selection and his own future.

The knowledge and talent displayed by Dong Yuhui's occasional improvisation were appreciated and spread by the audience, and soon attracted high attention from the public and the public's love and pursuit. Yu Minhong and New Oriental cultivated a group of famous teachers in the golden age of education and training. They have always been aware of the influence of idols and the dividends they can bring. They immediately took advantage of the situation and promoted Dong Yuhui, making him a grassroots idol. They also hoped to highly bind the platform image with Dong's image to inspire more people's empathy and appreciation, so as to obtain high exposure and high sales.

It is true that many people paid attention to Oriental Selection because of Dong’s talent, and paid for it and became loyal fans. Dong’s contribution to this success is beyond reproach, and both parties can be said to have achieved each other.

However, everything is a double-edged sword. While Oriental Selection is creating idols and pursuing dividends, there will inevitably be corresponding harm or risks.

First of all, promoting Dong Yuhui will inevitably prevent equal allocation of resources to other anchors. While Dong Yuhui has grown into a super-celebrity anchor with tens of millions of fans, the living space of other anchors in the company has actually been compressed. It is difficult for them to get suitable growth opportunities, and one person is the dominant one while everyone else is mediocre.

This will easily lead to the company's main source of revenue being overly single. Whether Dong Yuhui leaves on his own initiative or the company wants him to leave, it will cause huge risks.

Secondly, chasing after idols can easily form the so-called fan culture, and Oriental Selection can easily be swept up in it.

Although this was not intentional by Dongfang Zhenxuan or Dong Yuhui, they were unwilling and unable to stop it. Although fan clubs can contribute to traffic and revenue, they are also a potential threat to the company, providing convenience for idols themselves or fan clubs to implement the subjective will of certain people by virtue of their influence, or the fanatical behavior of fan clubs is likely to harm the company under certain circumstances.

In addition, the idol halo can easily backfire. Once the idol's personality collapses, fans will find it hard to accept and flee or take irrational actions, which will affect the company's business security. The outside world will criticize without mercy, causing serious damage to the idol and the company's brand image.

In fact, Oriental Selection has known about these risks from the very beginning, but it could not let go of the huge temptation of idol bonuses, so it could only rush all the way and work hard to eliminate risks. It took measures such as supporting other anchors to build an anchor matrix, increasing the platform brand building efforts, and adding supply chain management, hoping to "de-glorify" as much as possible, but the results were limited until the risk spillover became a public opinion crisis.

2. The profit distribution mechanism leads to internal team friction

The transformation of Oriental Selection into an e-commerce live broadcast can be considered a success. This is inseparable from the far-sighted planning and decision-making and strategic management of senior executives including Yu Minhong and Sun Xudong, the outstanding contributions of super anchors such as Dong Yuhui, and the diligence of other anchors such as YOYO, Mingming, Dun Dun, Qiqi, and Jesse. It is also inseparable from the silent dedication of the editorial team and other departments behind the anchors.

Since everyone has contributed, they should all enjoy the dividends of the company's development and have the right to get a piece of the pie.

But in fact, people have a strange mentality: they feel that they do more but get less. Executives, super anchors, ordinary anchors, editor team and everyone in Oriental Selection Company are no exception.

In the process of profit distribution, if the company cannot provide reasonable, rational and compliant rules and mechanisms, it will easily lead to internal tensions and increase internal team frictions.

Dong Yuhui has gone from being an ordinary teacher to an internet celebrity with millions of fans. In terms of fame and fortune, his gains are incomparable to when he was teaching at New Oriental. Perhaps he feels in his heart that the benefits allocated to him by the company are commensurate with his contributions, but what everyone can see is that his fans think that the rewards he receives are far from enough, as can be seen from the discussion about his salary that has arisen from this storm.

The editorial team (content planning and production team) behind Dong undoubtedly felt that they had suffered a loss. As writers, they all care about their reputation. The copywriting they produced serves the company's business, and the reputation of their talent is monopolized by Dong. It is understandable that they feel upset. I don't know whether Dongfang Selection has allocated enough benefits to make up for this loss of reputation. I don't think so, because this storm was caused by the editorial team's dissatisfaction spilling over to the media.

We cannot speculate whether there is friction in the distribution of interests between shareholders, executives and other groups, but anything that happens is groundless. Some people speculate that the editorial team’s statement and subsequent debate on the right to create copy was instructed by the company or even executives. Some people say that Sun’s response reflects a certain conflict between him and Dong. Some people even commented that Yu Minhong must choose between Sun and Dong. These are all projections and reflections of some problems.

As for how to solve this problem, Yu Minhong and shareholders need to think carefully from the perspectives of corporate governance, team management, and corporate culture.

3. The crisis management system is not sound and the response measures are inappropriate

Although many people regard Oriental Selection as the company that understands crisis public relations the best, judging from the development of this crisis, its crisis management work still has significant problems. For example, its crisis management system is obviously not sound and cannot eliminate risks in the bud. In addition, its response and disposal measures after the crisis were inappropriate, resulting in unnecessary losses.

This part will be expanded below and analyzed in detail.

4. What problems exist in Oriental Selection’s crisis management work?

Before the analysis, we need to define the connotation of crisis management.

I believe that crisis management is a series of management activities that enterprises carry out to predict, analyze, respond to and recover from possible crisis events, and should include three stages: crisis prevention, crisis response and crisis recovery.

The crisis mentioned here does not only refer to the brand reputation crisis occurring in the media, but should also include crises in all aspects of the company's production and operation, such as production, finance, law, and human resources.

It is worth noting that once the risk at any link turns into a crisis, it will evolve into a brand reputation crisis when it spreads to external media and attracts the attention of public opinion. A brand reputation crisis will cause the external environment to lose confidence and support for the company, further bringing negative impact on the company's overall business management.

Back to the analysis of Oriental Selection, judging from its past handling of public opinion crises, its ability in this area is indeed remarkable, especially in defining relevant stakeholders and core conflicts. It is also good at controlling the development of crises and gradually minimizing the negative impact by sorting out relationships, solving problems and guiding public opinion.

However, judging from its handling of this essay crisis, it failed to effectively prevent risks, which led to its evolution into a major crisis. This reflects its lack of a sound crisis management system, and there were also some problems in its handling and response after the crisis occurred.

In fact, the best crisis management is to prevent a crisis from happening, that is, to do a good job in crisis prevention.

Enterprises should classify and grade crises in advance and formulate corresponding contingency plans, enhance employees' crisis management awareness, establish a crisis warning mechanism, and take response measures after timely discovering potential risk events, so as to nip risks in the bud and prevent them from turning into crises.

Since they are pursuing idol bonuses and are aware of the risks that come with it, and the risks involved with Dong Yuhui as a super anchor are even greater, it is of great significance to the company's business security and even strategic development. Oriental Selection should be highly vigilant and take preventive measures.

Apart from anything else, it is at least necessary to establish a monitoring and handling plan for public opinion risks related to Dong Yuhui. Once relevant problems are discovered, they should be reported to the company's management and shareholders, and specially handled by the crisis management team including Yu Minhong.

This again reflects that Oriental Selection lacks a sound crisis management system.

The enterprise's crisis management work system must at least include the establishment of crisis management personnel, crisis classification and grading, response plans, crisis monitoring systems and other systems. These systems are not independent of each other but are interrelated and operate in a coordinated manner.

The establishment of crisis management personnel should clearly define the crisis management responsibilities that senior executives, middle-level managers, and front-line employees should assume in different departments and positions, and how they should communicate and cooperate in different crisis situations.

Crisis classification and grading requires that crises be classified and graded based on regulatory laws, production methods, sales methods, etc., so that companies can formulate corresponding plans based on different crises.

It should be noted here that, in fact, in addition to the crises related to the anchors, as a live-streaming e-commerce company that directly faces consumers, crisis risks in areas such as supply chain control, product quality, after-sales service, laws and regulations, etc. will directly affect its business security and even strategic development, and should also be highly valued by Oriental Selection.

Judging from the incidents in the past where netizens questioned the quality of the corn it sold and Tietou’s crackdown on fake Wuchang rice, I’m afraid that not enough has been done in this regard.

After classifying and grading the crisis, a response plan should be prepared. Disposal plans should be prepared in advance for different types and levels of crises, and the corresponding management departments, communication mechanisms and disposal measures should be clarified. Enterprises can activate the plan as soon as the crisis occurs and respond reasonably to minimize the negative impact.

In addition, companies should establish an efficient and agile crisis monitoring system, including a public opinion monitoring system, a production safety monitoring system, a product quality control system, a customer complaint system, etc., which can help companies detect crises as early as possible and deal with them in a timely manner to prevent them from evolving into a larger crisis or spreading into a public opinion crisis.

After the crisis management system is established, the company should formally release and implement it in the form of a document, and run it through learning and training, actual operations and assessment and evaluation, so that it becomes part of daily work.

We can also see some more specific problems in the process of Oriental Selection's handling of the short essay crisis.

First, there is a lack of effective management mechanism for content release by the company’s official media.

The ownership of the company's media accounts belongs to the company, and the voices expressed represent the company's attitude and opinions, which will seriously affect the outside world's perception and judgment of the company. In particular, accounts like Dongfang Zhenxuan, which have a large fan base, have a huge influence on the content they publish, which is more related to the company's business security. They need to be strictly controlled and clearly require that only content related to the company's business can be published. Individuals including Dong Yuhui, editors, new media, and senior executives have no right to use the company's media accounts to express personal opinions without authorization.

At the same time, a strong constraint management mechanism should be established for editors and new media operators. For example, relevant requirements should be clearly stated in labor contracts and employee handbooks. If there is any violation, corresponding punishment should be imposed and even legal liability should be pursued. At the same time, training on risk awareness and business capabilities of editors, new media operations and other team members should be strengthened to prevent them from deliberately violating the requirements and reduce the possibility of making mistakes.

Secondly, Oriental Selection was unable to effectively control its external tone during this crisis public relations process.

After a crisis occurs, the public's attention to a company's image will increase rapidly. If a company's external statements are inconsistent, it will cause information confusion and misleading, causing the public to have doubts and distrust, leading to further deterioration of the crisis, and further damaging the company's image and reputation. However, if corporate management maintains a consistent voice and delivers clear and accurate information to the public, it can effectively maintain the company's image and reputation.

This requires the company to designate a spokesperson for the crisis public relations phase and formulate clear and accurate communication content after reaching a consensus.

In contrast, after the crisis occurred on December 5, Oriental Selection did not control its editorial team, which led to its response on December 10 adding fuel to the fire. Sun Xudong's response criticized Dong Yuhui again. The information was extremely confusing, leaving fans guessing what the company's true attitude was, causing the crisis to continue to ferment and worsen.

Of course, some people speculate that this was indeed an intentional move by the company to weaken Dong's influence or even drive Dong away, but I don't think so. When Yu Minhong was at the center of the crisis, he still didn't know what to prioritize. He would never have been able to build New Oriental in the first place.

In addition, although Oriental Selection clearly defined the relevant stakeholders and core contradictions, it adopted the wrong handling strategy of delaying resolution and abusing cutting because it was unwilling to give up the idol bonus.

Perhaps because they were afraid that Dong’s influence would collapse after he lost his talent, which would affect the sales performance of his live e-commerce business, Oriental Selection seemed to hope that the storm would gradually subside naturally and the fan circle would no longer pay attention to it, so the official did not speak out. However, they did not expect that the editor’s team would confront the fan circle and cause the crisis to worsen.

Sun Xudong's remarks abused the use of separation. He hoped to separate the editorial team from the company, and the fan circle from the fans. He wanted to maintain Dong Yuhui's aura of talent, and continue to make money from the so-called "fans" rather than the "fan circle" based on Dong Yuhui's personal influence in the future.

However, the abuse of cutting actually created more serious confrontation, causing the fan circle to shift its attack from the editor's team to the company, leading to the worsening of the crisis.

In my opinion, during the entire crisis management process, the most powerful weapon against the fan circle should actually be Dong Yuhui’s own voice.

However, Dong Yuhui first tried to cover up the storm by singing the same tune with Sun Xudong, and then criticized the editor team, giving the fans a reason to attack and letting the crisis spread. After the editor's hard confrontation with the fans further aggravated the crisis, in fact, Dong only needed to publicly clarify the copywriting process to the fans, remove his own halo of talent, and the fans would accept it calmly, and the storm would subside. Perhaps Dongfang Selection could also start to more effectively promote the development of its anchor matrix.

However, it is not known whether it was due to the concerns mentioned above or Dong Yuhui's personal reluctance that Oriental Selection was always unable to take this step. It was not until the early morning of December 13 that Dong spoke publicly.

But Dong Yuhui also changed his personal signature on social media from "Used to be a teacher, now a salesperson" to "Don't be willful, don't be sure, don't be stubborn, don't be me", and the IP address shows that he is currently in Shaanxi Province, which has sparked speculation about his future whereabouts.

Yu Minhong, the mainstay of Oriental Selection, also released a video on social media on December 14, admitting that a small matter within the company had turned into a surging public opinion due to improper handling. He also assumed leadership responsibility, criticized the editor and Xiao Sun, and expressed his apologies to Dong Yuhui.

This can be regarded as the final conclusion of Oriental Selection on this incident, and it is also an explanation to Dong Yuhui's fan club.

On December 14, although the share price of Oriental Selection has stopped falling, the negative impact of this essay scandal on its future business development is difficult to estimate.

Author: Chen Hao; WeChat public account: Brand Market Relativity (ID: Brand-Marketing)