Well, that was pretty quick. Just two whole months since the worst of the melamine in Chinese brands of baby formula scandal – and tragedy – two of the companies involved in the food tainting, YiLi and MengNiu, are already starting PR drives to build up trust, and rebuild their shattered sales in the lucrative baby milk formula market.
The YiLi ‘rebuilding trust’ campaign has been the most prominent on TV in recent days – here is the video of their ad – and centers on the idea of “Rest assured in Yili†(伊利放心奶粉大行动 is the whole catchline) with various supermarket managers pledging, by touching their hearts, that they are suitably “assured†in YiLi’s products. Here’s a still from the ad:
After the deaths of three toddlers, and the hospitalisation of tens of thousands of under-5s with kidney stones caused by the melamine in their SanLu, YiLi and MengNiu powder (to say nothing of the UHT and fresh milk tainting by numerous other brands) which affected pretty much the whole country, in products from milk to cookies, is it too soon for these companies to have any hope of earning the trust, all over again, of their once loyal customers?
I was expecting a bit more of a backlash against these companies from normal people, but perhaps the free healthcare offered by the government to those whose health was affected has effectively doused the flames of discontentment and resentment. I even naively expected a boycott of some of the major brands.
I remember boycotting Nestle products back in 1999 and 2000 in the light of their cruel and underhand business operations in Africa – getting babies hooked on free formula, and then later charging the mothers for it; that kind of thing – by refusing to buy any of their coffee or chocolates for over a year. And many others in the UK and other countries did likewise, in a show of force against unethical multi-nationals, by showing the people’s collective savvy to seriously hit the corporation’s profit margins.
But, in the name of ‘social harmony’ that probably would not be allowed in the aftermath of the melamine tainting scandal. So, to end my post, here’s my own interpretation of YiLi’s new ad campaign:
