Shenzhou Car service (神州专车) 'Beat Uber' campaign: a exploratory of negative reputation marketing ...

Shenzhou Car Service is a Chinese car service company which provide a variety of premium car for people to hire in the rate that is the same as the Taxis in the market. Its drivers are professional and well trained drivers. The business model is smart from my point of view. It sits in between traditional Taxi business and Uber business.

Thursday morning (25 June), Shenzhou Car Service did something “crazy” on its Sina Weibo page – it delivered a post with 9 pictures of celebrities and professionals from different industries holding a card suggesting its fans stop using Uber. Its argument is quite simple – Uber drivers were not well trained and not well managed. Therefore passengers are facing danger of health and safety risks. And even just 1% risk could damage your life seriously. 

The post generated huge chaos on Weibo and WeChat. People argued whether the challenge from Shenzhou to Uber was fair. Within a day the original post got 12,390 shares, 7,099 comment and 1,638 likes. Not to mention that there were more user generated posts spread over the digital media. Influencers joined in the conversation as well. The key points of these influencers were mostly doubts of the approach of Shenzhou Car to accuse its competitor through advertising and whether that’s defamation against the law. 

Soon a typo was spotted in one of the 9 pictures. The topic of Shenzhou typegate generated the second wave of buzz online. People teased Shenzhou Car’s mistakes in the post. 

Then Shenzhou Car immediately delivered another two posts teasing the mistakes it made. The two posts got a total of 13,397 share, 8,191 comments and 1,840 likes. 

Then Shenzhou Car delivered another two posts teasing the mistakes it made. The two posts got a total of 13,397 share, 8,191 comments and 1,840 likes.

The most surprising thing is by the end of the day is that Shenzhou delivered a closing WeChat post to make apology to Uber as well as the celebrities and professionals endorsed its campaign. As a ‘compensation’ Shenzhou is providing large amount of free coupons through WeChat.

This is indeed one of a classic ‘viral marketing’ I’ve seen on Chinese social media. Shenzhou Car is not the only company doing such kind of negative campaign marketing. Other brands such as Suning also did something similar – through creating negative news to raise awareness.

I am quite convinced that the whole thing is pre-planned by Shenzhou Car according to the speed of response from Shenzhou Car. Uber, the public, the influencers online and those celebrities endorsed the brand were all just the chests in the game.

What indeed do the online audiences think? An online survey by Sina the next day showed that 74.8% of people being interviewed claimed that they support Uber. The celebrities and professionals who endorsed Shenzhou Car were also criticized in a sense.

What Shenzhou Car won in the end is its awareness.  My question now is that would the event harm Shenzhou Car’s business? i.e. Would the awareness help its business? Would Chinese audiences step away from the brand because of such kind of dodgy marketing campaign?  From a Chinese consumer’s perspective, which one matters - its marketing campaign or its products and services? I am now really curious about any further follow up reports about Shenzhou Car in the near future. 

One important thing reminded me through this event is that Chinese agencies and companies are getting 'wild' on social media. I used to believe that negative approach was wrong and negative marketing should be avoid. Not to say creating negative stories that are associated with brand. Obviously some marketers are exploring the possibility to push the boundary. Would it work? I am keen to see. 

Ok, in the end let me show you what was Uber's response to the attack: Be With U. We don't want to beat anyone. We are more willing to ______ U. Input the password and listen to what we think. Interesting?