Yeah Gelato 野人先生, a Chineses chain with over 1000 stores, has become increasingly popular after being publicly criticized by Luo Yonghao (widely known as China’s brand-experience watchdog)
Interesting read!! The most interesting part to me is that Luo’s criticism may have accidentally done something brands spend a lot of money trying to achieve, its getting people to actually try the product
it is almost a strange form of involuntary sampling, someone says its bad, thousands of people become curious, go try it themselves, and suddenly the conversation shifts from one person’s opinion to everyone having their own experience
so it makes me wonder if in a world where one person can trigger that much attention, the strongest defense for a brand is simply having a product that people can experience and judge for themselves
Thank you for your reply—very interesting. It made me reflect on the rigor of my wording and, ultimately, my opinion. I think I need to be more rigorous and comprehensive here.
Agree - high-quality product experience and high accessibility are the fundamental basis for a brand to build an immunity barrier against negative attacks — [but they may not to be everything]. They provide the counterarguments that consumers can verify for themselves and the familiarity anchor; whereas past reputation, consumer trust relationships, consistency between brand promises and actual delivery, crisis communication strategy, and variables such as the public opinion environment and the credibility of the attacker still jointly determine whether these foundations can be activated, amplified, or offset.
There is a hidden factor here: the collective reputation of China’s food and beverage industry has not yet fully recovered. Public skepticism about the industry’s safety and quality has never really stopped — and in some respects, the reaction has overcorrected. In many cases, what Chinese people accept as “safe” and what is legally defined as safe under internationally aligned standards are simply not the same thing. This is a legacy issue. When it comes to food and beverage safety, Chinese people are far more easily inflamed by such topics than by other issues.
That is to say, although Yeah Gelato may appear to offer better value for money compared with Xibei, this cannot prove that if Yeah Gelato and Xibei had adopted the same response approach, they would have escaped this crisis.
Looking at the Zhong Xuegao carrageenan incident alongside Xibei’s pre-made dishes controversy, even if Yeah Gelato had also opened its kitchen to the public, there is no guarantee that the result would have satisfied Chinese consumers.
Interesting read!! The most interesting part to me is that Luo’s criticism may have accidentally done something brands spend a lot of money trying to achieve, its getting people to actually try the product
it is almost a strange form of involuntary sampling, someone says its bad, thousands of people become curious, go try it themselves, and suddenly the conversation shifts from one person’s opinion to everyone having their own experience
so it makes me wonder if in a world where one person can trigger that much attention, the strongest defense for a brand is simply having a product that people can experience and judge for themselves
Thank you for your reply—very interesting. It made me reflect on the rigor of my wording and, ultimately, my opinion. I think I need to be more rigorous and comprehensive here.
Agree - high-quality product experience and high accessibility are the fundamental basis for a brand to build an immunity barrier against negative attacks — [but they may not to be everything]. They provide the counterarguments that consumers can verify for themselves and the familiarity anchor; whereas past reputation, consumer trust relationships, consistency between brand promises and actual delivery, crisis communication strategy, and variables such as the public opinion environment and the credibility of the attacker still jointly determine whether these foundations can be activated, amplified, or offset.
There is a hidden factor here: the collective reputation of China’s food and beverage industry has not yet fully recovered. Public skepticism about the industry’s safety and quality has never really stopped — and in some respects, the reaction has overcorrected. In many cases, what Chinese people accept as “safe” and what is legally defined as safe under internationally aligned standards are simply not the same thing. This is a legacy issue. When it comes to food and beverage safety, Chinese people are far more easily inflamed by such topics than by other issues.
That is to say, although Yeah Gelato may appear to offer better value for money compared with Xibei, this cannot prove that if Yeah Gelato and Xibei had adopted the same response approach, they would have escaped this crisis.
Looking at the Zhong Xuegao carrageenan incident alongside Xibei’s pre-made dishes controversy, even if Yeah Gelato had also opened its kitchen to the public, there is no guarantee that the result would have satisfied Chinese consumers.
Thank you for the reminder.