Hongxingerke'S Philanthropy Is Controversial; The Taste Of Using Charity Money As Advertising Expenses

Recently, a hot microblog Search about charitable donations has been launched, and the protagonist of this time is "hongxingerke".  

In the live broadcast activity of "Thanksgiving growth day", hongxingerke announced that it would donate 100 million yuan to Fujian disabled welfare foundation to help the disabled groups and families in difficulties to improve their quality of life. So "hongxingerke donated another 100 million yuan" rushed to the top of the hot search list, and once again triggered heated discussion among netizens.  

People who often surf the Internet should be impressed. Since hongxingerke donated 50 million yuan to Henan last year and was put on the microblog hot search list by netizens, this domestic brand, which used to hover in the second and third tier, seems to have become a frequent visitor of the hot microblog search list. After incomplete statistics by some media, it is found that hongxingerke has made more than 30 hot searches on Weibo since July last year.  

Generally speaking, the more positive hot searches on microblogs, the better people's impression of enterprises will be. However, due to the frequent hot searches conducted by hongxingerke, people are already tired, and even the comments begin to turn from positive to negative, and disputes become more and more. The reason for this paradox is that many hot searches of Hongxing Erke are tied up with the public welfare activities of enterprises. However, there are few hot searches on products. In the eyes of some outsiders, there is a taste of using charity money as advertising expenses.

01 、 Controversial public welfare donation

For a long time, the donation behavior of enterprises to the society is often regarded as an important means to undertake social responsibility and give back to the society. The donors get the donations and materials they need. However, the enterprises obtain good social image and brand reputation for themselves at the cost of a few economic benefits, which can be said to be a win-win strategy.

But in the case of hongxingerke recently, this win-win strategy seems to have failed. Hongxingerke has been questioned by some people whether it is for the purpose of marketing and carrying goods due to the donation behavior. Some media and newspapers have also interpreted hongxingerke's donation and marketing from different angles.

On the whole, the reason why hongxingerke has fallen into the whirlpool of public opinion because of its donation behavior may be the "number" and "quantity" of its donation behavior.

The purpose of hongerke's donation to the public is to show its enthusiasm for donation.

After donating money to Henan Province in July last year, hongxingerke donated money to Henan Museum in August to support post disaster reconstruction. In the following October, hongxingerke was disclosed by netizens that a large number of materials were donated to Shanxi. This is not over. In March this year, due to the epidemic situation in Quanzhou, hongxingerke donated millions of materials to Quanzhou Red Cross Society. If we pull the time line forward, we can also find that hongxingerke started a charity project with a welfare foundation in Fujian several years ago.

In addition, we should pay attention to the "amount" that hongxingerke has invested in public welfare donations in the past. In terms of the amount, hongxingerke often invested 5 million and 20 million yuan in donations. Last year, hongxingerke donated 50 million yuan. Recently, the recipient of the 100 million donation project, Fujian welfare foundation for the disabled, also revealed that hongxingerke had provided 180 million yuan worth of materials in its charity projects.

Public welfare donations are frequent and of high value. Hongxingerke's behaviors are very similar to those of charitable organizations with good money.

But in fact, the actual situation of hongxingerke is quite different. In recent years, the operation of hongxingerke is not optimistic. The most direct data comparison is that hongxingerke's revenue in 2007 was 2 billion yuan, and in 2019, 12 years later, hongxingerke's revenue was still 2 billion yuan.  

In other words, in the past 12 years, hongxingerke's revenue has stagnated. It can be seen that hongxinger has fallen into a state of "recession" in terms of operation.  

However, it was also because Hongxing Erke, which was in poor business condition, still donated 50 million yuan during the flood in Henan Province, which caused netizens to express their heartache and send them to microblog hot search, which greatly awakened the brand's popularity and made hongxingerke live broadcasting room appear "wild consumption" trend at that time.  

As a sports brand that has been wandering in the second and third line for a long time, hongxingerke has ushered in a highlight moment because of this charity.

After the donation event, "hongxingerke's members have been filled up to 2140", "chairman of hongxingerke denies that it is on the verge of bankruptcy" and other topics occupy the hot microblog search list in turn. Hongxingerke seems to reappear its glory and become the well-known brand of that year. In addition, a large number of media reported on hongxingerke, and many official media such as people's daily comments and China News Network also expressed positive affirmation and support for it.  

The great promotion of popularity has also led to the double growth of hongxingerke brand sales. According to data, the official account of Hongxing Erke on the shaking tone platform accumulated more than 190 million yuan of live broadcast sales from July 23 to 25 last year. Combined with the accumulated sales of Taobao platform, Hongxing Erke's sales at the end of July last year were roughly estimated to be more than 340 million yuan.  

After hongxingerke's subsequent donation behaviors, there were basically corporate donations, hot searches on microblogs, public opinion diffusion, and sales growth, which also led some people to speculate that the purpose of hongxingerke's multiple donations was to establish "conscience and human setup" and improve sales.  

Of course, we have no way to prove whether the purpose of public welfare donation is to bring goods, but we can borrow an online comment that "it is the conscience of the industry to make a secret donation once, a coincidence to be found twice, and a bit interesting to be found the second time".  

02 、 Hongxingerke set by conscience man: blooming everywhere but fruitless

It would be too unfair for hongxingerke to think that hongxingerke relies entirely on "conscience" to boost sales. In fact, Hongxing Erke has made a lot of efforts in serious marketing activities. For example, it has cooperated with Henan Museum to launch co branded T-shirts, Chery Automobile to launch retro Guochao series of sanitary clothes, and yirenxia animation IP to launch co branded products. At the beginning of this year, Hongxing Erke cooperated with Tencent's national mobile game king glory, In addition, Hongxing Erke has also established a cooperative relationship with a certain E-sports team in Nanjing, which can be described as the decline of Wenbo, automobile, animation, games and E-sports circles.

Unfortunately, although hongxingerke tried to be more successful in marketing, the market reaction to it was very flat. Not only has the cross-border cooperation between hongxingerke and animation IP not set off much volume on the Internet, but the interactive data of relevant microblogs is also relatively bleak, far behind those involving public welfare activities.

In these marketing events, it is worth mentioning the cooperation between Hongxing Erke and King glory at the beginning of this year. As a national level mobile game, the number of players and daily living volume are very considerable. Hongxingerke is a mature brand which has become popular recently. The cross-border cooperation between the two is originally a marketing activity beneficial to both sides. However, this win-win cooperation has experienced many twists and turns, and even caused the mutual accusation of fans on the Internet.

From January 10 to 13 this year, hongxingerke official micro blog repeatedly warmed up the co branding activities, but no response was received from the king's glory.

Because hongxingerke has made a lot of friends in the previous donation event, many netizens fight against injustice and think that the glory of the king is too big. Some people compared the situation when Wang Zhe Rong co branded with foreign brand Burberry before, accusing Wang Zhe Rong of double standards in its attitude towards domestic and foreign brands, and even labeled it as worshipping foreign countries.

Later, when Wang Zhirong announced the joint name activity on social media, it explained the dispute as that hongxingerke had made a warm-up in advance, which led to the oolong. Hongxingerke also publicly acknowledged this statement, and the dispute came to an end.

However, there are also views that the process of brand publicity has always been more rigorous, and if there is a problem, they will communicate with each other quickly. It is very difficult for one party to give a few days' publicity before the other party responds. Hongxingerke and wangzhirongrong have the possibility to create a small dispute on purpose, so as to get the hot search and promotion of microblog free of charge.

It has to be said that hongxingerke's brand marketing and public relations ability has been tested in this joint branding activity with King glory. If the statements of both parties are true, it is only because of the low-level mistakes of the front-line operators, then it shows that hongxingerke has a lot of room for improvement in brand marketing construction.

If the dispute is arranged in advance, and the brands of both sides try to use the dispute between fans of both sides to increase the public opinion volume of the co branding activities and get free hot microblog search, then Hongxing Erke has made a more serious directional error in brand marketing.

No matter what the truth is, it is certain that the marketing methods and level of hongxingerke after taking off the label of charity do not seem to match today's brand reputation.

03 、 epilogue

"In the heart of the people, the country will be remembered." Some mainstream media have commented on hongxingerke in this way.

It is natural for consumers to consume out of the trust and good feeling of the brand, but it seems to be putting the cart before the horse when they only hope to maintain the long-term development with the good image of the enterprise.

As Wu Rongzhao, chairman of Hongxing Erke, said in his public article, "only by constantly cultivating internal strength can enterprises open up a broader market space and make brand upgrading more energetic." morketing also hopes that consumers will choose Hongxing Erke in the future not only to support the feelings of conscience enterprises and domestic products enterprises, From the bottom of my heart, I like its excellent product quality and excellent clothing design.