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Recently, the debate on BYD’s environmental protection has been very fierce. Obviously, this is a “contradictory among the people”, and there is no shadow of foreign IP manipulation. However, BYD strongly called the police and claimed that the legal responsibility of the relevant personnel would be investigated, which means that the author who wrote this article has been included in the scope of legal responsibility.
For ordinary people, BYD’s statement is enough to make people daunting, because ordinary people and big companies can’t even think of a lawsuit, let alone a high-tech company that currently represents the advanced level of Chinese manufacturing. However, from the perspective of many industry researchers or media commentators, BYD’s strength has just stimulated the interest and courage to explore, which has instantly escalated the matter from a simple civil dispute to a public opinion incident, so that we Brand-neutral industry researchers have to comment on this, and the current chain reaction is obviously not what BYD executives want to see. Moreover, the incident is rapidly fermenting. Judging from the reports of Chinese entrepreneurs, Phoenix Net Technology, Xinhua Daily Telegraph, Caishi Media and many other influential media in China, it is generally negative. To put it bluntly, BYD stands on the opposite side of media values.
Back to the thing itself, the causal logic is not complicated. According to the situation disclosed by “Chinese Entrepreneur”: On the evening of May 7, residents around the Changsha BYD factory collectively came to the factory to defend their rights, which had been defended for several days before. The reason for the rights protection is that residents believe that the exhaust gas emitted by the factory has an impact on the health of residents in the surrounding communities. Ms. Zheng, who participated in rights protection, told “Chinese Entrepreneur” that the Zhongjian Jiahecheng community where her home is located is not far from the factory, and from the second half of 2020, she will occasionally smell pungent odors such as burnt odor. Since April this year, the pungent smell has become more and more serious, and it exists day and night, especially at night. It is said that since April this year, some residents living in Yuhua District, Changsha City, Hunan Province have continued to be troubled by the pungent odor in the air, and have experienced dizziness, coughing and other uncomfortable symptoms. Hundreds of children in the surrounding community suffered from unexplained nosebleeds. Looking at the news pictures, dozens of surrounding residents are defending their rights. From our third-party perspective, it is hard to believe that this is an orderly smear by hostile forces and hostile companies, because the difficulty is too high.
And does this thing exist? The media also disclosed a rectification announcement on the official website of the Hunan Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment. This list of public letters and visits reported by the masses on May 8, 2021, and the publicity of side-to-side reforms shows that for BYD manufacturing factory in Yuhua District, Changsha City The smell of paint in the installation workshop is serious and affects the lives of residents. The official has confirmed it. In other words, this matter is a certainty and objective, and it is unknown to what extent.
BYD’s official Weibo statement obviously believes that the public has exaggerated the harm of pollution. As shown in the figure below, this feedback can be basically summarized into three points: First, the public relations statement admits that “or there is a peculiar smell”, that is to say, BYD officially recognized that It is possible that there are related environmental protection issues; second, BYD claims that the company has “taken relevant measures and actively improved”, which means that it attaches importance to this issue; It was identified as a fabricated connection and claimed to have called the police. The most important sentence was “the legal responsibility of the relevant personnel will be pursued”. The voice-over is that the parents who claim to have nosebleeds are suspected of spreading rumors, and BYD believes that even if there is pollution, there will be no nosebleeds.
If we just look at the logic of this statement, there are obviously two serious logical problems: First, the right it claims is that even if there is a problem with BYD, it is a problem in the past, and if it is changed, it means that the problem should not be investigated; second, Although it is true that there may be environmental harm, but this harm is not a nosebleed, so the other party is considered to be defamatory. From the analysis of the logic of strategic communication, that is to say: BYD’s external communication caliber has shifted from “whether environmental hazards exist” to “whether the hazards will cause nosebleeds”. This is obviously a very serious miscalculation of strategic communication. How can a company with a market value of hundreds of billions declare its claims in such a way that disregards the health of others? !
We don’t know what level of people made this external communication caliber. It is not only unprofessional, but also directly escalates the contradiction. Looking further, this statement raises the focus of the media to a key message with great news dissemination effect. It is “nosebleed” and the serious physical damage behind it. If we don’t evaluate the facts, this is tantamount to lifting BYD company from the fire to the fire; secondly, this statement directly opposes BYD company. And the public’s cognitive logic, the public’s cognition is nothing more than the basic situation of “admitting mistakes and making compensations”, but it has risen to the level of suppressing public opinion. On the basis of such intense public opinion contradictions brought about by the new crown epidemic, it is tantamount to forcing the government. Make judgments to safeguard public opinion; thirdly, as a technology company, BYD has not declared a word about technology, not a word about environmental protection, and has no reverence for environmental protection issues, which is tantamount to indirectly denying that it is a company with A responsible technology brand, if we say that this is a sophistry and non-polluting paper mill statement, it is also possible; the last point, as a well-known brand, beyond the matter itself, in the public communication that may affect product consumers, it is necessary to express Regarding the importance of the problem and the accompanying social responsibility, these BYD official micro statements did not. Guan Weizhi expressed his willingness to shirk responsibility and a strong deterrent.
Moreover, BYD’s external communication has not been tough on everyone for a long time. We saw BYD’s expression at the investor communication meeting. There is such a paragraph, “The DM-i hybrid model is full of orders, and the company will also launch Song Pro DM- i and other models equipped with DM super hybrid and warship series models equipped with DM-i hybrid, etc.” This sentence is confident and polite, specific and vivid. Questioning BYD’s sales requires legal responsibility.” Obviously, this attitude towards investors and the media can also be used to make statements to ordinary people in the community. There is no “little person” that is worth ignoring by “big brands”.
It should be said that before writing this article and now, the author has always been a staunch supporter of smart electric vehicles in China. Our column articles “Dialectical Examination of BYD” and “Dialectical Examination of Weilai Automobile” two years ago were the lowest of the two. Gu Shi expressed respect and optimism. Although BYD’s brand has been widely criticized, it is indeed a strong promoter of core technology research and development. And we believe that Wang Chuanfu is a real entrepreneur, industrialist and inventor; although NIO was very weak at the time, the service awareness of respecting users and consumers has also become a breeze in the automotive industry.
In the article about BYD, there is a fair evaluation: “We first saw the typicality of this company as made in China, and the evolutionary path is not only stable but also enterprising. Its shortcomings are real, but not ugly. For example, based on China Due to the national conditions of China, many manufacturing enterprises are established by engineers, and they naturally do not have the ability to influence the media and the public or even express their vision well. And the pragmatism of engineer culture makes many manufacturing enterprises choose from low potential energy but easy to form purchasing decisions low-end products.” This is our understanding and recognition that we once existed.
Judging from the current time point, it is obvious that BYD has made greater achievements, and the low-end breakthrough has been successful. Let’s look at the data: According to the “Changsha Evening News” report, the total investment of BYD’s Changsha DM-i production base is 3.7 billion yuan, covering an area of 650 acres and a construction area of 600,000 square meters. It will be constructed in two phases. The first phase is the DM-i super power construction project, which will start construction in January 2021 and put into production in July. The second phase is the DM-i passenger vehicle production and construction project, which is expected to be officially put into production in May this year. In 2021, BYD sold 593,745 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 231.6%, of which 272,935 DM-i models were sold throughout the year. These all show that the company is developing by leaps and bounds.
These achievements have boosted the confidence of the auto industry like a breeze. No one has questioned whether BYD’s brand is high-end or low-end, no one complained about BYD’s cronyism and chaotic management, and no one denied “Qin” and “Han”. “The Chinese trendy design of the font logo means that BYD’s brand image construction has achieved certain achievements. But when we saw this statement, we obviously smelled the “pungent smell” behind the achievement. It also gives a sense of strangeness to consumers who once supported BYD and tolerated its shortcomings.
In fact, incidents of pollution caused by energy and industrial giants have emerged one after another in the history of industrial development, and it is normal for the public to be vigilant about this. Take ConocoPhillips, for example, an integrated multinational energy company headquartered in Houston, Texas, with operations around the world. ConocoPhillips is the third largest oil company in the United States and the fourth largest oil refiner in the world, ranking 12th in the 2005 Fortune Global 500. In the 1980s, ConocoPhillips had a serious safety accident in the North Sea’s offshore staff apartment and the Houston chemical plant, causing heavy casualties. These two disasters had a great impact on ConocoPhillips’ future safety work. . But after these tragic lessons, ConocoPhillips employees take the “Health, Safety and Environmental Management System Policies and Procedures” as a bible at all times and places, and implement them according to the highest standards. To ordinary employees, continuous security awareness instillation and reinforcement is carried out at every level. The Safety Environment Excellence Program is a feature of ConocoPhillips’ HSE management system.
Similarly, the world oil service giant Schlumberger once brought serious pollution to Africa, but now this company is almost one of the best companies in the world in terms of global localization and environmental protection. That is to say, only by facing the problem can the enterprise truly develop healthily. If criticism is not free, praise is meaningless. If the BYD brand has become a taboo topic that cannot be discussed on behalf of power, it will obviously be farther and farther away from the pride of consumers.
Finally, our constructive suggestion is that BYD should first eliminate the “pungent smell” of external communication, conduct its own review with the most stringent environmental protection standards, and submit a credible environmental protection report. For the surrounding people who have been affected, whether it is caused by BYD or not, they should help them in the spirit of corporate citizenship built by the community and refer to ESG standards. Of course, if the environmental protection problem is confirmed, then the compensation is certain, and there should be a big apology.
On the road to becoming a global technology brand, BYD is still far away from China’s top global companies and the world‘s outstanding global companies. This event has sounded a wake-up call. As a well-known brand, obsessed with proving its authority through lawsuits, there is no way out. What’s more, there are no strong claims without factual basis, and no one is truly in awe.
(Introduction to the author: Shopkeeper Zhou, a well-known business strategy expert, science and technology columnist. Reader WeChat: zhouzhanggui000. This article only represents the author’s point of view. Responsible editor email: [email protected])