As far as bad PR goes, the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese government are on a planet of their own. First, before I continue, let me say I haven’t actually watched any of the Olympics this year for numerous reasons – China’s (lack of) human rights and the convenient way that the big sponsors of the games side-stepped this issue tainted them for me before they even began. Yet I do follow the news, and one thing that is apparent is that when it comes to offering lessons in bad PR, the Beijing Olympics win hands down.
I guess the problem for China is that no matter what they tried to do to promote the 2008 Olympics as the chance for their country to change people’s opinions about it, they were onto a loser from the beginning. Let’s face it, years of negative views about a country are hardly going to disappear overnight.
Yet China, for all its many justified faults, had a wonderful opportunity to take the bulls by the horn and get some great, positive PR in place both prior to and throughout the Olympics. Typically, for a country so mired in dictatorship and repressed speech, they failed spectacularly.
- Prior to the games beginning, there was much talk of how activists for free speech and human rights would disrupt the games with protests. China’s response, which seemed great from a public relations angle, was to offer authorized “protest pens” where protesters could get their voices heard. However, one week in and despite numerous requests from the press for details, there is no confirmation of where these pens are, how many people applied to protest from them, and how many were approved.
- Again, before the games started and tying into the “more open China” positive PR approach that the country’s leaders seemed to be taking, websites that had been blocked for criticizing China were going to be re-opened and allowed to share their opinions. These sites were left blocked – strike another point off the PR scoreboard.
- The opening ceremony debacle. Everyone and their mother has now heard about how China had a cute little 9-year old girl named Lin Miaoke sing at the opening ceremony. Except she didn’t. Instead, she lip-synced while the real voice behind the vocals belonged to a 7-year old girl called Yang Peiyi. Seemingly, because of her crooked teeth, Peiyi wasn’t considered pretty enough for TV. Uh… she’s 7-year old, guys – of course she’ll have teeth problems as her children’s teeth make way for adult ones. Bad, bad, bad, bad , BAD decision on China’s part and one that’s been roundly criticized worldwide.
- The fake fireworks at the opening ceremony added to the bad press China has been receiving for its Olympics presentation. To add a more spectacular image, some of the fireworks display was actually pre-rendered animation and shown on the screen in the stadium as well as to all watching on television.
- The general lasse faire attitude that the media trying to report on the games has “enjoyed” for the opening week. A prime example is a lack of answers about a serious injury to dancer Liu Yin, who was injured while rehearsing the opening ceremony. Official reports from the Chinese government said she had “simply broken her leg” – however, medical reports and comments by her doctor suggest that the dancer may actually be paralyzed.
Add in the stories about villages being deprived of water so clean water can be diverted to the Olympic Village and it’s clear that China’s government has failed to improve the public view of the country. Perhaps all this shouldn’t have come as a surprise, though. After all, China has been reluctant to open up and improve the views of their country in the past – why should now be any different?
One of the things I don’t want to do is “trivialize” the situation in China – human rights, economy, pollution, etc – into a post about how their PR was bad. As an ardent supporter of human rights and the environment, trivializing these issues is the last thing on my mind.
However, as I said at the beginning, China had a wonderful opportunity with the Beijing Olympics to run a fantastic PR campaign and really change people’s views of the way the country is run and its place in the world in general. Sadly, instead of taking this opportunity, they’ve blown it.
Who knows – perhaps they will take on board the worldwide criticisms of their organizational skills so far and rescue the situation in time for the closing ceremony. In the meantime, though, for anyone interested in the public relations industry and a career in it, then the Beijing Olympics offer the perfect lesson in bad PR.
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3 Comments
August 14, 2008 at 4:10 pm
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August 15, 2008 at 6:02 pm
As to 1. none were approved and people who applied for a protest permit there have been arrested or disappeared.
August 15, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Yes, the little girl singing fiasco was pretty bad, but even before the Olympics started – I was a bit sore that China refused to allow Joey Cheek (a Darfur activist ) the chance to complete…..