Chinese Blogger & Public Protest Starbucks in the Forbidden City

Last year, one of my post popular blog posts was about the "Age of the Empowered Consumer". I outlined how Americans have many ways to share their experiences and thoughts about companies on a broad scale utilizing the power of the Internet.

On 1/19/07, George Fowler wrote an excellent article  in The Wall Street Journal which demonstrates the globalization of consumer power. Fowler wrote:

"Before going to sleep on Thursday night last week, Rui Chenggang wrote a post on his blog about an issue that had been bothering him for years: a Starbucks cafe sitting inside Beijing's hallowed Forbidden City.

The 29-year-old TV news anchor wrote that Starbucks 'is really too inappropriate for the world's impression of the Forbidden City. This isn't globalization, this is the erosion of Chinese culture.' Mr. Rui said he liked Starbucks -- just not inside a national landmark.

In the space of a week, Mr. Rui's post has been viewed more than half a million times, according to the blog's counter, and his demand to shut the cafe has turned into a national cause. Journalists camp out in front of the tiny Starbucks kiosk in a distant corner of the majestic 600-year-old home of China's emperors, whose English name refers to the exclusion of commoners. Now, authorities at the Forbidden City say they are deliberating whether to force Starbucks to leave after six years.

"Blogging is giving ordinary grassroots Chinese people a chance to express themselves," Mr. Rui says.

Increasingly, it is also giving companies a headache in a key market that is laden with unique cultural and business challenges. China is home to 132 million Internet users, second only to the U.S. And according to one government estimate, there are 20 million Chinese bloggers, of whom 3.15 million write actively.

All of the spin-control issues that have made blogging a problem for brands in America are only compounded in China. "There is not a precedent for solving consumer grievances in China. If you are not happy with what you buy, you don't call up customer service," says Scott Kronick, the president of WPP Group PLC's Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in China.

Instead, Chinese consumers now mobilize and gain access to information -- not all necessarily accurate -- using the Internet. The Chinese government strictly censors the Internet for political content but generally doesn't restrict the sort of discussion Mr. Rui's post spurred."

Fowler spotlights other American companies like Yum Brands Inc.'s KFC, Dell Inc., and Procter & Gamble Co. who have run afoul of Chinese bloggers. In fact, these high-profile cases have driven the growth o PR firms in China such as WPP Group PLC's Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. With so many active bloggers in China, these firms have their work cut out for them. In fact, I don't think companies will be able to "spin" their way out of trouble. Rather, they should invest time and money in making sure that their products and services are sensitive to Chines culture.

Fowler ends his Wall Street Journal article quoting  Rui Chenggang, the Chinese blogger who started the recent Starbucks controversy:

"This became an issue because Starbucks is a symbol of Western popular culture. The question is, how do we absorb and embrace the Western world without losing our own identity. This is an issue that everybody is thinking about. I just happened to write about it."