A wonderful Social Media Crisis War in China

Could you recognize the difference between two banknotes? Don't they look similar?

Actually, the first one is the China's ￥100 bank notes, and the second one is the so-called "Pan Currency" (or "Panbi"), which was created by the netizens to satirize a real estate tycoon, but in turn was used by the tycoon to advertise his new business.
Let's review this China's recent PR war.

Oct.6,2011, Steve Jobs passed away. Pan Shiyi, chairman of Soho China, the largest real-estate developer in Beijing, said on his Microblog that the best way to honor the memory of Jobs would be for Apple to offer its bestselling iPad and iPhone for under 1,000 yuan (about US$157). This remark courted controversy, and was slammed as disrespectful by internet users in China, who said Pan should offer affordable real-estate prices after he himself passes away.

"If Mr Pan passes away, please offer houses below 1,000 yuan per square meter. More than one billion people will remember you," one said.

Things got worse. Netizens ironically created the new units of measurement for the house price.: 1 Pan Currency = ￥1000 ( US＄157) / ㎡. Some people even made the new currency " Panbi".

http://www.nddaily.com/

 Pan and his SOHO faced a crisis. However, Pan is definitely an experienced marketing and advertising expert. After finding that the Netizen-making Pan Currency was the hottest spot in Microblog, he decided to make use of this topic.

On Wednesday, Pan unveiled his Panbi, or Pan currency, on his microblog feed. His one-Pan bill looks suspiciously like a Chinese 100-yuan note, except with a picture of Pan on the front instead of Mao Zedong. The back of the Panbi features a quote from the Baha'i faith, of which Pan is a prominent practitioner. In addition, the back of the one-Panbi features one of his new Wangjing Soho developments in Beijing, Soho China's logo and a sales hotline number.



http://house.ifeng.com/special/panyiqian/zuixin/detail_2011_10/27/10191928_0.shtml

In his latest post, Pan said he hoped China's central bank wouldn't object to the new currency.

Of course he was just joking. But we can see how successful Pan's Crisis management is.

This is an era when the social media bring opportunities to corporations, but being exposed to the public also means more PR risk. It's easy to trigger a controversy, which gradually develops into a crisis. So how to react in a " social media" way to solve a "social media" problem is critical.

Pan knew well how to bind his message with a hot topic,though it's detrimental to his company , and saw happily that the media and thousands of people helped retweet the advertising,just for free! He conformed to the majority by self-mocking, changing the problem into fun.  He chose not to keep silent, but to reverse the attention and put a spotlight on the company.
Fighting back in a humourous way, isn't it really a bold and creative crisis management plan?