SK-II gets under consumers' skins
By Wu Jiao and Joy Lu (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-25 09:06
"I will never use an SK-II product again," said Hu, "and I will never be
duped by those exaggerating advertisements."
According to public
relations experts, the company's poor handling of the trouble could overshadow
the test results themselves.
"It is an international norm that, when
facing a brand crisis, the company should first face up to the facts
positively," Cheng Shi'an, dean of the Advertising Department of Fudan
University, was quoted as saying in Shanghai-based Orient Morning
Post.
"But P&G is doing the opposite. The company, at the very
beginning, rejected a fact already confirmed by the country's quality authority.
But they could not provide further evidence during the following days to prove
itself on the issue," according to Cheng. "Meanwhile, the company has set
obstacles in the refunding process. It is obviously not a goodwill decision as
the company has claimed."
An ongoing poll by Sina.com, one of the
country's most popular websites, shows that 98.8 per cent of 143,774 respondents
say they will never buy SK-II products again.
Many customers also blamed
the country's quality inspection authorities for their dereliction of
duty.
"I read that the brand hasn't been inspected for eight years since
its entrance into the Chinese market in 1998. If that is true, it would be a
great mistake made by the country's quality authorities," said Li Ying, a
31-year-old journalist who used to be a fan of SK-II products.
Some
experts also say there are defects in the inspection system.
The country
only looks for heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead in cosmetics, Yan
Shixiang, an expert with the cosmetics commission under the All-China Federation
of Industry of Commerce, was quoted as saying by the Beijing-based newspaper
China Business.
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