Carrefour Responds To China PR Crisis

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BEIJING French supermarket chain Carrefour recently became a victim of the actions of a few french protestors to sabotage the olympic torch relay, and was caught in a tight fix with chinese nationalists - who returned the favour to the innocent party with an SMS blast and several sites calling for a boycott of Carrefour.

This was undoubtedly a PR negative spillover which was not unexpected by the supermarket giant. However here was their surprising response in order:

1. Introduction of promotional discount system
2. PR announcemnt by the CEO on the major Chinese newspapers

The initial response of a price promotion rather than a PR campaign was not taken too well by the people, who saw it as an attempt for sympathy votes. What’s worse, the boo boo in handling the PR crisis has resulted in its competitors such as Wal-Mart to gain ground. The latter PR announcement seemingly came too little too late.

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