公司丑闻.doc

SK-II China and its skin cream scandal: An extended analysis of the image restoration strategies in a non-Western setting Juan Meng, a, a University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469-1410, United States Received 16 March 2009;? revised 6 October 2009;? accepted 9 October 2009.? Available online 10 November 2009. Abstract SK-II, a global luxury cosmetic and skincare brand of Proctor Gamble (PG), was sued by a Chinese consumer in 2005, which raised serious questions about SK-IIs product safety and the credibility of its advertisements. This public relations debacle resulted in a dip in SK-IIs performance in the China skincare market. The theory of image restoration discourse was applied in this case to analyze SK-IIs public relations efforts to rebuild its prestigious brand image in China and to regain Chinese consumers’ trust. More rigorous image restoration strategies for multinational corporations (MNCs) in the Asian market were also discussed. Keywords: Crisis management; Image restoration; Reputation management; MNCs Article Outline 1. Introduction 2. Research method 3. Results 3.1. Denial 3.2. Evasion of responsibility: accident 3.3. Bolstering 3.4. Minimization 3.5. Providing alternative choices to potential consumers 3.6. Corrective action 4. Discussion 5. Conclusion References 1. Introduction Image, or reputation, is an important concept to assess organizations performance in the marketplace. At an organizational level, companies may take various preventive and restorative strategies to fix any image related problems. As a viable approach to understanding corporate crisis situations, the theory of image restoration discourse has been well developed and applied to different cases (e.g., [Benoit, 1995], Brinson and Benoit, 1999 S.L. Brinson and W.L. Benoit, The tarnished star: Restoring Texacos damaged public image, Management Communication Quarterly 4 (1999), pp. 483–510. Full Text via CrossRef[Brinson and Benoit, 1999], [Coombs, 1