This Chinese startup bounced back from weeks of bad press and one-star reviews by cleverly showing a genuine appreciation for and understanding of their user base.
More often than not, companies that try to appeal to their adolescent, ultra-online user base end up falling flat on their faces. Cringe-inducing, tone-deaf “memes” and awkwardly outdated cultural references invite scorn instead of enthusiasm. At best, these attempts at generational pandering get a publicity boost and some ironic appreciation for the effort.
This makes the success of Chinese app DingTalk’s (钉钉） cheeky meme-studded video “apology” to its teenage trolls all the more impressive. The video was widely praised by both adults and the teens it was aimed at, and it successfully offset the brand’s earlier negative PR. DingTalk’s online culture-oriented strategy paid off for two reasons:
1) They tapped into an existing culture at their own youthful workplace
2) They approached their audience not as a peer, but as a fan, expressing admiration and self-deprecation instead of pretending to “get it”
As schools shut down in and around Wuhan in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, schools adopted DingTalk to hold online classes, assign and grade coursework, and make sure students were staying on track. Bored, stuck at home, and (like teenagers everywhere, even without a pandemic) looking for a way to get out of doing their schoolwork, Chinese students latched onto a rumor that apps with low ratings would be automatically booted off the Apple App Store and started spamming DingTalk with 1-star ratings. The DingTalk app sank to a dismal 1.5-stars, helped along by some adults who were also fed up with their bosses nosily tracking their productivity through the app. Some users jokingly commented that they would be willing to give the app five stars, but not all at once, only in 1-star “installments”.
In response, DingTalk created a short animated video starring their mascot, Ding Sanduo 钉三多. The aesthetic is undeniably “internet” — low production values, lo-res gif-like animations, well-known rage comic characters and WeChat icons, a chipper 8-bit melody backing. Ding Sanduo pleads for students to have mercy on him since he’s “only five years old” (the age of the app), that give him “all five stars in one payment, no installments.” Tears streaming down his adorably pitiful cartoon face as screenshots of jokingly negative reviews flash on the screen, Ding Sanduo calls the trolling teens his “daddy” and begs them to “find another way.”
Chinese netizens were delighted and flattered by the video. Ding Sanduo’s Weibo account racked up thousands of new followers, the app’s star rating edged up to a slightly more respectable 2.5 stars, and the more serious criticisms of the app raised by the negative review spamming — invasive surveillance and data gathering techniques, glitches, and design flaws — largely faded to the background. Without getting into the merits of those specific criticisms, the video campaign itself undoubtedly achieved its aim: to change the conversation and win back the goodwill of its users.