Bright Dairy assures you that its milk is safe

This article is by Bruce Humes, a bilingual media consultant and Chinese-to-English literary translator who can be reached at xumushi@yahoo.com.

Dairy stocks are bleeding bad, but a quick look at the newsstand shows that China's big-name milk brands are down but not out.

The conservative digest of world news, Cankao Xiaoxi (参考消息), normally prints in black-on-white year-round, save October 1st when headlines go red to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic. But yesterday (September 27, 2008) was a notable exception: Yili Industrial Group ran an eye-catching color ad across the bottom half of two pages, entitled: "Yili: Consumers, Please Put Your Minds at Ease."

The spotlight shines firmly on confidence-building images: A pregnant woman choosing powdered milk, laboratory technicians clad in white, and TV cameras capturing scenes of Yili's "Milk You Can Trust" in production. The photo captions aim to reassure: "Yili Baby Formula has remained totally untainted, so expectant mothers can purchase it with confidence," and "guaranteed that not one drop of problem milk enters the factory."

Such an ad might be a bit confusing if you happen to read your news in English on the web. "Yili Industrial Group is one of 22 companies whose milk and dairy products were recalled after batches of their products were found to contain melamine," says a September 21 AP report on Yahoo.

A similar report from Reuters appeared recently, citing Bright Dairy Group as one of three major dairy companies whose products have been identified by the Chinese government as containing melamine. And sure enough, Bright Dairy joined the PR battle with a color ad in Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报) yesterday.

No photos here, just three key elements: A set of (too minute to read) documents, plus headline plus seals printed in red. "Bright Dairy dairy products: A guarantee of safety and healthiness" reads the headline, and this claim is strengthened by the government seal ("China Center for the Supervision and Inspection of Processed Food Quality"). The text of the ad positions Bright Dairy as a longtime provider of "fresh, safe, healthy and delicious dairy products," and guarantees they are "100 percent safe to consume."

Predictably, the battle is not being waged just via advertising. Another tried and true channel for image reconstruction is news items such as this one in Southern Metropolitan Daily: "Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine: 47 Brands of Liquid Milk Found Melamine-Free." The sub-headline highlights big brands such as Yili and Mengniu as among those tested by the government watchdog, and the article mentions several other firms, but not the entire list, it seems. Imagine if your brand was tested and found melamine-free, but wasn't named in the article — a colossal failure of PR!

To summarize, the latest batch of print ads:

· Focuses on conveying confidence-building images of professional quality management
· Details measures taken throughout the supply chain, not just post-production QC/QA
· Makes no mention of domestic product recalls
· Makes no mention of recent overseas bans on importing Chinese dairy products

Stay tuned!