A lethal mix

What do you get when you mix anti-western sentiment, misinformation and a group of muckrakers on the internet in China? A near disaster!

Chinese bloggers are again on the war path, this time with the "western advertising industry", or more specifically the Paris arm of Omnicom's TBWA office, which has been named as the creator of a series of ads for Amnesty International which show Chinese authorities mistreating prisoners along side the slogan "After the Olympic Games, the fight for human rights must go on." They're shocking images and TBWA\Paris has been quick to distanced itself from the ads, which carry an incorrect web address for Amnesty International. The human rights group has also released a statement saying it had nothing to do with campaign. But the cyber attacks and the harsh criticism against both the ad agency and Amnesty are mounting.

Headlines such as "Chinese anger! Amnesty International and multinational advertising companies to demonize the Olympic Games" are now doing the rounds on Chinese blogs and the infamous anti-CNN website is calling for a ban on all TBWA ads, including TBWA China's widely awarded Olympic-themed ads for Olympic sponsor Adidas and are asking Chinese employees of TBWA to resign. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that Chinese bloggers are still hyper sensitive about anything French related following the Olympic Torch Relay fiasco and the treatment of French companies like the supermarket Carrefour.

While the question of weather TBWA actually created the ads is unclear (apparently it was a pro-bono project done by an agency employee) it does represent a growing trend among China's blogging community, which marketers of all sectors should sit up and take notice of. It seems now that despite the truth or lack there of, Chinese bloggers which have a following reign supreme.

Dior was recently forced to cut actress Sharon Stone from all China advertising and apologise for remarks she said the Sichuan earthquake was some kind of retribution for the Beijing government's repression of Buddhists in Tibet.

McDonald's is another to feel the wrath of online citizens for allegedly donating too little money toward earthquake relief, even though the company made significant donations. The fast food giant was even forced to up its contribution in a bit to calm angry Chinese consumers using the internet.

China's online market, with more than 210 million users, is proving to be as much a challenge as an opportunity. Recent figures show that of the 49 million Chinese bloggers, users post an average of 10 million new blogs a day and sites like Anti-CNN, which is leading much of the charge against TBWA, now possess the power to bring brands and their companies to their knees.

With the world's eyes now on China and the Olympic Games, Chinese bloggers are on alert and unafraid to take their critics head on, no matter what the cause.