Imagethief

If you follow either Apple, the Chinese tech scene or Chinese Internet buzz, you've probably heard of "iPhone girl". A British man reportedly discovered several photos of this young lady, apparently a quality-assurance inspector at contract manufacturer Foxconn, on his newly purchased iPhone 3G. Reportedly the girl's photos were taken by her friend, who's job was to test the iPhone's built-in camera, but the photos were not deleted before the phone shipped.

iPhone girl caused a sensation both internationally and in China, conveniently right as negotiations between Apple and China Mobile to officially bring the iPhone to China apparently gathered momentum. (Unofficially, China is already awash in grey-market iPhones, unofficial accessory of the year among Starbucks-prowling urban Chinese professionals.)

China loves a good Internet sensation. The resulting wash of publicity for Apple has apparently made some people wonder if the whole incident was an orchestrated PR campaign. Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth has translated an interesting story from yWeekend (中), a weekly supplement published by Beijing Youth Daily, that investigates whether iPhone girl is genuine or the creation of a PR team. The whole thing is worth a read. Of particular interest to me is the conclusion, in which two "Internet promoters" speculate on the possibility that the whole thing is a campaign:

So what do the Internet promoters feel about this affair?

Interestingly, the two relatively famous Internet promoters held different views when interviewed by yWeekend.

Internet promoter Chen Mo had promoted famous Internet celebrities such as Little Celestial Girl and February Girl.  Upon receiving the telephone call from the yWeekend reporter, he did not even require an explanation of the purpose.  He snickered and said: "You are going to ask about the iPhoneGirl, right?"

"When it first started, it may have been real."  Chen Mo speculated.  There have been occasional reports that users found photos in their new mobile phones.  But this is the first time that there were photos of the pretty worker who made the machine.  It is not impossible for this to occur in the natural course of events.  The post made by the Englishman did not contain any obvious flaws.  So in the absence of evidence, let us assume that it is real.

"But once the affair gets propagated back to China, the manufacturer definitely took the opportunity to carry out a successful hype."  Chen Mo told the reporter: "You can go to check the major websites and forums to see what type of people are stirring things up."

"Based upon my observations, it is mainly the Internet promoters who are writing about this.  I don't have to name names.  We are all in the same circle.  This affair became so hot in just a few days.  It is hard to believe that there wasn't anyone pushing it in the background."

The other Internet promoter is Li Er, who created incidents such as "exchanging a safety pin for a villa."  He told the reporter directly that he already knows that the whole caper was planned from start to finish.

"This is clearly a case of Internet promotion.  You can tell just from the process.  I know who handled this 'case.'  It is a team of people.  But I cannot tell you who they are, because I am acquainted with them."

Li Er analyized: "This 'most beautiful Chinese worker' is like that 'most beautiful cleaning girl' that we did before.  The concept is completely identical.  You bring up a clean and pure image of a pleasant-looking beautifu lfemale worker.  The only difference is that this affair was triggered by having a foreigner post photos to an overseas website.  But this is precisely where it is brilliant."

"The planners of this affair thoroughly understand the Chinese mind -- a lot of Chinese people think that anything that happens overseas must be real.  On this point, they were very successful."  Li Er said that almost all of the popular "most beautiful girls" on the Internet were promoted by Internet promoters from behind the scene.

These so-called "most beautiful girls" are part of the "girl series."  From Tianxian MM to the girl who swapped a safety pin for a villa," they were all variations of the same "girl series."  The rapidity by which iPhoneGirl became red-hot popular on the Internet showed that the planning and execution of this campaign was perfect and effective.

"Why do I say that this was a perfect promotion?  Because it successful used the girl to showcase the product and the manufacturer.  The whole process looked very natural and unaffected.:

But Li Er said that the affair was not traceless.

For example, there was the news that Foxconn fired the girl.  Li Er thought that this was another stage in the promotional campaign.  The purpose was to create another twist in the story to continue to draw attention.  But it was a bit too obvious.  Actually, the girl had nothing to do with the actual taking of the photos.  It was her co-worker who did it and that should have been the person to be fired.  Bringing the fate of the girl into the process was done to secure the continual attention of the netizens.

Then Foxconn came out to dispel that rumor and assured everybody that the girl will not be fired.  Foxconn said that this was just a "beautiful mistake."  That kind of statement gives clue to the promotional effort.

"Before I even knew who the Internet promoters were, I had sensed that the whole matter was not so simple."  Li Er said that ordinary people have no way of knowing the truth with such Internet promotional campaigns unless something goes wrong.  The operators may disclose the truth some day, but certainly not while iPhoneGirl is hot.

So what do I think? Two observations:

First, viral campaigns are fiendishly tricky. P*rn aside, it's difficult to predict what will fire up the Internet. Despite the best efforts of PR people and digital marketers, most Internet sensations are accidental. Where they work in companies' favor, they are often lucky accidents, for instance where a particularly creative television commercial or promotional video picks up an Internet audience. There are certainly successful and creative online marketing campaigns, but few of them are truly viral in the sense of relying primarily on the enthusiasm of netizens for their propagation. Most incorporate a substantial traditional marketing component.

For that reason, most Internet stars in China have not been created by corporations, but instead come to public attention first and then been appropriated as spokespeople and endorsers. The classic example of this is the Backdorm Boys, who were funny dweebs first and celebrity pitchmen second. There are others as well, such as Tian Xian Mei Mei, Little Fatty and so on. Sam Flemming, of CIC, is the man to follow if you want to know more about this.

Second, simplicity is essential, and any campaign that could be exposed as fake risks a severe backlash. Commercial viral successes are usually --though not always-- transparently linked to their parent brands simply because people don't like to feel duped. No one wants the viral communication about their company to be a hate campaign.

On the simplicity test the case for iPhone girl as an engineered campaign looks weak. The scenario: Apple has a freelance English accomplice, Mark Mitchell, claim on MacRumors in August to have discovered the photos in his phone in the hope that this will cause a wave of publicity and discussion in China in order to...what? Increase Apple's negotiating leverage with China Mobile? Get people salivating for an iPhone that's already a grey-market hit?

Maybe. But it's a touch Rube Goldberg for me. It also requires complicity and secrecy from many parties, including the guy who posted on MacRumors (who has since given interviews), Foxconn, the QA girl/model and whoever was involved in planning and executing the campaign. In PR, as anywhere else, two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. If anyone blew the whistle, Apple would have anti-PR in China. Apple may be evil marketing geniuses, but crazy-suicidal they aren't. If the QA girl thinks she has human-flesh search engine problems now, wait until the Chinese Internet community think she's a pawn in an attempt to dupe them. Plus, it's hard to imagine Foxconn agreeing to a plan that makes them look sloppy.

Occam's razor suggests that these were in fact test photos that accidentally leaked and were discovered by an iPhone fan in the UK. Apple creatively exploiting the situation for PR is totally believable, although perhaps redundant.

Sure, it's possible this was an engineered campaign. If so, hats off to Apple. But Imagethief would also suggest they start covering their asses in asbestos.

Sept 7th Update: Why couldn't it be a Foxconn campaign?

Reader WGJ posted an interesting thought in the comments below. One or two friends had raised it with me offline as well, so I thought it was worth addressing in the body (the wording is similar, but not identical, to the wording in my comment response, also below.

I don't understand why you assume if it's a campaign, it has to from Apple. To me, Foxconn is the much more likely puppet master.

Certainly it's nice for Foxconn to have one of their workers shown happy and enjoying her job, which goes against the stereotype of the Chinese manufacturing drone. But the public isn't Foxconn's audience, except in the rare occasions when Foxconn has to defend itself against charges of poor worker treatment, as happened with iPod manufacturing a couple of years ago. I am not aware of any such situation brewing now.

Foxconn's customers --and thus its main PR audience other than investors-- are Big IT companies, such as Apple, HP and so on, who sell to the public and who generally like their contract manufacturers to stay as invisible as possible. In serving those customers, Foxconn lives and dies by its ability to maintain quality, consistency and product secrecy. Anything that makes the company look sloppy, as this does, seems unlikely to be part of a campaign they would orchestrate.

In fact, I rather expect they had some explaining to do, both to Apple and their other customers. This doesn't look like a Foxconn PR campaign. I just don't see what they gain. It looks more like something that might might make Foxconn's PR people sweat.

Are you for real?