Gao Ruoying/Wen

In the past year, the public relations (PR) of Chinese companies seems to have entered a dangerous situation.

Faced with an investigation by the State Administration for Market Regulation, platform companies' employees responsible for government relations chose to use violence to resist the law, highlighting the risk that corporate interests may override public interests; A chain restaurant owner with annual revenue of billions threatened to sue and criticize an internet celebrity, but after several rounds of public debate, he was banned from speaking and his reputation and business fell silent; Faced with doubts about missed diagnosis, the medical examination giant has announced that it will sue its clients. Its CEO's statement that "don't expect to find any disease with a few hundred yuan medical examination" has triggered a crisis of trust in the entire industry.

There are many similar scenarios that further amplify the difficult situation of Chinese corporate public relations: on the one hand, they constantly tell the outside world their vision of polishing products, serving customers, and taking social responsibility; On the other hand, in the semantics of social media and in the requests for media to delete articles, public relations behavior has not aroused recognition and approval from the outside world, and even many practitioners themselves cannot find a sense of value.

How did Chinese corporate public relations get to this point?

It is not difficult to see the crux of the matter when companies encounter regulatory investigations and public relations teams take pride in being able to conceal their own company names from crisis events. If a company's understanding of public relations still remains at the level of "extinguishing fires" and maintaining media relations, the painful lessons of the aforementioned companies will inevitably be repeated.

When we emphasize that the value of corporate public relations lies in regulating the relationships between organizations, individuals, and society, we are simply reiterating the concepts of "building trust," "restructuring relationships," and "seeking organizational legitimacy" - ideas that were repeatedly pondered and confirmed 100 years ago at the inception of public relations as an industry.

Even today, many Chinese companies do not understand the connotations of these concepts, let alone explore and leverage their public relations value. We believe that in the face of uncertain market competition and public opinion environment, it is time for enterprises to seriously consider: elevating public relations from the operational function of seeking dialogue in the past to a new dimension of defining enterprise value and forming some guidance for management and business structure.

The definition of value answers the legitimacy source of "why a company exists", which also makes the top-level design of public relations the survival philosophy of a company. Therefore, it is only meaningful for the governance to reach a consensus on this issue. This also means that the brain of a modern governance company - the board of directors - should develop institutionalized public relations governance capabilities.

On the occasion of the 10th Brand Day in China, aside from product technology and market strategy, let's take a different perspective on enterprises and brands, and talk about the people and things related to corporate public relations.

The Strange Phenomenon of Public Relations

It is difficult to explain with a rational framework what has happened in the field of public relations in China over the past few years and why it has come to this point.

Taking the representative of China's new quality productivity - new energy vehicles - as an example, the term 'black PR' alone is enough to write a book and establish a reputation. Black PR creates public opinion hotspots and malicious marketing through paid smear campaigns, dissemination of false information, and "water army" reviews. The intuitive case is that a new product of a certain car brand was photoshopped a few years ago, which triggered negative associations among the public; This also includes organized attacks on customers of certain car brands, such as using defamation as public relations, constantly lowering the bottom line of the industry's public opinion ecology.

At the "2023 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Coffee ? Car Night Talk", Wei Jianjun, the chairman of Great Wall Motors, publicly criticized friends for hiring "water army", accusing them of "unwarranted things, very bottomless, very dirty".

In 2025, CCTV's "Economic Half Hour" conducted an in-depth investigation into the black PR phenomenon of new energy vehicles. NIO Chairman Li Bin said in an interview that the Cybersecurity Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security had previously cracked down on a black PR industry gang, involving 23 people and more than 200 million yuan in funds.

In the spring of 2026, car companies themselves staged many absurd dramas. At the "3.15" problem car shows in many places, in addition to rights protecting car owners blocking the entrance, there are also car companies' public relations personnel lying on the hood, and the "ten minute rapid after-sales service" has also become popular as a result.

A wider range of rollovers occur in the field of brand marketing. In 2026, Logitech's official flagship store will release a video in Tiktok, with the caption "Once I cut the price, you will not run like a dog", which will openly disparage and insult consumers. In September 2023, the elevator advertisement for Peach and Plum Bread claimed, "Some people say that the Five Benevolents are not delicious, but we believe it's because you're still young and haven't experienced the harsh blows of life." Attempting to "pseudo empathize" turned into preaching and offense

If the "black PR" in the industry is mostly driven by interests, it is not enough to explain why the PR ecology in other industries is also plagued by strange phenomena, which have become increasingly severe in recent years. Some problems can be attributed to operational errors at the technical level, but we believe that the value mismatch of public relations within the company and the unclear positioning of how the company stands out may be the root cause behind the chaos.

To understand the value positioning of public relations, we need to start with what exactly public relations is.

What is public relations

Public relations - undoubtedly an imported product.

In the birthplace of public relations, the United States, the "newspaper propaganda activities" represented by Barnum began in the mid-19th century. In order to win the interests of clients, these propaganda activities did not hesitate to deceive the public. Avi Lee, known as the 'father of modern public relations', established a public relations company in 1903 and released the first industry manifesto - the' Declaration of Principles'. This declaration clarifies two moral principles: telling the truth; Anything that benefits the public must benefit the organization.

It is not difficult to find that several important industry behavior standards have laid the foundation for today's public relations theory and even corporate governance by reviewing the century long history of public relations development: integrity, reciprocity, and constructiveness at the organizational and stakeholder levels; The responsibility of organizations as social citizens; The legitimacy of public relations and employer relations; And community beliefs in professionalism and public spirit.

If these historically validated industry benchmarks are seen as the moral legacy or even spiritual wealth of today's public relations industry, even in the face of the rapidly changing, unpredictable, and diverse interests of the new media era, corporate public relations can still make a difference. The truly valuable work is to inherit and transform those moral legacies when facing the media, public, government, society, and competitors.

In fact, the "relationship" in the public relations of imported goods is deeply compatible with Chinese culture. For thousands of years, Chinese people have spared no effort in creating various harmonious social relationships, and "harmony between heaven and man" is a high-level relationship that transcends secular laws.

However, it is precisely because of the broad applicability and ambiguity of "relationships" that the interpretation of public relations in the Chinese context often deviates from its essence. "Public relations" is a typical way of thinking and expression that narrows and stigmatizes the value of public relations. At the same time, the face of public relations within Chinese companies is too diverse, with departments such as culture, branding, publicity, and communication all potentially synonymous with maintaining public relations functions.

When we clarify the underlying value of public relations, it is not difficult to understand what public relations is not: public relations is not a "public opinion fire brigade" that seeks relationships and deletes articles; Public relations is not a marketing tactic that blindly pursues sales and beautifies a company's financial statements; Public relations is not just a job that satisfies the boss.

Public relations is communication - this kind of understanding is widely present. In academia and practice, public relations is typically defined as the function of communication and relationship management between organizations and the public. It covers media relations, government relations, investor relations, employee communication, reputation management, crisis public relations, and more. The daily operations, most resource allocation, and execution mainly occur at the level of management structure and business structure, and are specifically executed by the public relations department, marketing department, or management.

But even at this level of cognition, there are still flaws. What is an enterprise "is not only about maximizing shareholder value, but also about its identity in the social ecosystem and its fundamental commitment to stakeholders. The essence of 'what is the value of existence' is to define how enterprises obtain 'social existence license'. Clarifying these is the 'root' of all external communication. Without this root, communication is just a floating technical activity.

Faced with today's media society, stakeholder capitalism, and ESG wave, reputation risk and public opinion can indeed instantly destroy a company's value. Therefore, public relations is actually related to the basic functions of the board of directors and higher levels. Obviously, the board of directors of Chinese companies urgently needs to supplement their governance capabilities that can understand public opinion, stakeholder ecology, and communication strategies.

In 1995, David Barron, a professor of political economy and strategic issues at Stanford Business School, proposed in his book "Market and Non Market Environments" that corporate strategy needs to guide companies to act in both market and non market environments, that is, to simultaneously and organically integrate business operations, supply chains, customer contractual mechanisms, as well as social, political, legal, and non market regulatory factors outside of transactions; To systematically, effectively, and responsibly address the challenges posed by non market influences such as government, society, and culture on enterprises.

Barron's viewpoint can be simply put as follows: the strategic system of any enterprise must simultaneously handle both market and non market environments; The market strategy answer is' how to make money ', while the non market strategy answer is' why do you make money?'.

In fact, this is similar to the concept of corporate social responsibility, which fundamentally lies in the fact that companies must take into account the demands of stakeholders in strategic decision-making, operational management, and market expansion. These demands are not only necessary considerations for companies to assume social responsibility, but also important resources for establishing the right competitive advantage (such as policies, public recognition, media views), which are related to the success or failure of the company.

It is not difficult to see that one role of public relations is the core executor of a company's non market strategy. It manages not a single media relationship, but a trust channel between the company and all non market actors.

The top-level design and risk control of public relations belong to the governance level, while its extensive execution and daily management belong to the management level, and specific actions penetrate into the business level. Corporate public relations needs to provide supervision and guidance for all business operations of the enterprise.

This clearly requires us to redesign the knowledge structure and committee agenda of the board of directors. Although there are multiple institutional options on the implementation path, the strategic direction is clear: the deepest level of public relations must be implanted at the source of governance.

What value is created

By understanding the true face of public relations, we will find that there is a huge gap between ideals and reality: the value positioning and discourse empowerment of public relations within the enterprise are not equivalent to the value goals that public relations should undertake. The reality is that many companies treat public relations as an executive department.

More corporate public relations are marginalized and trapped in the trap of KPIs such as "number of articles published, number of deleted posts, and no negative records". The reason why it is called a trap is that this type of assessment does not measure the value created by public relations, but turns the boss into the public, and the level of public relations value is closely related to the boss's satisfaction.

This is not a cognitive problem of individual bosses, but a product of the management philosophy of an era. Since the 1990s, shareholder primacy has been prevalent, and the legitimacy and status value of public relations have correspondingly been tied to "creating how much profit for the enterprise". Most public relations that do not directly create economic value are seen by many companies as a cost item in their daily operations.

But in the 21st century, a wide-ranging value shift has quietly occurred: social responsibility, which was previously seen as a binding obligation, is now becoming an opportunity for companies to gain trust and respect.

In 2019, 181 CEOs jointly signed the "Corporate Purpose Declaration" at the US Business Roundtable Forum, which further redefined the company. They claim that shareholder interests are no longer the most important goal of a company, and the company's primary task is to create a better society.

In this declaration, business giants including Apple CEO Tim Cook collectively speak out: a better society is more important than shareholder interests. The legitimacy of enterprises is shifting from 'how much money they make for shareholders' to' what value they create for all stakeholders'.

When the algorithm is written into trust

The urgency of re evaluating public relations also lies in the fact that real problems have already emerged.

If we talk about the past mistakes in Chinese corporate public relations, there is still a lot of room for reflection and improvement. Since 2025, a rapidly changing technology - AI agents - is taking the problem to another dimension.

The CCTV "3.15" Evening Gala in 2026 exposed a disturbing experiment: someone used a so-called AI optimization system to generate more than ten promotional articles and user reviews for a completely fictional smart bracelet brand. Two hours later, when the tester asked about the fictional wristband, the big model directly introduced that the biggest highlight was the health monitoring function, and also copied false advertising slogans such as "quantum entanglement sensing" and "black hole level endurance" that were fabricated.

Industry insiders have given this operation a straightforward name: "feeding poison" to AI, continuously feeding false content to make the model mistake duplicate information for consensus.

What does this mean? In the past, companies could still rely on a carefully crafted statement or a charity event to turn the tide in the public opinion arena. When consumers start using AI to make consumer decisions, trust will become a data that can be accessed, captured, and calculated at any time. Every proven lie, every complaint made by a company, and every problem covered up with deleted posts will eventually become data and permanently remain in the memory of the algorithm.

In this sense, Avi Lee's "telling the truth" and "everything that benefits the public must benefit the organization" written a century ago will not become outdated today, but will be given unprecedented coercive power by technology.

In the era of AI, integrity is no longer just a moral choice, but the only survival strategy that can withstand algorithmic scrutiny. Especially in the current situation where enterprises are increasingly caught up in conflicting demands from various parties, and every company may be facing various restrictions and conflicting demands, it is even more precious to reconsider the direction of creating value for enterprises based on re examining the value of public relations.

How to create value

A public relations manager of an online travel agency told Economic Observer that monitoring the public opinion generated on media and social platforms every day is now a routine action for large enterprises with mature public relations teams. But the difference between doing 'good' and 'bad' lies in the review and feedback of each public opinion.

The public relations team needs to clarify: which public opinions are just misunderstandings and need to be referred to professional customer service for handling; Which public opinions have diffusion risks and require external communication; The final confirmation is that there is a problem with the business, and internal efforts are needed to promote business rectification. The public relations manager said that his core business indicator is not "the number of problems discovered", but the completion rate of problems. For enterprises, filling fewer and fewer pits is the healthy state.

In this sense, public relations at the business level can be seen as an internal barrier to external risks for enterprises: transforming trust fluctuations in public opinion, signals of public sentiment, and changes in regulatory trends into identifiable, assessable, and modifiable information inputs within the organization.

Therefore, at the level of organizational management, public relations is no longer just an external information output, but can also be understood as a key part of the internal control system of the enterprise. As a communication management tool for organizations and stakeholders, there is a natural connection between public relations and decision-making supervision in corporate governance, as well as risk prevention in internal control.

Therefore, it is not difficult to find that the fundamental dilemma of public relations at present is that in the governance structure of the vast majority of enterprises, it has never been configured as a true supervisory force. No matter how transparent the value is, if you always stand outside the decision-making circle, everything is just empty talk.

But being able to sit at the decision-making table, transform from a "communication expert" to a "governance participant", and redefine public relations requires a different ability than before: the ability to find the greatest common denominator between multiple interests and demands, and the ability to negotiate with deterministic value in uncertain times. This requires PR not to defend the organization in public, but to find the most difficult and correct path between the organization and the public: telling the truth, doing practical things, and taking responsibility.

When we try to understand the public relations of a company from the bottom, we will find that its positioning is essentially a strategic proposition, involving what the company is and what its value is. Not understanding this premise clearly means that all external communications of the enterprise are rootless. This is not the PR department seeking a board seat, but rather the modern corporate governance structure itself calling for a core function that has long been missing and is crucial to the survival of the enterprise.

This means that a fundamental challenge is posed to modern corporate governance: the current capacity of the board of directors needs to be structurally upgraded. Traditional legal, financial, and industry experience may no longer be sufficient to govern today's businesses. Enterprises must gradually incorporate the ability to define and manage the fundamental relationship between organizations and society into the core competency options of the highest governance institutions.