[Eddy]

Note from Support: A bunch of posts has been deleted. No personal attacks, please.

This is not a India vs Pakistan thread
This is not a Kashmir thread
This is not "who is a bigger patriot" thread.


This thread is for writing your opinion on the tweets and subsequent actions by the marketing teams. And please do not judge others basis their reaction.

[tiagoatrix]

This is a topic which will have endless discussion.
Hyundai India is not a political group, they are a car maker, let them do their job properly.

Anyone calling for their boycott / ban, do you know the amount of Employment created by them, directly about 30,000 and indirectly lot more than that. After sending them out of country, with peaking unemployment, do you expect the unemployed to sell pakora?

If you don't like Hyundai or MG or any other company for that matter, it's fine, but don't propagate hate against them for non technical reasons.

Finally, don't buy their cars, if you own one go scrap it or destroy it but don't tell me (meaning social media) to boycott xyz.

[Mafia]

Social Media handles have to be handled with care as there are no borders on the internet so far.

MNC's exist for the sake of business and should not have political opinions.

This is blunder and longer Hyundai takes to apologies, the longer there is fuel to the fire. I am surprised there is no emergency protocol setup by such companies for such scenarios.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by AjinkyaP

Isn't it the best thing that as a nation we are NOT like China?

Of course, yes! A thousand times yes!
See the problem is that this is not an individual opining on social media. Right of opinion of an individual is sacrosanct.

Its only a problem because this is an organisation presumably giving their official line. And when its an organisation - then the absolute freedom of speech argument doesn't really hold. They're doing business in a country and are governed by the laws of that country.

That's why the recent examples of NBA vs China, and other stuff like Disney being forced to change their movies for screening in the mainland - are being cited.

Do we want such extreme instances of companies kowtowing to their masters here? No!

But do we also want companies to state something that brazenly goes against the laws of the land? Also no!

These two are not mutually exclusive!

------------
PS - I'm personally not bothered by what Hyundai has done beyond considering it as an extremely poorly judged social media marketing policy. It was initially just a gaffe and they doubled down - now its Streisand effect in play. Its a free market and they'll pay for it if customers vote with their feet. I will not stop buying Hyundai in the future just because of this. I'm not comfortable with cancel culture - I see it as a slippery slope.

But I had to wade in here and respond to you, because beyond Hyundai this is taking the undertones of political allegiances and point scoring about pseudo-nationalism and what not (some of those posts have been deleted by Eddy now but I did see, and even reply to what was posted). That's not welcome here.

[jayhind]

Originally Posted by tiagoatrix

Anyone calling for their boycott / ban, do you know the amount of Employment created by them, directly about 30,000 and indirectly lot more than that.

Car sales in India are pretty much a zero-sum game. Hyundai's loss will be someone else's gain. Net-net these jobs will mostly stay in India.
If anything, there might be a positive effect if the demand shifts to Tata or Mahindra, because there wont be a flight of capital to foreign HQs. Isn't this obvious?

[pk_del]

Any territory dispute is very sensitive matter and it should be handled by the Governments of the disputed territory. No external corporates should have say in these matters and they should just follow it.

We will definitely see a backlash here as the whole episode has caught steam and as pointed by fellow BHP'ian it is all over the main stream media.

Hyundai India/Hyundai corporate HQ should have handled this whole fiasco with more maturity and should have apologized and moved forward. But unfortunately things went downhill after Hyundai India's half hearted attempt to control the situation.

Now, many of our colleagues want TML and M&M to take advantage of this situation. But I don't think they will do it because what if their vehicles are being exported or used in a country which is close to Hyundai's HQ parent country. So its a tricky situation.

Commenting on a product and its worthiness is different from commenting on a country's bilateral issue. So in my opinion, most probably they will avoid it.

TML is in more precarious situation because it uses Hyundai's 6 speed Auto tranny in their Harrier and Safari cars. So if they comment on it, will they stop sourcing the transmission from Hyundai? If no, then on what basis the people will buy Harrier/Safari because its like indirectly supporting Hyundai.

Hyundai did a grave mistake here. They may have good terms with our neighbour but using that to stir emotions and making India feel down is strictly entering in to a very sensitive topic.

Hope good sense prevails and Hyundai HQ realizes this mistake and issue an apology.

-PK

[sierrabravo98]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Its like saying, my neighbour and I have a dispute over a piece of land and the matter is sub-judice. My neighbour's cook praised her employer and sympathized with him out on the street one day which I overheard.

So I tell my cook, who is a distant relative of that cook," I wont eat your cooked food unless you take your distant relative to task and equally condemn her employer (my neighbour) ". What a silly mess !

I would be wary of making such crass/tone-deaf analogies. The amount of blood which has flown on the streets of our country due to the subject of the said social media post alone should have been enough to make you understand the angst of the common person of this nation. You trivialize that genuine angst by terming it a "silly mess" of all things.

Let me use your language (and your analogy) to make you understand the sheer fury in the hearts of the affected populace that this antic from Hyundai has caused a bit better.

"Your neighbour has killed a lot of your family members over the aforementioned land dispute. Your cook and your neighbour's cook are employees of the same agency. You give 100 times the business to the said agency compared to your neighbour. In this context, your neighbour's cook is blabbing about in the market that he/she is proud of his master's (neighbour) role in the the killing of your family members and hopes that the neighbour continues to follow a similar path to ultimately win that land back. Further, while the agency refuses to do anything about it, your cook turns on you for complaining about the neighbour's cook to the agency saying that this action of yours has hurt his/her sensibilities."

I hope you understand why the common man is angry with Hyundai over this attitude of theirs. It hurts more when someone you considered your own resorts to this stuff (Hyundai has been accepted as an Indian brand for all practical purposes by the common man). Perhaps such incidents would knock some sense into the heads of the common man.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by sierrabravo98

I would be wary of making such crass/tone-deaf analogies. The amount of blood which has flown on the streets of our country due to the subject of the said social media post alone should have been enough to make you understand the angst of the common person of this nation. You trivialize that genuine angst by terming it a "silly mess" of all things.

Let me use your language (and your analogy) to make you understand the sheer fury in the hearts of the affected populace that this antic from Hyundai has caused a bit better.

"Your neighbour has killed a lot of your family members over the aforementioned land dispute. Your cook and your neighbour's cook are employees of the same agency. You give 100 times the business to the said agency compared to your neighbour. In this context, your neighbour's cook is blabbing about in the market that he/she is proud of his master's (neighbour) role in the the killing of your family members and hopes that the neighbour continues to follow a similar path to ultimately win that land back. Further, while the agency refuses to do anything about it, your cook turns on you for complaining about the neighbour's cook to the agency saying that this action of yours has hurt his/her sensibilities."

I hope you understand why the common man is angry with Hyundai over this attitude of theirs. It hurts more when someone you considered your own resorts to this stuff (Hyundai has been accepted as an Indian brand for all practical purposes by the common man). Perhaps such incidents would knock some sense into the heads of the common man.

I am tired of using any sort of social media provocation to create a hyperbole. As I have already said, this is a geopolitical matter which is far more complex than you and I can handle, and we as citizens of a well meaning society which is about to be amongst the top 3 economies of the world must go ahead with our daily lives without getting unduly bothered by this noise. Those who have to deal with it will do so at their discretion. That said, people have a free choice which exists regardless of some provocative social media message. This thread itself doesnt make much sense beyond a point.

[Sarath_]

Petition to rename this an "the analogy" thread or the "Elitist vs Populist" thread

On a serious note has anyone noticed any concrete steps being taken by the Hyundai management or government or any organisation with regards to this issue. Anyone with some inside information from Hyundai could throw some light on the on goings inside the boardroom. I'm guessing they have incinerated their PR room already.

Also I would request everyone to calm down and understand that not everyone shares a similar outrage on the same topics. Even those who are hurt over the statements over Kashmir (in the Hyundai post or otherwise) are completely oblivious to similar separatist movements in the North East which most of our news coverage conveniently ignores.

Hyundai has made a mistake. If and whether they will pay for it, is another matter.

We do not have the China like hive mentality to take decisions that effect such huge multinational companies.

[Thebat]

Originally Posted by tiagoatrix

If you don't like Hyundai or MG or any other company for that matter, it's fine, but don't propagate hate against them for non technical reasons.

Finally, don't buy their cars, if you own one go scrap it or destroy it but don't tell me (meaning social media) to boycott xyz.

Buddy, peoples feelings are hurt. No one is trying to propagate hate. When a brand you respect and trust with your money does not acknowledge the sovereignty of your country you cannot expect people to not take notice and give a slide.

When you have the right to tell people not to tell you what to do, the same way don't you believe others have a right to peacefully protest on social media, after all social media is just that, an avenue to put out your thoughts and share your perspective of the world.

Finally I don't understand blindly siding with a company who has showed no remorse for the actions of a sister concern. Should be bend over backwards to such companies to appease their whims and fancies while loosing respect for our nationhood?

[Dead_Pedal]

This doesn't bother me one bit. That's what our Western neighbour is all about. The more we treat things like these as insignificant the better for us, in my opinion. The same is applicable in cricket too. A little bit of sledging from the opponent and drama follows. Too touchy. I don't care what Hyundai does one bit. As long as they provided structurally safe and mechanically sound, uncompromised cars for the average consumer, it's fine by me. They're here for business.

[payeng]

It the current Trending Topic.. that's all.
BTW even Maggi was being boycotted in India not too long back.

But at the same time I sincerely Hope Hyundai Apologizes.

[anjan_c2007]

We need to ignore such provocative statements that are issued at the instance of Hyundai, Pakistan and possibly a Kia dealer there. As regards Hyundai, Pakistan they surely have top executives who are based there and issue statements to vent their nationalistic feelings. And the Kia statement if it's by their dealer it needs to be totally ignored.

But the headquarters of these two S. Korean MNC's need to immediately take cognisance and do fire fighting and damage control by apologising to India for the misdemeanor of their Pakistan offshoot and franchise respectively. In fact the two companies need to tame the erring persons for issuing such anti Indian statements. Hyundai India apologising is not soothing and will never be able to contain any damage that ensues to their market here. Hyundai and Kia from South Korea need to tender apologies.

Lately, nationalistic feelings in India have grown manifold, wherein the young and not so young and the rich and not so rich could vent their inherent anger by damaging the market potential of these brands. And India is among the top five car markets in the world, where these two entities reign at either #2 or 3 and #4 respectively.

[CarNerd]

Why should Hyundai have all the Rage?

Suzuki:


Toyota:


Honda:


KFC:


Papa John's:


Let the Boycotts begin..

[tiagoatrix]

Seems like KFC pakistan posted this last year.
Now what?
Is everyone going to stop eating at kfc?
And bring down the share price of sapphire foods?

Please don't, I've invested in them