[Singh101]

So this happened today-



Could've possibly been an isolated incident but then also-



Followed by a "statement" by the official handle of Hyundai India-



"Boycott Hyundai" is trending on Twitter and I'm not surprised. We treat Hyundai and Kia not like a South Korean brand but like our own. The number of Hyundai and Kia ownership threads on a niche enthusiast website like TeamBHP alone boggles the mind! And this is response we get for making them one of the best selling automakers in a country of 140 crore people?

IMO, this is not an overreaction. Infact this is not enough of one. Not just the that, when the backlash started coming in, Hyundai India merrily blocked Twitter users for expressing their views on the matter. And then the "official statement" came in.

I don't believe they've adequately addressed it yet. Even in a world with diminishing attention spans and short-lived social media trends, I believe they're going to feel some serious heat for this.

And a new thread over the matter on a respected Indian automotive website is the need, lest we forget. This is not a political matter. I'm sick of divisive language being thrown about for India and Kashmir being an inalienable part of the Union of India is not debatable.

[lazy]

Folks

You'd have noticed by now the social media storm over Hyundai Pak's tweets.

Am guessing, the original posts, though from proper handle, is likely a handiwork of hacker(s). There's simply no way a mature and globally leading firm is going to post such stuff on social media.

Other theory is, country specific entities like Hyundai India and Pak, hardly compare notes on marketing or social media messaging. So, it's entirely possible that, the Pak team posted what they wanted to without thinking on what the post will mean for others.

Hyundai execs must be a worried lot right now. The issue is trending like fire.

lazy

[Samurai]

Please discuss this topic very responsibly. Remember this was a tweet from Pakistan and not from India. Rule#13 will be enforced strongly. - Support Team

[digitalnirvana]

Wasn't aware before seeing the thread.


A casual Google shows at least 3 different handles have posted similar messages, so I doubt they were all compromised.

They are:
Hyundai Motors Pakistan
Hyundai Power Pakistan
Kia Motors Crossroads Hyderabad (this is only a showroom and not the brand account)

I'm not going to post pictures as the posts have been deleted.
It will be a PR nightmare if this gets picked up by mainstream media in India.

[IamNikhil]

Definitely a case of an overzealous PR company in Pakistan, without any care for geopolitical realities. Patriotism on one side, but Hyundai India definitely doesn't deserve the brickbats and trolling that's being dished out on social media at the moment. In today's world, I think people are just waiting for a reason to outrage.

IMHO, Hyundai global team should simply fire the PR agency for this blunder in Pakistan and issue an honest apology. The more they delay, the more it's shares will take a hit.

Any brand should steer clear from commenting on politics, especially sensitive hot potatoes like Indo-Pak. Stick to making cars man!

[Vishal.R]

Hyundai is a multinational company. As an Indian I cannot expect them to always endorse India's stand in some of the matters unrelated to their business.

They are NOT the first or last company to deal with such things.

Companies like Google, HERE, TomTom etc. need to be really careful as they are into maps and there are many disputed areas in the World claimed by multiple countries. They are able to handle that with country specific versions.

Any big multinational company must have defined policies for PR and there is a violation by someone from Hyundai Pakistan and ideally it shouldn't have published, if proper controls/approvals were followed, so even that is also an issue and there are questions like if they follow some of the process and how they enforce it across the globe but now controversy is not at all about that tweet.

Hyundai India is in bigger PR disaster after the way they handled / responded to this issue.

[dragracer567]

Reminds me of a similar controversy with H & M when they decided not to use cotton from a certain restive part of China which led to a severe backlash with China consumers. H & M immediately back tracked which annoyed western consumers for bending to China's will. In the end, H & M ended up losing its reputation and sales in both markets.

Now, as IamNikhil pointed out, this is probably an overzealous PR company/representative who might've thought that such a post might earn them brownie points with Pakistani consumers without realizing the domino effect that Hyundai will face in India - a much bigger and more important market. To make matters worse, the response by Hyundai India was poorly worded, almost amateurish. Also, its very difficult for Hyundai India to speak on behalf of its Pakistani counterpart given these are country specific subsidiaries that operate independently. I hope Hyundai and other brands which operate in India-Pakistan, Greece-Turkey etc learn from this fiasco, stay away from politics!

[Electromotive]

The only lesson here is that corporations are amoral. They will only say and do things that best benefit them. That's the thing to remember before we keyboard warriors waste time defending corporations or justifying their anti customer behavior.

This is the excrement twitter flies are buzzing over:



Classic case of left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Hyundai India got dragged in and made the mistake of a quick response. Get your popcorn and just enjoy the show. Lots of brownie points to be earned in the practice of twitter nationalism.

[tiagoatrix]

I don't think any account was hacked.

Hyundai Pakistan is a collaboration between Hyundai and Nishat Group (A Pakistani conglomerate). Post from Hyundai Pakistan Handle might be from a Pakistani admin, who has his own views.

Holding Hyundai India accountable for an action from a Joint venture company from another company is bizzare to me.

I think we should be more offended by other manufacturers who treat us inferiorly and give sub standard cars. Hyundai has given india beautiful cars and kept other manufacturers on their toe.

I am against boycott / ban culture, use your senses, choose wisely

[humyum]

Social media accounts of a Hyundai which sells 7-8 cars a year in Pakistan as per their 2021 sales must be handled by interns or kids with that kind of sales and they must have posted it without thinking.

Should not read much into it and create a scene out of it like people have. Heck I read so many Indians on twitter saying they will cancel their Hyundai cars which they have booked because of this, some vowed to never buy one too. Hilarious.

[sierrabravo98]

Originally Posted by lazy

Folks

You'd have noticed by now the social media storm over Hyundai Pak's tweets.

Am guessing, the original posts, though from proper handle, is likely a handiwork of hacker(s). There's simply no way a mature and globally leading firm is going to post such stuff on social media.

Other theory is, country specific entities like Hyundai India and Pak, hardly compare notes on marketing or social media messaging. So, it's entirely possible that, the Pak team posted what they wanted to without thinking on what the post will mean for others.

Hyundai execs must be a worried lot right now. The issue is trending like fire.

lazy

Like I wrote on an earlier thread, there is little to be gained by attaching much value to this faux pas. This is clearly the work of some under-paid, radicalized (of which there is no dearth in Pakistan) intern who used his/her access to Hyundai Pakistan's social media accounts to regurgitate the propaganda fed to them from their birth. This so-called "Solidarity Day" is kind of a big day for the masses there (especially the savvy youngsters). For them, it is next only to their "Pakistan Day" in some aspects. You would have seen Kia Motors Hyderabad (Pakistan) also post along similar lines.

Hyundai knows which side their bread is buttered. They would never commit such a suicidal move knowingly. As it is, #BoycottHyundai is trending 1 on Twitter (Hyundai has aggravated its situation by blocking users and then posting that neither here nor there statement). This is the ultimate nightmare for any brand let alone Hyundai which has spent 100s of crores on marketing campaigns highlighting its familial connection to the Indian market.

The way out is that Hyundai Global (NOT Hyundai India as they have not done anything wrong in the first place) issue a statement outlining that they are an automobile manufacturer which does not comment on geo-politics and that any issue between sovereign nations is outside their domain. That ought to sooth the frayed nerves.

[drpudhi]

I'm not surprised by this development. For starters, Kashmir day is a national holiday in Pakistan and it was natural for car manufacturers to try and capitalise on it for their marketing. And this is the norm among all multinational corporations - following country specific policies to further their growth. Even google has different maps with Kashmir included in Pakistan if Gmaps are accessed from there while it shows Kashmir as part of India if accessed from India. No company is going to choose one country over another here and will try to play to the gallery depending on where they are located.

An example here of google maps where AP is part of China as well as India, depending on from where you are accessing the maps from.

https://youtu.be/P_UVPTdjxC0?t=197

So let's just don't get carried away with this incident. At the end, this incident too will die its natural death in time.

[theAutomaniac]

Originally Posted by lazy

Folks

You'd have noticed by now the social media storm over Hyundai Pak's tweets.

Am guessing, the original posts, though from proper handle, is likely a handiwork of hacker(s).

Other theory is, country specific entities like Hyundai India and Pak, hardly compare notes on marketing or social media messaging. So, it's entirely possible that, the Pak team posted what they wanted to without thinking on what the post will mean for others.
lazy

While the post from Hyundai Pakistan was not very problematic, it seemed to be just a work of an ignorant marketing agency who forgot that they were handling the account of a multinational company and not some local general store!

Now what was more problematic was Hyundai India's response to all the backlash. A simple apology on their social media handles with a note saying that our pakistani arm did a blunder or something would've kept this matter low.

What Hyundai India did instead was, they started blocking Twitter handles, made their Twitter account private and started reporting Instagram meme pages (who reported this) under harassment! Could you expect such childish behavior from a multinational company?? No one would! Clearly highlights the arrogance and lack of guilt the Hyundai top level management holds!

Attaching pics of the same-





And this is a big reason why the news has caught nationwide attention and #boycotthyundai is trending on Twitter right now with over 200k tweets in a nation where no automotive brand has ever trended on Twitter! They broke records for the wrong reasons and I'm sure this news will go global because it relates to one of the biggest controversies of one of the biggest nations in the world!

What is even more concerning is how no Indian automotive media has spoken about this! A big national news and our media is too scared of the #2 carmaker that they could not acknowledge this incident? Shame on all the automotive journalists who boast about their achievements day and night and yet couldn't be courageous enough to recognize this! This is where I love Team-BHP, atleast every automotive news is treated equally here!


The behavior of Indian automotive media and Hyundai India today has surely left me aghast and disappointed but I'll end this with a note to marketing teams of MG Motor India and Tata Motors-
I have never liked the way you guys function, but this is your time! Spend your resources, spread this news and show Hyundai how expensive this blunder and subsequent show of arrogance can cost them! They deserve it for their arrogance this time!

[ASHUJNMC]

Originally Posted by sierrabravo98

. (Hyundai has aggravated its situation by blocking users and then posting that neither here nor there statement). This is the ultimate nightmare for any brand let alone Hyundai which has spent 100s of crores on marketing campaigns highlighting its familial connection to the Indian market.
.

From what I get from reading on TBHP and other automobile forums, Hyundai has history of Blocking complaining users over Twitter.
It's like quick, jump the gun trigger happy response they have to criticism over Twitter.

[One]

This will blow up in the media for sure; social media will be a bigger explosion.

Even if it is genuine (and not hacked), doubt that Indian car buyers with their wallets will cease to buy Hyundai-Kia products over time. China is doing as bad things to us as Galwan everyday, and yet the top selling brands of mobile phones in India are all Chinese.


So PR nightmare yes, political issue between government and the Hyundai with embassies getting called, maybe; but assuming that goes fine, no major financial impact to the company.

In economic theory, retail users are known to make economic choices over national sentiments. The converse is also true; most businesses choose economics over values. The number of brands which have apologised to China include biggies like McDonald's, Mercedes , multiple fashion brands, NBA etc. because they are afraid of losing business.

There is a line I remember repeatedly from "India Unbound" by Gurucharan Das. The author is told by a foreign economist that Indians are brilliant at debating- if you want nothing done, get two Indians to debate each other and nothing will move.

So educated Indians will use brilliant economic hypothesis to prove how these companies are providing employment and that we don't have viable alternates but will not remember that a nation exists not because of intellectual brilliance but because of an emotion i.e. people's faith in its boundaries and their ability to protect it when those are threatened physically or notionally. Our history and our present consumer behaviour provides enough indicators on how we fare there.

Hyundai will apologise saying they don't endorse this, Keyboard warriors will release hashtags, but when time comes to purchase, Indians will purchase Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Hyundai or whatever suits them.

This post is not about Hyundai, afterall this could be a hacked account or a mistake by some intern of their PR agency. This is about our choices that we make and intend to make. I doubt we have the ability to do what consumers did to Korean Lotte in China after investing 9 billion dollars there (with some nudge nudge from the government as well as few other factors beyond the scope of this post).