The "public" campaign started when post about Yili milk started from BBS forum, to Microblog and other "family that reported the milk has health problem".

According to Mengniu statement, three of the online team members that handles Mengniu account acted on the online brand attack

Yili was quick and decisive to issue a press statement, include detailed report of their latest health quality results, as well as reported to local authorities on their suspicion of alleged attack from their competitor.  Unfortunately Mengniu did not respond to the matter in the right manner, it did not call for press conference and address the issue in time. Although Mengniu finally released their press statement it was already too late, media journalist has done their own investigations and caught several phone interviews with Mengniu employee that did not know how to respond to the situation.

According to Financial Times report "The campaign, alleged to have involved online articles by fake parents and fraudulent blogs, earned BossePR a fee of about Rmb280,000 ($42,000), said state media reports." As well as "Hong Kong-listed Mengniu was founded by Niu Gengsheng, a former employee of state-controlled Yili."

Mengniu should have responded to the matter accordingly and direct all enquiries into a PR department with crisis communications training, obviously the did not do this. They have also declined for interviews or providing any answers to media, which upsets people even more. They should have also set a micro-site dedicated on addressing the issue, open statement and live press conference; there is no telling how this will affect their market. Yili definitely comes out a winner this time, not only they were fast, they already benefiting from sponsoring Shanghai 2010 Expo.

Sina has compiled TV coverage regarding the case on a dedicated microsite, you can visit it here (in Chinese).

After running a keywords trending through Baidu Index (for results click here), both Mengniu and Yili keywords has raised significantly.