How Baidu destroyed its brand image in Thailand
Baidu is trying very hard to expand its business beyond China. One of its targeted countries is Thailand but, unfortunately, Baidu brand perception in Thailand is now in a very bad shape by Baidu itself.
There are two products Baidu has introduced to Thailand. The first one is Chinese-style web portal Hao123.com. The other is Windows-based desktop optimization software Baidu PC Faster. Both products might have some good quality but Baidu?s marketing tactics in Thailand almost destroyed its brand here.
What Baidu have done is bundling its software with other freeware from famous download sites. Once Thai users install the downloaded bits, they might get Baidu PC Faster on their machines or their browser homepage is already changed to Hao123 without their consent. This bundling technique is not new and in some case it’s caused by users’ lack of knowledge at the install screen. However, there are some reports said even if you unchecked Baidu products at the install process, you still get them installed anyway.
Once Baidu software got installed, the uninstallation process is not straightforward and cumbersome. You can’t just simply press uninstall button from Windows Control Panel but you need some special technique/tools to completely uninstall them from your machine.
In the case of Baidu PC Faster, there are many reports said it messed with your Windows configuration and made the machine run slowly or unusable. The only way to fix this problem is reformat and reinstall Windows. (The controversy of Badu PC Faster was reported by Tech in Asia)
In the case of Hao123, I believe there should be some genuine Thai internet users who love the products from the bottom their hearts. But from my knowledge as a tech blogger, I know zero people who intentionally visit Hao123 web site as a good start page for a browsing session. Please note that we Thai have our own prefered style of web portals such as Sanook, Kapook and Mthai. However, from statistical data, Hao123 is now #3 famous local site in Thailand according to local TrueHits data and #19 site in Thailand from Alexa data (global brand sites like Facebook and Google is included). It can be inducted that Hao123 already penetrates in a big chunk of Thai Windows-based PCs. Then everytime these users start a browsing session, Hao123 get one more visiting count. Good tactics?
The behavior of both Hao123 and Baidu PC Faster ignites some level of outrage among Thai tech enthusiasts. You can find tons of negative comments on Thailand’s largest forum Pantip.com and many other tech sites (mine included). Some people call Hao123 as Hao (means louse in Thai pronunciation) and it’s definitely not in a good meaning. The brands Baidu among these users now means bad things, dishonest or untrustable.
This problem affects not only for Baidu but also Chinese tech products at all. Baidu PC Faster and Hao123 created a perception of Chinese tech companies can’t be trusted?. For example, another Chinese-style web portals called 555.in.th is now trying to enter Thai market and the feedback they get is “Yet another Hao is coming to town!”.
I have no offense to any of Baidu the company and never use their products personally (I tried Baidu PC Faster in tested environment once) but I think this case is a very big misstep of a company at scale of Baidu. Brand image is very hard to build and harder to keep it alive but Baidu has destroyed itself by this kind of grey marketing tactics they could avoid at the beginning.
Now any business initiatives in Thailand from other Chinese tech companies will be a lot harder and they will definitely face the question “How can I know you won’t do the same thing as Baidu?”
Honestly, I don’t have any idea how to fix Baidu brand image in Thailand but I empathize their position. I wish they recover the brand as soon as possible and hope this case will be a good case study for future tech companies to “enter new market with care”.
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