The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2023
Wuling demanded a 15-day apology, got a viral '五菱道歉' meme instead
A radio host reported a Wuling Nano charged at 2kW, not the advertised 7kW. Wuling's lawyer's letter demanding a 15-day apology backfired into a viral meme.
SAIC-GM-Wuling · 2023-12
What happened
In November 2023, Zhejiang radio host 王飞 (Wang Fei) reported on his show 《拜托了老司机》 a Wuling Nano owner's complaint: the dealer advertised a 7kW charger, but the owner measured only 2kW. Wang Fei's on-air commentary questioned the claim.
Wuling responded with a lawyer's letter. It accused him of 'deliberately misleading consumers' and of 'defamation and insult', and demanded he delete the video and issue a nationwide public apology for 15 days.
Wang Fei apologised. He posted his first apology video on 15 November (which drew 146,000 likes, 25,000 comments and 11,000 reposts), kept apologising at the Guangzhou auto show and the Macau Grand Prix, and compiled the clips into a '五菱道歉' (Wuling apologises) collection that had gathered roughly 44 million views by 8 December.
By day five Wuling buckled under the backlash and issued a reconciliation memo. The episode had publicly side-stepped its own product problem: by 8 December's close, Wuling's stock had fallen 5.62% to HK$0.420, and its H1 2023 net profit had already dropped 88.6% year on year.
Why it happened
- A lawyer's letter meant to silence a factual product review turned a single complaint into a story the whole internet watched.
- The demand for a 15-day nationwide apology was disproportionate, so the forced apology became ridicule instead of compliance.
- Every apology video repeated the 'wrong spec' point, so the apology was also the advertisement for the product fault.
- The company hit a public-relations problem just as its sales and profit were already falling, so the optics were worse than the incident alone.
The lesson
A lawyer's letter is not a product fix. Wuling demanded 15 days of apology over a true review, and the public watched the apology instead of the product, then Wuling had to back down.
Aftermath
Wuling ultimately issued a reconciliation memo with Wang Fei and dropped the apology demand, but the '五菱道歉' collection recorded roughly 44 million views and the phrase became shorthand for a brand that tried to strong-arm the press and lost. The incident was read by commentators as a case study in how a disproportionately heavy legal response to a factual complaint hands the audience to the critic and multiplies the damage the criticism was meant to suppress.
Sources
- 海报新闻: 五菱律师函事件梳理 (the review, the apology series)
- 金融界: 五菱汽车要求媒体人公开道歉上热搜 (lawyer's letter, 15-day demand, stock drop, financials)
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