There’s been a lot of buzz lately about a video posted by Baidu VP, Jing Qu, and the intense reactions it sparked. What people don’t know is the whole story behind it – a story I’m all too familiar with as a Baidu employee myself. It all started back in March when Qu dropped a bombshell on the PR department: everyone, and I mean everyone, was to become a video influencer. We were tasked with creating our own channels on video platforms like Douyin (the Chinese TikTok), with the goal of attracting traffic and, ultimately, pushing Baidu products. To make things even more stressful, our performance on these platforms was directly linked to our end-of-year evaluations.
The official reason behind this radical shift? The PR department was losing its voice within the company. We were constantly reacting to demands from different business units, lacking the initiative and power to control our own narrative. Qu envisioned these personal video channels as a way for us to seize control, creating a platform where we could freely express ourselves and, hopefully, boost the department’s influence both internally and externally.
Truth be told, most of us weren’t exactly thrilled with this new directive. “We’re not happy about it, but what can we do?” was a common sentiment I heard whispered around the office. While we understood the hype around short-form video and its potential, our core responsibility as PR professionals was to protect the company’s image and reputation, not become salespersons hawking products. There was a shared concern that this all-in approach to video content creation would not only distract us from our primary duties but also potentially harm Baidu’s brand image.
The irony of it all wasn’t lost on anyone. Baidu, once the undisputed king of the internet in China, was now desperately seeking relevance on new platforms. We were a company that built its empire on search, struggling to make a splash in the world of video. This whole “PR turned influencer” initiative felt like a desperate scramble for a piece of the pie, a far cry from the company’s dominant days.
Whether this strategy will actually work remains to be seen. It’s a gamble, for sure, and one that many of us are skeptical about. But as a Baidu employee caught in the middle of it all, I can only hope that it doesn’t backfire, leaving us with a damaged reputation and a whole lot of awkward videos we wish we could take back.