Dr. Shen explains why a small misstep can spark a big backlash for PR

What began as a cheerful promotional giveaway at the Shanghai Auto Show quickly spiraled into a national controversy for BMW’s MINI brand, and became what some now call “the most expensive ice cream crisis” in corporate history.

The incident erupted after a video captured MINI staff refusing free ice cream to a Chinese attendee, minutes before handing a full box to a foreign visitor. The clip, widely circulated on China’s short-video platforms, triggered immediate accusations of discrimination and favoritism toward foreigners.

“It became viral almost instantly,” Dr. Hongmei Shen, a crisis communication scholar who analyzed the case for a new book on global crisis communication, said.

What made the moment so volatile,Shen explained, was not just the act itself, but the cultural backdrop against which it played out.

China’s relationship with foreign companies is layered with economic tensions, national identity and a deeply ingrained collective memory of what the country calls the “Century of Humiliation,” a period from 1839 to 1949 marked by foreign invasion and discriminatory treatment of Chinese citizens.

One infamous sign from that era, posted outside a Shanghai park, read: “Dogs and Chinese Not Allowed.”

“People said this felt like a 21st-century version of that,” Shen said. “You cannot separate this incident from that history. Many multinational companies do not understand how easily a small action can trigger that memory.”

MINI attempted to respond to the backlash quickly, issuing a statement that blamed the controversy on booth workers who were “new and not properly trained.”

However, the statement only worsened the situation.

“They essentially threw their own employees under the bus,” Shen said. “People were not satisfied at all. It came across as insincere, and it made the crisis worse.”

State-run media outlets soon joined online users in mocking the company. Competitors in China’s booming electric vehicle market also seized the opportunity, launching social media posts promising ice cream "for everyone," positioning themselves against BMW’s mistake.

Even after the initial wave of outrage died down, the episode became part of the public memory surrounding BMW’s brand in China.

A small error that became a national scandal. According to Shen, the scale and speed of China’s digital ecosystem intensified the crisis.

“Anything can escalate exponentially,” she said. “China has livestreamers who can draw hundreds of millions of viewers in a single session. In that environment, a small incident can become a national scandal in hours.”

Users created parody videos, memes, and even mock crisis statements showing how MINI “should have responded,” Shen explained.

Some even invoked generative AI to demonstrate what they believed would have been a smarter approach.

“It became a moment for the public to critique crisis management itself,” she said. 

Shen explained how the MINI incident exposed a major gap in how multinational companies approach crisis communication abroad.

Most Western crisis communication models focus on organizational behavior, i.e. internal processes, responsibility and message strategy. But the new book featuring her chapter proposes a different framework, one that emphasizes contextual forces: political systems, economic realities, societal culture, media structures and activism.

“In China, all five of these factors were at play,” she said. “You cannot manage a crisis there without understanding the media system, the political environment, and the cultural history.”

For BMW, the Shanghai ice cream incident illustrated how quickly nationalist activists and social media users can mobilize online boycotts, a form of digital activism that has grown among younger internet users.

Shen hopes the MINI crisis serves as a reminder that global brands operate within complex local realities, and a lack of cultural understanding can turn a small slip into a costly disaster.

“Companies need a deep understanding of the culture, the history, and the media environment,” she said. “Without that, they risk miscalculating the entire situation.”