Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has signed a year-long contract with a New York digital marketing agency as the beleaguered company prioritizes an image makeover with the US public over lobbying hostile policymakers.
Huawei Technologies USA, the company’s US subsidiary in Texas, has inked a yearlong contract beginning Jan. 25 with ADLAB, a wholly owned subsidiary of British advertising giant WPP. ADLAB is notably tasked with providing “public relations, issues counseling, crisis management and corporate positioning” as well as “developing consumer marketing solutions and M&A communications” for Huawei.
WPP won the contract to handle global corporate branding for Huawei in 2012. One of the firm’s affiliates, branding firm Wavemaker, in turn signed a contract worth $350 million in advertising spending in early 2019, Politico Europe first reported last year.
Working on the new ADLAB contract are Nicholas Lawhead and Brian Breach of Portland, Oregon, according to the firm’s registration with the US Department of Justice. Their tasks include “social creative concept and production, performance analytics, community management, paid social media management and social strategy and brand voice.” Fees for the work are to be spelled out in a statement of work that was not included in the lobbying filing.
Neither Huawei Technologies USA nor ADLAB responded to requests for comment.
The contract marks the latest US public relations foray by Huawei, which went on a $3.5 million spending spree last fall when it hired New York PR firm Ruder Finn and extended its existing contract with Washington technology communications firm Racepoint Global through October 2021. The company’s lobbying by contrast all but collapsed last year as efforts to convince policymakers that the company is independent of Beijing and does not pose a national security threat went nowhere.
After Congress and the Donald Trump administration moved to blacklist Huawei in the United States and prevent US allies from using the company to develop their 5G wireless networks, Huawei hired a fleet of lobbyists to try to repair the damage. But a review of lobbying disclosure records by Foreign Lobby Report shows lobbying spending collapsed in 2020, dropping from $6 million in 2019 to just over $1 million (see chart below). And global law firm Squire Patton Boggs, which was brought on in August 2019 to help deal with sanctions and export controls, terminated its engagement in October, according to a newly disclosed lobbying filing.
Other Chinese technology firms have continued to focus their energies on lobbying. Six companies facing US threats only started lobbying this year, according to a Foreign Lobby Report review of lobbying filings, together hiring nine lobbying firms and three former members of Congress.
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The shift in focus could allow the company to focus on telling its side of the story while avoiding the kind of backlash that can greet lobbying campaigns. Earlier this month, for example, former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she would drop the US affiliate of Chinese video-surveillance company Hikvision after her work for the company accused of helping China spy on its Uyghur minority became public.
But while that strategy may work for consumer-oriented Chinese apps such as Tiktok and WeChat that have huge fan bases, some experts question whether it can work for Huawei.
“I think PR can help, but it can’t address … the root cause,” said Lou Hoffman, the president and CEO of California-based tech PR agency The Hoffman Agency. “And the root cause is a belief by the American government that Huawei is a security threat.”
Hoffman said direct lobbying efforts, such as face-to-face meetings and clear demonstrations of how Huawei operates, would likely have a better chance at convincing the US government.
The company has its work cut out for it with the Joe Biden administration. In her confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee, the new president’s pick to head the Commerce Department, Gina Raimondo, said she would be “very aggressive” in combating China’s “unfair” trade practices, while declining to specify what that will mean for Huawei and other Chinese technology companies.
“This is a marathon, this is not a sprint,” Hoffman said of Huawei’s possible next moves. “This isn’t something that’s going to change in 12 months, or even 24 months. We need to look at this over a five-year-plus horizon.”
Huawei lobbyists
Firm | 2019 fees/spending | 2020 fees/spending | Registration date | Registered lobbyists (Q4 2020) | Client |
APCO Worldwide | $10,000 | N/A | April 2010 | N/A | Huawei Tech. Investment Co. (Hong Kong) |
Huawei Technologies USA | $2.985 million | $470,000 | April 2012 | Don Morrissey | In-house lobbying |
Federal Advocates | $2.55 million Terminated Dec. 31, 2019 | N/A | August 2019 | N/A | Huawei Technologies USA |
Squire Patton Boggs | $230,000 | $380,000 Terminated Oct. 1, 2020 | August 2019 | N/A | Huawei Technologies USA |
Steptoe & Johnson | $210,000 | $210,000 | April 2019 | Richard Cunningham Judy Wang | Huawei Technologies Co. (Shenzhen) |
Jones Day | $60,000 | * | April 2019 | No activity since Q4 2019 | Huawei Technologies Co. (Shenzhen) |
Sidley Austin | * | * | August 2019 | Thomas Green Mark Hopson | Huawei Technologies Co. (Shenzhen) |
Source: Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA)