In recent years, from Anta to Procter & Gamble, from Jie Ting to Weilong, vulgar marketing has no distinction between industries and borders. And when rubbing propaganda becomes a phenomenon, who should we reflect on?
Suspected of vulgar marketing blog traffic, Anta is caught in a storm of public opinion
On May 29, Anta's new product for women's shoes in the current season, "Miaomiao Shoes 2.0", was accused of playing a erotic side ball, causing heated discussions on the Internet.
It is understood that in the propaganda poster involved, the sole of the model's shoe is facing the camera. While showing the relevant design, some netizens noticed that the bottom of the female thigh can be seen through the gap in the middle of the shoe, and there is a suspicion of "edge rubbing".
However, some netizens said that a simple picture showing the sole of the shoe would not be in a bad direction if it was not emphasized. Moreover, the female model did not have her body exposed. Sin, no excuses."
No matter what the facts, once the turmoil broke out, Anta's brand image was inevitably affected to some extent.
On the afternoon of May 30, Anta's official website customer service told Blue Whale Finance reporter: "We have taken the picture off the shelf as soon as possible. We apologize for any discomfort the picture has caused you. In order to deal with it seriously, we will definitely check more strictly in the future.”
As for the alleged "fighting the edge ball" in the promotion of women's shoes, is it intentional by Anta, or is it an internal audit management issue? According to Hu Huacheng, founder and chairman of Zhihe Island Consulting Group, the former is unlikely.
"From a corporate marketing point of view, most of the people who like to play rubbish are nameless companies, because they like to increase sales through this kind of bad taste. In addition, there are some second-tier brands who want to be big names, but the idea is to increase sales. It is not used on the right path. At the same time, it is also possible that the company has set goals for the marketers, and finally it has become the best choice.” Hu Huacheng believes that Anta, on the other hand, has already become the leader in the domestic sporting goods field, and there is no need to play this game anymore. This kind of marketing, after all, this is not only not conducive to improving the popularity of the product, but will increase the number of black fans for the company, which is completely worth the loss.
As of press time, except for the customer service of the online store, Anta officials have not yet come forward to respond. Therefore, the actual situation of the poster incident is temporarily unknown.
However, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, pointed out that whether this incident was caused by Anta's subjective or objective negligence, it at least proved the fact that its own management is not strict and there are loopholes.
Under the accelerated rush, does Anta management have to keep up?
According to the data, Anta is a comprehensive, multi-brand sporting goods group specializing in the design, production and sales of sports shoes, clothing, accessories and other sports equipment. The company was founded in 1991. In the early days, it mainly focused on foreign trade OEM business. In 1994, it established its own brand Anta and laid out a national distribution network.
In 2007, Anta successfully landed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Since then, Anta has implemented its own multi-brand strategy through overseas mergers and acquisitions, covering the needs of different segments of the population, in order to seize the market.
During this period, like most sports brands, Anta has also experienced a period of inventory adjustment for several years. However, thanks to the upgrade of the retail model, Anta's performance has gradually recovered. In 2016, it proposed the "single focus, multi-brand, omni-channel" strategy again, pressing the transformation button, and ushered in the stage of accelerated development. In terms of brand influence and performance All have outstanding results.
Until 2021, the financial report shows that Anta Group achieved revenue of 49.33 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.9%, maintaining growth for 8 consecutive years, and ranking first in China's sporting goods enterprises for 10 consecutive years. At the same time, in terms of market share, according to Euromonitor information consulting data, Anta Group’s domestic sports shoes and apparel market share (market share) will be 16.2% in 2021, rising from the third place to the second place, second only to Nike.
However, behind the rapid development, Anta seems to have not fully kept up with the construction of channel management and internal control system. It is reported that in addition to the suspected edge-wiping incident in the promotion of women's shoes, in April 2021, Anta's Doraemon joint casual sneaker white and black product was also caught in the "high price speculation".
At that time, the phenomenon of shoe speculation spreading to domestic products was criticized by official media such as People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV. Relevant lawyers also pointed out to reporters that the matter of "frying shoes" depends on the situation. From the perspective of the main body, if the merchants and the peripheral scalpers and speculators collude to artificially create the market illusion that the supply is less than the demand, and deceive consumers to buy, then first violation of the law. The "Consumer Rights Protection Law" requires operators to operate with integrity and abide by the basic obligations of social morality, and will face the risk of complaints and lawsuits of consumer fraud.
It is undeniable that in recent years, domestic sports brands have made great progress in technology research and development and appearance design, and they also have the confidence to enter the mid-to-high-end market. For Anta, years of accumulation have made it fruitful in the domestic market. . In the eyes of industry insiders, it is a good opportunity for development, but if there are repeated problems in the operation and management of the enterprise due to lax internal control, it will easily lose the trust of consumers, which is harmful to brand building.
Vulgar marketing emerges one after another, and brand value building has a long way to go
In fact, in recent years, brand vulgar marketing has been common and repeatedly banned. In contrast, Anta's controversial "edge-wiping" poster is even slightly restrained.
On May 17, 2022, a female product from Fu Yanjie was questioned for insulting women due to inappropriate slogans and details on the page during the promotion, and related topics were immediately searched, causing constant controversy. The next day, the staff of the Jiangxi Zhangshu City Market Supervision and Administration Bureau stated that they would initiate an investigation. Two days later, amid the voices of doubt, Fu Yanjie posted an apology on its official Weibo account, saying that a special group had been set up to remove relevant products from the shelves and conduct self-examination and self-correction.
In March of this year, the three brands of Procter & Gamble, Jieting, and Weilong just experienced a similar incident: they were criticized by netizens for their vulgar marketing, and the end result was the removal of promotional copy and products, and a public apology. Among them, Procter & Gamble was also investigated by the Huangpu District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Guangzhou City.
In addition, brands such as Coconut Group, Juewei Food, Chayanyuese, and Ulike have also been "overturned" on the road of vulgar marketing, and some brands have even been fined hundreds of thousands of yuan for this. But this does not seem to have alerted relevant companies, and there are still many "adventurers" who are "going forward".
Jiang Han pointed out that in recent years, this kind of "edge-scraping" marketing has become a trend, partly because of the influence of the previous Durex marketing, which has led many companies to believe that quiet edge-edge marketing may be possible. bring better results. But in fact, this method of publicity does not conform to its own product characteristics, and at the same time breaks through the moral bottom line of the market and the consumer's cognitive bottom line, it is likely to have problems and eventually backfire.
For the company's external publicity, Jiang Han suggested that there should be a bottom-line thinking, and at the same time, the company should strengthen the internal control system and internal control mechanism, and be cautious in external content publicity.
In the opinion of lawyer Zhu Yonghong, a partner of Wanshang Tianqin (Shanghai) Law Firm, "edge ball" is not a legal concept. In the advertising industry, we often encounter the saying of "edge ball", that is, as long as it does not obviously violate the prohibition of the law It can be stipulated. But in fact, regardless of laws and regulations, or industry norms, the advertising behavior of "scratching the ball" is prohibited.
For example: Article 3 of the "Advertising Law" stipulates that advertisements should be authentic and legal, express the content of advertisements in a healthy form, and meet the requirements of the construction of socialist spiritual civilization and the promotion of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation. Article 9 also clearly stipulates that advertisements shall not "contain obscene, pornographic" or "contrary to the good social customs". At the same time, the industry standard "Advertising Release Standards" promulgated by the Shanghai Advertising Association also clearly stipulates that advertisements that "contain obscene and pornographic content" and "go against the good social customs" shall not be released. In addition, the "14th Five-Year" advertising development plan also explicitly mentions the boycott of vulgar, vulgar and kitsch advertising works.
In fact, with regard to vulgar and pornographic advertisements, there are also domestic advertising laws that restrict them and impose corresponding penalties. However, Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e-commerce industry and the founder of Bailian Consulting, believes that the effort is not large, and the cost that enterprises need to bear is low, and they will still "take risks" driven by economic interests. At the same time, there is also a gray space for the definition of the above-mentioned illegal acts. Some companies choose to brush the ball, and at most they are taken off the shelves after being discovered, and the impact is even less.
For such enterprises, Zhuang Shuai suggested that, first of all, they should be more self-disciplined internally and pay more attention to consumers. Secondly, the importance of corporate culture construction should not be underestimated. Good ideas can also trigger wider dissemination. Put more effort into it.
"However, from the current point of view, more legal constraints are needed. It is too difficult for enterprises to rely on moral constraints for their economic behavior, and self-discipline is difficult to guarantee. On the other hand, through the supervision of public opinion and the strict voting of consumers, pressure is placed on enterprises to force enterprises to pay more attention to standard behavior in the pursuit of economic interests.” Zhuang Shuai said.
