Celebrity endorsements have "flipped over" again. On September 9, a franchisee was deceived by a tea company endorsed by Hunan Satellite TV host Li Weijia, causing a sensation on social media, and the tea brand involved in it was "Happy Formula", and the company involved behind it was Guangzhou Xinrui Restaurant Management Co., Ltd.
Li Weijia responded this afternoon that he had terminated his contract with The Happy Equation.
The companies involved "saddled" 19 judicial cases
According to the official WeChat public account of Happy Formula, it is a cross-border creation of the "Big Cake Camp" under the Happy Base Camp, which is a high-quality fashion beverage store that can bring the same quality and homogeneity as the "Happy Base Camp" and can experience the exquisite, taste and fashion life of first-tier cities.
The main account of the Happy Formula WeChat public account is Guangzhou Xinrui Catering Management Co., Ltd., and the enterprise investigation data shows that the company was established on August 14, 2020, and there are two major shareholders behind it, namely Zhou Jinnian and Zhou Cheng, each holding 50% of the shares, but the company is currently in an abnormal state of operation.
Enterprise investigation data also shows that Guangzhou Xinrui Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. is currently "burdened" with 19 judicial cases, of which nearly 70% of the cases are caused by franchise contract disputes.
In July this year, Guangzhou Xinrui Catering Management Co., Ltd. and its legal representative Zhou Jinnian failed to perform the payment obligations specified in the effective legal documents according to the period specified in the enforcement notice due to the labor dispute case of the unit, and the Guangzhou Baiyun District People's Court issued an order restricting high consumption.
The first financial reporter tried to call Guangzhou Xinrui Catering Management Co., Ltd. to understand the current situation of operation, but the phone was turned off. Subsequently, the first financial reporter checked the two major takeaway platforms of Ele.me and Meituan, and has not yet seen that there are "Happy Formula" Guangzhou-related stores that provide online takeaway business.
On the afternoon of September 9, Li Weijia issued a statement on the official Weibo, saying: "On July 25, 2020, I signed the "Flat Image Ambassador Contract" with Guangzhou Hechenghui Information Technology Co., Ltd. to serve as the image ambassador of 'Happy Formula' milk tea products, and the cooperation period is from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021. In May 2021, after learning that the actual operator of 'Happy Formula' milk tea is Guangzhou Xinrui Catering Management Co., Ltd., and the endorsement conditions of the graphic image ambassador in the contract book have changed, I signed the "Cooperation Termination Agreement" with Hechenghui Company on June 1, 2021, which clearly states: Hechenghui Company will stop using my portrait, and will successively dismantle, delete and remove the promotional items and information such as promotional posters, promotional videos, and Weibo publicity that have been released. At the same time, it is required to properly handle the relevant cooperation matters between Guangzhou Xinrui Catering Management Co., Ltd. and the 'Happy Formula' milk tea franchisees. I am concerned about the public opinion on the Internet about my endorsement of the 'Happy Formula' brand, and I have been actively coordinating and dealing with this matter since May, and I am deeply sorry for the use of public resources because of this incident. Here, I also appeal to all franchisees to express reasonable demands through legal channels and means. At the same time, I reserve the right to pursue legal responsibility for false remarks and malicious slander against me on the Internet. ”
Behind the many "rollovers"
Since the beginning of this year, the market has repeatedly reported that celebrities endorse milk tea brands overturned, such as a few days ago, the Shanghai police disclosed that Shanghai's first case of "routine joining" contract fraud cases of attracting franchisees with false brand milk tea investment websites and fictitious performance capabilities to defraud franchise fees, involving more than 700 million yuan, "Tea Zhilan" and other milk tea brands involved, "Tea Zhilan" once asked actor Ma Yili to endorse, Ma Yili apologized on Weibo, said that he had proposed to terminate the contract to the brand, and actively cooperated with the investigation work.
According to the report of China Insight Consulting, with the birth of the new tea drinking experience, China's tea market has achieved rapid growth, according to the retail consumption value, the total market size of China's ready-made tea in 2020 is about 113.6 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 340 billion yuan by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.5%.
In recent years, a variety of tea brands have emerged in an endless stream, and the business model of tea chain brands has been mainly franchised and self-operated, but it also faces the problem of profitability. "For brand owners, compared with the self-operated model, the franchise model comes to money quickly, but it is also easy to bring problems such as irregular management and difficult to control product quality." How to maintain the long-term operation of the milk tea shop franchise model is also facing challenges. Some investors engaged in tea beverage investment told the first financial reporter.
Sun Tao, who has been engaged in the investment promotion of large-scale commercial real estate projects, told the first financial reporter that the milk tea shop belongs to a small water bar, the general demand area is small, the investment is small, the output is high, it seems to be relatively easy to operate, but in fact, it is not easy to operate, on the one hand, this kind of store has very large requirements for customer flow; on the other hand, in actual operation, due to the high rental cost, the unit price of the milk tea shop itself is not high, so it is not easy to make a profit.
The first financial reporter learned that due to the consideration of the amount of people, milk tea shops or new tea drinks will mostly choose to open shops along the street or large shopping malls, shopping malls, or business districts with concentrated crowds.
"Small independent brands are basically harvested objects." Sun Tao said that in general, when well-known brands such as Starbucks settle in, shopping malls will give certain discounts, such as deduction discounts or 1-2 months of rent-free, because the latter can bring traffic, but small and medium-sized milk tea brands will basically not enjoy the same treatment. Some of the people who open milk tea shops are laymen who try the waters, experience life or start a small business.
From the perspective of celebrity endorsements, "rollover" incidents occur from time to time. The first financial reporter learned that in order to attract customers and increase exposure, merchants often sign up celebrity endorsements, but the indicators that merchants usually consider are the traffic data and ability of the stars, and the stars usually look at the prices given by the merchants, in fact, more importantly, the quality of the stars' art and goods. The industry said that after a series of recent incidents of bad artists and the storm of product quality problems, in the future, both sides should be more cautious in the commercial cooperation of celebrities, and take the quality of goods and the personal art of celebrities as important considerations for cooperation between the two sides.