▲ On a shopping platform, a store sells sugar drop stickers (left) and tinnitus stickers (right).
According to the Beijing Youth Daily, recently, some netizens posted that there have been many poisonous oath-style advertising and marketing on online shopping platforms, and many pictures and texts are uncomfortable. Most of these advertisements are concentrated in the medical field, and there are many kinds of "poison oaths", including "guaranteeing life", "direct hanging", "cutting off children and grandchildren", "amputation" and so on. What is even more ironic is that different merchants also use the same pictures to promote, and the "real customer feedback" claimed by some merchants is proved to be online pirated images.
In fact, merchants use "poison oath" to express their integrity, which is not a new practice in the era of online shopping.
For example, a few years ago, a hot pot restaurant in a certain place hung up a couplet, the upper link "earned money and the whole family died", the lower link "did not grasp the quality of the curse", and the horizontal batch "integrity management". A huge sign was hung in a hotel somewhere, which read, "All the family of the hotel will take their lives to promise you our food", and below is the autograph and bright red handprint of all the staff. Such bizarre practices are not uncommon. What is unexpected is that this marketing method has now turned to online shopping platforms.
Honest management is the way for businesses to establish their businesses and the foundation of their businesses. In order to attract business, merchants flaunt their integrity, which is understandable. However, it is not enough to express integrity by "swearing poison" in order to win the trust of consumers. As netizens said, merchants dare to "take their lives to guarantee" quality and effect, but which consumer dares to "take their lives"? If the merchant deceives the customer, who dares to force it to fulfill the promise of "amputation" or even "direct hanging"?
▲ In December 2020, a snack street in Shangqiu, Henan Province, required merchants to publicly issue a poison oath to "not sell inferior food" in order to enter the snack street. Photo: China Food Safety Network
Therefore, the so-called "poisonous oath" is just an attractive gimmick to lure consumers to consume. If the merchant's "poison oath" is useful, if the quality of consumption, safety and the rights and interests of consumers can be guaranteed by the "poison oath", what is the use of the law?
Although every normal consumer will not believe the merchant's "poisonous oath", the market cannot tolerate the existence of such marketing advertisements. The "poison oath" advertisement itself is a kind of promised advertising content, which is a commitment to the function, quality, safety, etc. of the product, since it is impossible to do the promise of "life guarantee" and "head guarantee", it is to issue a "blank cheque", suspected of false publicity, which is prohibited by the Advertising Law.
At the same time, some "poison oath" advertisements, such as the sentence form of "head guarantee 1000% cure", "head guarantee" is an invalid promise, but also suspected of exaggerating the effect, violating the "advertising law" "can not contain content that explains the cure rate or efficiency".
To put it bluntly, the "poison oath" marketing of merchants is just a superficial and clumsy statement on ethical self-discipline, and it is easy to be self-defeating. Marketing is only a means, product quality is the key. If the merchant is sincere and honest in business, then take practical action, Tong Sou is not deceived, with real materials, attentive service is enough, "poison oath" is extremely undesirable.
Author | He Yonghai
Edit | Li Xiaoxiao
Proofreading | Wu Xingfa