■ Press: At present, the behavior of some education and training institutions, such as exaggerating publicity, suggesting consumption effects and creating user anxiety, etc., has a bad social impact.
When the summer vacation hit, all kinds of off-campus training institutions were full of energy and wanted to win the favor of parents. And in practice, in order to make profits, some training institutions often make excessive marketing, false publicity, induce consumption and other cross-line behaviors.
In the first half of this year, the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration inspected a number of training institutions on the market, and homework help, ape tutoring, New Oriental, Xueersi, Wall Street education, etc. have all been punished for false publicity, such as fictitious teacher qualifications, as well as fictitious original prices and false preferential discounts. According to incomplete statistics, 15 training institutions were involved in the key inspections, and they were fined up to 36.5 million yuan.
In addition to these well-known training and education groups, the children's programming training institutions that have recently gained popularity also have the same common problems in the industry. Walnut Programming, which announced in March this year that it had successfully raised about $200 million, was suspected of false publicity and consumption inducement, and was repeatedly complained by consumers and frequently received sales calls and text messages.
In recent years, children's programming training courses have become more and more popular among parents. Generally speaking, children's programming is mainly for children aged 3-18 years old to carry out programming education, the purpose is to cultivate children's thinking ability. At present, children's programming teaching is mainly divided into two categories, one is interesting graphical programming teaching or robot programming, mainly to cultivate interest and exercise thinking, and the other is computer programming teaching based on python, C++ and other high-level programming languages, aiming to participate in various events such as the Informatics Olympiad.
Since children's programming has become a new outlet of the K12 track, all kinds of children's programming training institutions have been favored by capital. The data shows that in 2020, the children's programming project disclosed a financing amount of 1.797 billion yuan. In addition, in addition to a large number of children's programming enterprises such as Walnut Programming, Small Code King, Geek Morningstar, Watermelon Maker, Programming Cat, etc., Internet education giants such as JD.com, NetEase, Good Future, and New Oriental are also entering the game.
Sky Eye check shows that at present, Walnut Programming has carried out 5 rounds of financing. The most recent round of financing is a US$200 million Series C financing completed on March 25, 2021, led by KKR, Yuanjing Capital, Hillhouse Venture Capital, and continued to follow up with institutions such as Source Code Capital and China Renaissance New Economy Fund.
At the Walnut Programming C round of financing conference, Zeng Pengxuan, founder of Walnut Programming, said that the total number of paid students reached 3.2 million, which is the largest children's programming institution.
In some related publicity drafts of Walnut Programming, we can also see words such as "the largest children's programming education institution", "ranking first in the industry", "leading the children's programming industry".
Walnut programming related promotional pages
Article 9 (3) of China's Advertising Law stipulates that terms such as "national level", "highest level" and "best" shall not be used. Previously, guazi used car's advertising slogan of "one year of establishment, the transaction volume is far ahead" had received a huge fine of 12.5 million yuan for lack of factual basis and inconsistency with the actual situation.
The walnut programming advertises "becoming an industry leader", if there is no direct evidence or relevant authoritative industry data support, this kind of behavior or violates the advertising law.
In addition, the promotional press release of its financing conference showed that "for every 10 children who learn to code online, 7 are programming in Walnut", and said that the data source is the results of iResearch's research. However, according to the investigation, iResearch did not release any children's programming data reports in 2021, and the data reports previously released in 2018 did not mention that "for every 10 children who learn to program online, 7 are programming in walnuts", and this part of the data cited by walnut programming may be suspected of data fraud.
Around May Day this year, Walnut Programming has placed a large number of print advertisements in major subway stations and bus stations in Hangzhou and Xi'an. The advertising screen is marked with the words "CCTV CCTV Honorary Broadcast Brand".
In fact, CCTV issued a statement many years ago to clarify that it has never issued CCTV brands on the list, honorary broadcast brands and other titles.
CCTV issued a statement in 2015 saying that "some enterprises have used the so-called "CCTV listed brands", "CCTV listed brands", "CCTV exhibition brands", "CCTV advertising listed brands" and "CCTV advertising listed brands" without the consent of our station in their product packaging and advertising and marketing activities, which has caused some misleading among consumers.
It is understood that at present, there are only two brands authorized by CCTV that can bring "CCTV", namely "CCTV Brand Power Project" and "CCTV National Ingenuity Brand", and there is no "CCTV CCTV Honor Broadcast Brand", and advertisements have been broadcast on CCTV, and CCTV advertisements should be brought with the CCTV advertising broadcast ID number when promoting. In the advertisement, the company claimed to be "CCTV CCTV honorary broadcast brand", which is suspected of misleading consumers. China's Advertising Law stipulates that the content of advertisements must not contain false or misleading content, and must not deceive or mislead consumers.
Tianyan's investigation showed that Beijing Smart Walnut Education Technology Co., Ltd., to which Walnut Programming belongs, has an administrative penalty.
This is a penalty decision issued by the Beijing Haidian District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau in December 2020, the "cause of punishment/type of illegal act" constitutes the second paragraph of Article 38 of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, and the "punishment result/content" is not an administrative penalty.
According to the content of the decision, in order to promote the "Walnut Cup Thinking and Programming Competition", Beijing Smart Walnut Education Technology Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Tongle Culture Film and Television Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tongle Culture") signed the "Walnut Cup Thinking and Programming Competition Service Agreement" on July 13, 2020, and "Children's Music Culture" planned the promotion and publicity of the programming competition for the parties. "Alare" was originally named Cui Yahan as a service staff of "Children's Music Culture" and a student of "Walnut Programming", and provided advertising services for Walnut Programming. However, since the law enforcement personnel conducted an on-site inspection of Walnut Programming on September 7, Walnut Programming has immediately realized that the advertising content may be illegal and communicated with "Juke Technology" and stopped the delivery of relevant advertising content.
According to the second paragraph of article 38 of the Advertising Law, minors under the age of 10 must not be used as advertising spokespersons. In addition, Article 24 of the Advertising Law must not contain the use of the name or image of scientific research units, academic institutions, educational institutions, industry associations, professionals, and beneficiaries as recommendations or certificates. That is to say, on the one hand, as a person under the age of ten, Alare cannot be used as a spokesperson for any advertisement, on the other hand, as a user who has purchased the course, Alare cannot be recommended as a "beneficiary".
In addition, Article 24 of the Advertising Law also stipulates that advertisements for education and training shall not contain content that makes explicit or implicit guarantees about the effectiveness of education or training.
On the official website publicity and course purchase link of Walnut Programming, there are not only words such as "Chinese Academy of Sciences expert recommended courses" that use authoritative institutions to recommend, but also "comprehensively enhance logical thinking" and "comprehensively develop children's brainpower, intelligence, imagination, creativity" and other slogans that exaggerate publicity and imply consumption effects.
In addition to the above-mentioned suspected exaggerated publicity, false publicity and other issues, since last year, many users have complained about black cats, Weibo and other platforms that they have been continuously harassed by walnut programming phones and text messages.
Image source: Weibo
Image source: Black Cat Complaint
Previously, Walnut Programming had responded to media interviews that the reason why non-registered users frequently received marketing information was related to the release of third-party advertising operators to complete the task indicators given by the company and adopt some channels.
According to Article 43 of the Advertising Law, no unit or individual may send advertisements to its residences, means of transportation, etc. without the consent or request of the parties concerned, nor may it send advertisements to them by electronic information.
Article 18 of the Provisions on the Administration of Communication Short Message Services issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also clearly stipulates that short message service providers and short message content providers shall not send commercial short messages to users without their consent or request. Where the user explicitly refuses to receive commercial SMS messages after consent, it shall stop sending them.
In addition, users on the black cat complaint platform reported that "the same thing has several prices".
Usually, training institutions usually offer more favorable prices to attract users to buy courses, or even fictitious original prices and false discounts.
Walnut Programming on its official website, respectively marked "guide price 199.9 yuan, 5 fun programming lessons, free 5 parent classes" and "limited time free 0 yuan", etc., if these related courses have not been traded at the original price or line price indicated, such behavior is suspected of constituting price fraud.
On another consumer complaint platform, Consumer Insurance, complaints about Walnut Programming mostly involve refunds.
Image source: Consumer Insurance
In response to the above questions, Consumer Report sent an interview letter to Walnut Programming, but as of press time, it has not received a reply.
In July last year, CCTV News "News Live Room" and CCTV Finance "First Time" named Walnut Programming, exposing its use of education policy changes, malicious misinterpretation, exaggeration, and behavior only for "selling lessons".
According to reports, Mr. Wang received an article push from a parenting WeChat public account, and the title of the article was extremely exaggerated - "Emergency Notice of the Ministry of Education: There will be big changes in 2020!" Primary and secondary school students are the most unlucky, and the sooner parents know, the better! After clicking on it, I found that the text was not on the topic, only a few relevant policies of the Ministry of Education, and a large number of pages were introduced to the walnut programming online course products.
CCTV pointed out in the report that the use of so-called education policy changes, coupled with eye-catching words such as "primary and secondary school students are the most unlucky", create user anxiety, thereby peddling online courses, as if it has become the best way to promote online courses such as Walnut Programming.
However, these acts of selling anxiety and exaggeration may attract the attention of some parents in the short term, but in the long run, they will eventually lose the trust of users and parents.
Song Qinghui, a well-known economist, said in an interview with Consumer Report that from the perspective of the industry, the reason why education and training institutions exist in these industries is due to the lack of law enforcement strength of relevant departments, untimely daily supervision and imperfect supervision methods, resulting in frequent "explosions" of education and training institutions. Coupled with the impact of the new crown epidemic, many education and training institutions have exposed more serious problems than in previous years, so it is necessary to do solid supervision, and it is also the only way for the standardized development of the industry.
In his view, at present, the behavior of some education and training institutions has been suspected of violating the Advertising Law, especially the behaviors and phenomena such as exaggerating publicity, implying the effect of consumption and creating user anxiety, and the social impact is even worse. He believes that the cross-border behavior of education and training institutions that exaggerate and even step on the red line of the policy may be caused by lack of understanding or deliberate violation of the Advertising Law on the one hand, and on the other hand, it may stem from the impulse to make profits. According to the statistics of Qinghui Think Tank (Preparation), about 80% of training institutions were in a state of loss last year, and the remaining profits fell by about 15% year-on-year. At present, although the epidemic situation has been basically controlled, the entire education and training market is still in a slow recovery, and some education and training institutions that are not strong in strength have withdrawn from the industry in this process.