Reporter | Wu Rong
Edit | Ma Yue
Weilong spicy strips have recently caused controversy over the slogan of outer packaging.
The reason was a Weibo blogger named "Beanie Sauce is a bit idle", who noticed that the 3 outer packagings of Weilong spicy strips were printed with the words "about it", "thief big" and "tough", and reflected it to the Weilong Food Tmall flagship store.
Weilong customer service explained that "about" means "about to eat spicy noodles together with small partners to relax", while "thief big" and "tough" are "a kind of label for their product characteristics, and they didn't think too much about it when designing". Subsequently, the blogger posted a screenshot of the conversation with the customer service of the Tmall flagship store of Weilong Food online, and asked the "Weilong Delicious" official to apologize.
Image source: @ Weibo netizen "beanie sauce is a bit idle"
In this regard, some netizens believe that there is indeed a problem of "rubbing the edge ball", wei long needs to come out to apologize; some netizens said that they should not be overly associative, "it is just a spicy strip", "a bit of grass and trees are soldiers"; other netizens feel that "presumably everyone has experienced the same disposable gloves as the outer packaging of condoms, this (packaging) has been a lot before".
At present, the search in the Weilong Food Tmall flagship store found that the store still has Weilong big hot sticks and Weilong small hot sticks for sale, but the product detail page shows that the packaging is basically "thief spicy", "chewy", "dry goods", "pressure shock", "willful" and other advertising words, and there are no controversial words. In addition, in Taobao search for "Weilong spicy strips" keywords, you can still find Weilong spicy strips printed with words such as "about" and "tough" on the pages of some dealer stores and snack stores.
On the pages of some dealer stores and snack stores on Taobao, you can still find Weilong packaging printed with words such as "about it" and "tough".
For the suspected "vulgar marketing", the Economic Development Zone Bureau of the Luohe Market Supervision and Administration Bureau in Henan Province, where Wei Long is located, has now intervened in the investigation. On March 28, some netizens made inquiries in the name of consumers, and Weilong customer service responded, "Thank you for your supervision, we will actively cooperate with the investigation, and we will cooperate with the market supervision department to investigate and verify this issue." In addition, for the above-mentioned controversial word packaging of Weilong spicy strips whether to remove the shelves, Weilong customer service did not reply positively, only said, "(The product) is randomly packaged, and the packaging can refer to the page."
Weilong was founded in 1999 by two brothers, Liu Weiping and Liu Fuyou. In recent years, Weilong began to upgrade the design of its product packaging, Weilong spicy strips mostly use white background color with a simple design style, a change in the previous transparent plastic packaging to bring people a sense of cheapness, such an upgrade has also received attention. Weilong submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May last year and passed the hearing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on November 14 last year, just one step away from the listing. According to the prospectus, Weilong ranked first in retail sales in China's spicy snack food market in 2020, reaching a market share of 5.7%.
Zhao Hu, a partner at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, said in an interview with Justice Network that the reason why enterprises choose vulgar marketing is mainly because of profits.
"Enterprises will think that vulgar content is easier to spread, and article 9, paragraph 8 of the Advertising Law stipulates that advertisements must not contain obscene, pornographic, gambling, superstitious, terrorist, violent content, in order to blatantly violate the law, spread obscene, pornographic and other content, many enterprises will choose to rub the edge ball, choose less risky vulgar marketing." Zhao Hu said.
However, Zhao Hu said that although there are current laws and regulations to regulate advertising behavior, these laws and regulations have difficulty in implementation, in addition to the advertising industry in advance to review the problem, how to define the so-called vulgar, obscene pornography is also a problem. If the relevant departments or judicial organs make a number of cases open to the public, this may make the boundaries of vulgarity and pornography in advertisements more clear.
Coconut brand coconut juice has previously received similar penalties from the Market Supervision Administration.
In 2019, the new packaging of coconut juice of coconut tree brand selected photos of female spokespersons with good figures, and highlighted suggestive expressions such as "I drank from childhood to adulthood" in the accompanying text, after the incident caused controversy, the Industrial and Commercial Bureau of Longhua District of Haikou City, Hainan Province, also filed a case investigation into the suspected illegal advertising behavior of Coconut Tree Group. Earlier, Coconut Tree Group's products had been printed on the bus in Haikou City with advertising words such as "Wife likes her husband to drink coconut brand pomegranate juice", and was ordered to stop immediately and fined 1,000 yuan.
"Vulgar marketing" has been repeatedly banned, and it is also related to the current business environment and the impact of the social media era on advertising. The short and fast requirements for advertising in the era of fragmented social media allow some brands to upload tweets or advertisements that cannot withstand scrutiny in order to obtain traffic; secondly, the deviation of some advertising marketers' own values and the lack of legal knowledge related to advertising have contributed to the breeding of "vulgar marketing".