Follow the "planting notes" to buy and buy, but after arriving, they find that it is not so; according to the blogger's recommendation, they go to the far side of the "planting grass" with full expectations, but they encounter a strong contrast between the "seller show" and the "buyer show"... Acts such as false grass planting not only mislead people's consumption decisions and harm the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, but also overdraft the trust foundation of the "grass planting" economy.
The Internet buzzword "planting grass" refers to the act of sharing good things on online platforms and making others have the desire to consume.
Nowadays, "planting grass" is affecting the consumption habits of more and more people. According to a 2021 survey by the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center, 82.6% of respondents search for relevant "grass planting" recommendations before shopping. "Grass" is planted a lot, and "weeds" are inevitably mixed with barbaric growth. According to the survey, 78.2% of the respondents have experienced being "planted" by the Internet.
Recently, relevant departments have continuously strengthened the supervision of "planting grass", and online platforms have frequently intervened to deal with their own content problems, and experts have called for the improvement of relevant laws. With a multi-pronged approach, can "planting grass" clarify the boundaries and be more standardized and orderly?
What makes "planting grass" appealing
After "00", Deng Xue'er, who sold at a Shanghai Volkswagen 4S store in Beijing's Chaoyang District, said that she was a typical mobile phone dependence, "I love to brush my mobile phone when I have nothing to do, and when I see other people's delicious and fun things, I will collect them and find opportunities to 'pull grass'." She said that compared with the endorsements of celebrities who are "high up", the sharing of "ordinary people" is sometimes easier to make people have a sense of substitution and generate the impulse to consume.
Why do young consumers who have grown up in the Internet age like to follow the recommendations of online platforms to punch in? The reason is that the "notes" sent by bloggers from the perspective of ordinary people are often richer, more interesting and eye-catching than the official platforms. Pictures and videos, as the core content of such "notes", are more intuitive than words and are easy to make people "itch".
Zou Deqiang, who teaches in the Department of Marketing at Fudan University's School of Management, said that behind the "grass planting" economy is the change in the way people collect information when making consumption decisions, "Originally, people mainly relied on going to physical stores to feel it, or advertising in the public media." With the development of social media, ordinary people are beginning to speak out online, and this 'fair' source of information is easier to understand and consumers are more willing to be influenced by this kind of information. ”
The Internet allows people in different regions to get acquainted, and forms various communities according to the characteristics of the group, and "planting grass" in the community has achieved the commercial value of some platforms. Founded in 2013, Xiaohongshu is a typical example of how users trigger community interaction by sharing their own consumption experiences, thereby pushing other users to consume in reality, and these users in turn become "grass planters". In November 2021, Xiaohongshu officially announced that the number of monthly active users reached 200 million. The growing user base has allowed brands to target this huge traffic pool. Brands such as Perfect Diary have successfully "gone out of the loop" with such communities and achieved rising sales. By the end of 2020, the number of brands settled in Xiaohongshu has exceeded 650,000. The "Planting Grass" platform has become an important channel for brand marketing.
False "planting grass" hides cat grease
However, while the platform has become an important entrance to consumer decisions, "weeds" have also begun to grow wildly, and false marketing and other behaviors have been born.
Searching for "planting grass" on the Internet, there are many consumer complaints. During the National Day holiday last year, many people went to the "pink beach" that was hyped up by many platforms according to the recommendation of bloggers, and found that its real color was in great contrast with the promotional pictures, so they complained: "No filter is the color of pig liver, and the photo is at least three hundred layers of filters." Some consumers followed the trend and bought the beauty products recommended by bloggers, and after trying them, they helplessly ridiculed: "The effect is not exactly the same as what the blogger said, it is simply irrelevant." ”
The huge traffic gathered by "planting notes" has made some people move their crooked minds and use the name of "planting grass" to practice false marketing. Some brand owners even look for ordinary "ordinary people" through intermediaries in the form of product replacement or cash rewards, laying false marketing content on the platform, and a gray industrial chain of false marketing has been formed.
The reason why people are willing to use the information on social platforms as a consumption reference is to some extent because they trust the objective evaluation of ordinary people, which is precisely the foundation of the development of such online platforms.
The foundation cannot be shaken. Recently, many head platforms have increased their governance of their own content. From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Xiaohongshu continued to carry out false content governance, and some consumer brands, offline institutions and merchants suspected of false marketing were banned.
The chaos behind the "grass planting" economy has also attracted the attention of relevant departments. Not long ago, the Cyberspace Administration of China released ten key tasks for the 2022 "Qinglang" series of special actions, which included the standardization of "planting grass" behavior in shops. The Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising (Draft for Public Comment) issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation also clearly point out that Internet advertisements should be identifiable and enable consumers to identify them as advertisements. Platforms shall improve content screening mechanisms and severely dispose of fake "planting grass" accounts.
Guide the development of norms
"The 'planting' economy has had positive effects in many ways." Zhang Tao, a partner at Beijing Deheng Law Firm and director of the Network and Data Research Center, said that the "planting grass" behavior itself promotes healthy competition in the market, consumers publish their true feelings about goods through social platforms, as a reference for others' consumption, if the quality of goods or untrue publicity and other issues are exposed by consumers, it will affect the brand's reputation and sales, which will effectively form an atmosphere of consumer supervision. He believes that the most important thing at present is to guide the standardized development of the "grass planting" economy in a multi-pronged manner.
Zou Deqiang said that some online platforms have problems such as improper rights and responsibilities in the management of false "planting grass" and other behaviors, and relevant departments can restrain platform behavior by adjusting incentive mechanisms and other ways from the perspective of supervision. "Technically, platforms can try to solve the problem of false marketing by starting with algorithms and so on. As an enterprise, the platform should be responsible, and in the long run, it is easier for honest enterprises to win respect. In addition, he suggested the establishment of an objective third-party evaluation mechanism, "If you don't read the recommendations of 'Internet celebrities', what channels can you use to understand useful evaluation information?" We need objective and impartial third-party evaluations. ”
Zhang Tao also believes that the platform should improve its ability to identify false "planting notes" and dispose of them through technical measures. "For the source of the gray industrial chain of 'ghostwriting and sending', the platform should promptly discover and report to the relevant competent departments in accordance with regulations." At the same time, when conducting commercial cooperation and publicity, enterprises should also pay attention to the authenticity of the publicity content, review the relevant credit qualifications of the partners, and build a credible environment so that the false 'planting of grass' behavior cannot be hidden. ”
"Many violations of laws and regulations are actually circumventing the relevant provisions and requirements of the Advertising Law through 'planting grass.'" Zhang Tao said that some "planting grass" is actually marketing, that is, through infiltration in a niche population, constantly spreading in the target population, and then gradually expanding the influence of advertising and marketing methods. In this regard, he suggested that the scope of the definition of advertising and marketing behavior can be appropriately expanded, and when the "grass planting" behavior involves commercial cooperation, it can generally be defined as advertising and marketing behavior in the form of payment. "We need to further improve the relevant laws and regulations, clarify the boundaries of pure sharing and advertising marketing, in order to better regulate the behavior of merchants, platforms and advertising bloggers, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers."
Source: Economic Daily
![Believe in the blogger's planting notes to buy something that has turned over again! The water behind "ghostwriting" is too deep[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)