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- Source/Brand Officer
- Author/Brand Officer
Introduction: A court session once again put Guan Xiaotong and Natural Du on the cusp.
Recently, on the Tianyan investigation, a court announcement against Guan Xiaotong and a number of natural stay related enterprise entities caused heated discussions. The lawsuit involved was a franchise contract dispute.
●Source: Tianyan Check
Unsurprisingly, this is a tragic story of franchisees who took up legal weapons and fought hard after investing in natural "blood without return".
This is inevitably reminiscent of Xianhe Zhuang, where all the stores of "North, Shanghai, Guangshen and Shenzhen" were closed recently. The same star catering, also encountered a large number of franchisees sued, the same large-scale closure.
I have to sigh that the "script" of star catering is so boring, and the endless lawsuits and closed stores cannot escape the end of chicken feathers after all.
01, Guan Xiaotong took Chen He's "script"
As actors, in this drama of "Star Catering Soul Break 2023", Guan Xiaotong and Chen He actually took the same "script" and played on the same stage.
As a once-popular milk tea brand, under the endorsement of stars such as Guan Xiaotong, "Natural Stay" opened 181 stores in 2021.
●Source: Natural Stay official website
However, in April last year, a franchisee's lawsuit blocked the rapid expansion of Natural Stay, which brought a storm of public opinion to Guan Xiaotong, and Natural Stay also shrank rapidly.
As of May this year, there were only 47 stores left in the country, which means that since last year, a large number of natural stay stores have been closed.
In terms of lawsuits, this is not the first time that they have been prosecuted, and many people have been sued since last year.
For example, in July 2022, a franchisee in Wenzhou invested 3 million yuan in one go because he saw the endorsement of the star, coupled with the hot milk tea business at that time.
However, it was later learned that Natural Du did not have the qualification to open up the franchise chain, coupled with the imperfect various supporting services, and closed the store because of excessive losses after only 6 months of opening.
Before the closure of the milk tea shop, it also negotiated with the natural stay company many times to terminate the cooperation and refund the franchise fee, but the other party refused.
To a large extent, this is the same as Chen He's Xianhe Zhuang "script".
Relying on Chen He's star aura to attract a large number of franchisees to enter the game, but the sky-high franchise fee was exchanged for nothing.
●Source: Weibo netizens
A large number of franchisees reported that when Xianhe Zhuang invited investment, it was publicized that there was a special person to teach the operation Xiaobai to open, and did not get the corresponding after-sales service after receiving the payment, and the loss problem was repeatedly reported to the headquarters without results before having to gather to protect rights.
In the end, the only way to go to justice is to go to law.
But the difference is that although Chen He withdrew from the ranks of shareholders in action and drew a clear line with Xianhe Zhuang, Chen He himself still made it clear: "For the Xianhe Zhuang brand, I will always maintain the identity of the founder and work hand in hand with the franchisees of all stores, and always be with everyone." ”
Nature, on the other hand, showed an extremely tough attitude.
●Source: Guan Xiaotong Studio Weibo
During the first public opinion turmoil in April last year, the natural official not only said that Ms. Guan Xiaotong had never participated in the operation and management of our company, but also said that people with ulterior intentions took advantage of this hype.
In response, he tried his best to clear up his relationship with Guan Xiaotong, threatening to sue the "rumor-mongers".
It's hard to imagine that this is a thing to say to the brand side and a star who is inextricably linked to the brand.
But regardless of the attitude of the star himself, a franchisee "tragedy" is an indisputable fact.
02, fate other than actors
The scenery before the opening is infinite, and after the opening, it has become the fate that the star store cannot escape.
Someone once joked that "celebrities are not opening stores, they are on the way to open stores." ”
This is not false, but most of the stars you can think of in domestic entertainment have intruded into business outside of the actor's job.
Lu Han, Lin Xinxin, Zheng Kai, Bai Jingting..... The stars are all eyeing the "fat meat" of cross-border physical commerce.
To a large extent, with the blessing of "star halo", stars do have a greater possibility of commercial success than ordinary people.
After all, in the era of "traffic is money", celebrities naturally attract business to their stores all the time.
But now the closure of a large number of star stores seems to be overturning the validity of this statement.
As the saying goes, learning is learning, learning is good.
The stars transplanted this most holy phrase from the Analects to themselves: acting and excelling.
But the stars obviously haven't heard Master Tang's phrase "the step is too big, pulling the egg", and overestimated his ability.
●Source: The movie "Let the Bullets Fly"
Just as human sorrows and joys are not connected, actors and businesses are also separated by a heavenly barrier.
Li Yapeng, who had failed in business, once described himself as "an entrepreneur with idealistic feelings", and the targets of entrepreneurship were entrepreneurs with the influence of the times such as Zong Qinghou, Ren Zhengfei and Chu Shijian.
But Guan Xiaotong and Chen He obviously do not have such business ideals.
Because they just gamble on their "name" in business, the complex business behind them has masters.
Behind the natural stay and Xianhe Zhuang stands the Sichuan Zhishan brand management company.
●Source: Qichachai
As celebrities, they are only responsible for "singing" at the front desk to attract customer flow, while Zhishan controls the back-end supply chain and management operations, and maximizes the premium of stars by quickly establishing a franchise process.
It can be seen that the real purpose of the star store is probably not to make money selling milk tea and eating hot pot, but the money of franchisees.
But the franchisees at that time obviously did not understand a truth:
When someone wants to teach you how to make money, she just wants to make your money.
But even such a genius business design turned out to be not infallible.
Because it ignores the uncertainty of the star as a "person", it also overestimates the franchisees' ability to operate in milk tea shops and hot pot shops in the Red Sea.
A star is an aura and a shackle.
It's a pity that the star before opening the store did not realize the truth and did not believe that his fate had long been predetermined.
03, Guan Xiaotong, a bad start
Xianhe Zhuang was chicken feathers, but Chen He retreated with his whole body.
Naturally stay in a place of chicken feathers, Guan Xiaotong can probably also retreat all over.
Because as a complete capital game, long before playing this big chess, the stars have already laid out the "whole body retreat" game.
For Guan Xiaotong, although in the process of opening and operating the natural milk tea shop, he is using his influence to earn traffic all the time.
●Source: Natural Weibo
He even appeared at the opening scene as the store manager and co-founder, so that netizens and franchisees were given the illusion that "this milk tea shop is Guan Xiaotong".
But in fact, if you open any substantive legal document, you will find that there is not much difference between natural stay and Guan Xiaotong and natural stay and you and me.
Tianyan investigation shows that Guan Xiaotong's father Guan Shaozeng, wholly-owned Tongmeng Xinyuan (Chengdu) Culture Media Co., Ltd., holds 35% of the shares of Natural Stay Company, while Guan Xiaotong's mother Li Jun serves as a supervisor of Natural Stay Company.
Leaving himself aside through his parents, there really is nothing about Xiaotong.
This also means that it is difficult to find Guan Xiaotong's own legal responsibility for any business risks.
Although to this day, Guan Xiaotong's photo is still hanging on the homepage of Nature's official website.
This is also an important reason why Guan Xiaotong responded so tough after the natural public opinion turmoil last year.
Therefore, even if the franchisees take Guan Xiaotong himself to court, at most, it will be a pot of publicity.
Even Chen He, who everyone thought was inseparable from Xianhe Zhuang, was the same. In a statement from Xianhe Trang last year, it can be seen:
●Source: Weibo netizens
The Xianhezhuang brand was indeed founded by Chen He, but the Fujian Xianhezhuang Company, which Chen He previously held a shareholding, has no longer directly operated the Xianhezhuang brand since 2019.
Since then, Chen He has not been a direct shareholder of Xianhe Zhuang, so there is no act of collecting and disbursing any money from the company.
In general, the current Xianhe Zhuang has no direct relationship with Chen He, which clearly tells the merchants who are joining Chen He to go to Xianhe Zhuang if they want to find it, and don't come to Chen He to make trouble.
It has been said that the wrongness of the act calls into question the purity of the purpose.
If celebrities really have the purpose of cooperating with franchisees to serve consumers for a win-win situation, then why dig out their minds in advance to pick themselves up at the legal level.
The reason for this is not difficult to speculate.
But commercially this is not a good example!
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