Recently, the coconut tree was fined 400,000 yuan for the side advertisement. The reasons for the punishment show that the company published promotional graphics and texts on its own website, used state agency staff for commercial marketing, and used advertising slogans that violated public order and good customs, such as "rubbing milk with coconut" and "South Pacific beauties rarely 'airport'", in violation of the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law.
On May 9, the Group issued statements on its official Weibo and website, strongly expressing its "concern" and "dissatisfaction". The first one was not convinced, and Coconut Tree argued that it reproduced "rubbing milk with coconut water" and "There are few beauties in the South Pacific" on the official website of "Coconut Tree" on its own official website It is popular science education, not a commercial advertisement. The second is not convinced, Coconut Tree said that the content about the staff of state organs published on its official website is factory history education, not a commercial advertisement.
Where are the legal boundaries of commercials? According to the company's knowledge of science and technology GPT, the legal boundaries of commercial advertising mainly involve authenticity and accuracy, advertiser disclosure, consumer rights and interests, compliance with industry standards and regulations, content restrictions, target audience considerations, and transparency of sales terms.
Coconut Tree also said, "The worry is that the famous brand will be destroyed, smashing the jobs of 20,000 employees of "Coconut Tree" and upstream and downstream enterprises, so that 500,000 coconut farmers in Hainan will not be able to sell their coconuts to get rid of wealth and return to poverty." ”
According to the free check of enterprises, Coconut Tree Group Co., Ltd. was established in July 1980, the legal representative Zhao Bo, and 100% controlled by Hainan Coconut Industry Co., Ltd.
The archaeological coconut tree group will find that the coconut tree group has been at the forefront of "rubbing edges" for decades, and it is not once or twice that it has been punished for rubbing edge advertising. In March 2021, Coconut Tree Group released on its official account "Coconut Tree Group Cultivates Re-enrollment of Principal and Deputy General Manager Schools!" If you enter school, you will have a car, a house, a high salary, and there must be beautiful women and handsome guys chasing you", and the Hainan Provincial Market Supervision Bureau was fined 400,000 yuan for "obstructing public order or violating good social customs".
In 2019, after the coconut palm coconut water was replaced with a new packaging, the advertising slogan "I drank it from childhood to adulthood" was accused of vulgarity and was fined 200,000 yuan by the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Longhua District, Haikou City. In 2016, the local market supervision and management department fined 200,000 yuan for launching the "chest mold bottle".
Although Coconut Tree's advertising turmoil is always accompanied by relevant punishments, according to the tweet of Coconut Tree Group's official account, the above-mentioned marketing incidents have attracted the attention of more than 500 million netizens. In terms of revenue, from 2019 to 2022, the revenue of Coconut Tree Group will be 4.328 billion yuan, 3.989 billion yuan, 4.616 billion yuan, and 4.719 billion yuan respectively. In 2023, the total sales volume will be 700,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 10.26%, and the sales volume will be 5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.08%.
(Source: Huajing Industry Research Institute)
However, as a leading player in the coconut water track, Coconut Tree's market share has been eroded in recent years. Data show that in recent years, the market size of China's coconut liquid beverage industry has increased from 10.28 billion yuan to 14.44 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 7%. Among them, the market share of coconut trees has fallen from 75% at its peak to about 30%, with the second-ranked special forces (Susa) accounting for about 7% and the third-ranked Happy Home accounting for about 5%. In addition, many food brands such as Dongpeng Beverage, Wahaha, Guangming, Yinlu, and Chunguang Food have also laid out the coconut water track.
According to the Coconut Industry Insight Analysis Report, the industry is distributed all over the world, and the main production areas include the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil. At present, the average annual consumption of coconuts in the mainland is about 2.5 billion to 3 billion, and Hainan, as a major coconut planting province in the mainland, can only provide about 10% of the supply, and the rest need to be imported from the above countries and regions.
Enterprises know that in the coconut industry, the mainland has gathered more than 300 enterprises, of which the number of enterprises in Hainan Province ranks first, and the number of related enterprises has reached 145, followed by Guangdong and Fujian. There are 26 national high-tech enterprises, 11 specialized and special new enterprises, and Happy Home, Coconut Tree, Hainan Coconut Food, Hainan Xinda Food, Hainan Chunguang Food, etc. have entered the list of key enterprises.
From a policy perspective, the number of supportive and regulatory policies has increased significantly since 2019, reaching a peak in 2022 and then falling slightly. Guangdong Province, Anhui Province and Zhejiang Province have the highest number of supportive policies, with more than 3,000 pieces, mainly concentrated in the direction of investment in business development, enterprise honor awards, and R&D and innovation investment.
It is worth mentioning that in order to expand the coconut industry, various prefecture-level cities in Hainan Province have successively introduced policies to encourage farmers to plant. In 2021, the Hainan Provincial Forestry Bureau issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the High-quality Development of the Coconut Industry in Hainan Province", which plans to add 250,000 mu of coconut planting area by 2025, cultivate a number of leading coconut processing enterprises with an output value of more than 1 billion yuan, and achieve a total output value of 23 billion yuan for the coconut industry.
It can be seen that with the continuous support of policies and the improvement of consumers' awareness of healthy eating, the subdivision of coconut is getting bigger and bigger, and the competition is becoming more and more fierce, but enterprises themselves should enhance their legal awareness and have a bottom line of marketing. At the same time, government departments should continue to maintain supervision of the advertising market to ensure public rights and interests and the progress of social civilization.