spent 3 million yuan to invite a well-known male star to bring goods live, but only sold more than 200,000 yuan, "more than half of the return rate"! The brand asked for a refund, and the artist company responded: The contract has been fulfilled as promised

National Business Daily

2024-08-05 00:07Published on the official account of Sichuan Daily Economic News

With the rise of online e-commerce, inviting celebrities to live broadcast goods has become the choice of many brands.

According to Red Star News, the Shiliyan shampoo under the Materia Medica Company is a new brand last year, and during this year's "618" period, it also wants to bring a certain amount of traffic and sales through celebrities.

Materia Medica contacted Hangzhou Wuwu Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wuwu Company) through a third-party intermediary company, and determined that on June 14, the artist Mingdao of the company would conduct a special live broadcast for the brand. The contract signed by the third-party intermediary company on behalf of the Materia Medica Company and the worry-free company is 2.438 million yuan, including special fees and commercial launch fees. The company claimed that it actually paid 3 million yuan to the third-party intermediary company.

In the end, after the whole live broadcast, the sales volume was only 348,000, and a large number of returns were generated within one month after the live broadcast, "the return rate reached more than half". The actual sales volume is only more than 2,000 orders, totaling more than 20 yuan.

"Spent millions to find Mingdao to do a special live broadcast,

Removed the refund and only sold more than 200,000"

According to Red Star News, "We spent millions during the '618' period to find Mingdao to do a special live broadcast, but as a result, after removing the refund, we only sold more than 200,000 yuan, the difference in cost is too big, not even one-tenth of it, we hope to refund proportionally." Ms. Yang, the relevant person in charge of the Materia Medica, told reporters.

Ms. Yang also said that the decision to let Mingdao do the live broadcast was also a good test of its historical sales data. Since there was no contract for the amount of insurance at the beginning, "they were only willing to carry out after-sales and were not willing to refund money". The after-sales plan includes the ability to extend the screen when using Mingdao live broadcast, allow the use of the artist's exclusive link to continue selling products, and continue to bring goods to at least 10 mixed live broadcasts. However, Ms. Yang said that the after-sales plan was only oral and did not have any contractual guarantees, so the two parties did not reach an agreement.

In this regard, Mingdao's worry-free company said that they gave after-sales plans such as extending the use period of live slices and continuing to bring goods for its live broadcast, but the other party's only demand was a refund, and they also found a "network water army" to attack Mingdao, the company has fulfilled the contract as promised, and if it cannot be properly resolved, they are also ready to sue to defend their rights. The company believes that it is very inappropriate for the other party to try to use the reputation of the star as a threat. Next, the company will still communicate with the brand and fulfill its after-sales commitments. But if they continue to slander the image of the artist, they will also use legal means to defend their rights.

Ming Dao was born in 1980 and is well-known for starring in TV series such as "The Wedding Dress of Heaven" and "The Prince Becomes a Frog", and currently has more than 8 million fans on the Douyin platform. Third-party data platforms such as "Cicada Mother" and "Flying Melon" show that from January to August this year, Mingdao's sales have exceeded 100 million. Judging from June, its daily sales volume has certain fluctuations, ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions, and the sales volume of Shiriyan shampoo is almost at the bottom.

According to the news on the official account of Wuwu Media on March 22, on March 21, the 2024 Cicada Mother Annual Conference and the 3rd "Star Cicada Award" Award Ceremony ended perfectly in Hangzhou.

At the ceremony, Mingdao shared his journey from an actor and singer to expand his career and become an anchor with goods. He said that in addition to his acting work, live broadcast will be a career that he will not give up, and he will continue to plant more excellent products and brands for everyone in the future.

Since the official announcement of joining Wuwu Media in 2023, Mingdao has joined hands with Wuwu to make continuous breakthroughs in e-commerce live broadcast, content creation and other fields, pursuing excellence, and repeatedly topping the TOP1 of the overall list of goods, and the supermarket live broadcast special has rushed to the first place on the double list of Douyin with goods, with a cumulative number of viewers of nearly 2000W in a single game, helping multi-track brands such as mother and child, daily chemicals, home furnishing, and beauty to achieve growth.

Lawyer: Whether or not to refund depends on the specific terms of the contract

In recent years, cases of celebrities bringing goods "overturned" have occurred from time to time, for example, a company invited Du Xudong, a national first-class actor, to bring goods, paid a pit fee of 33,000 yuan, and finally only sold a pack of fungus, with sales of 64.9 yuan; Celebrities Yang Zi and Huang Shengyi participated in the New Year's Festival to sell goods, and some merchants paid 100,000 yuan in pit fees, prepared bacon worth 1.7 million yuan, and finally only sold one order.

A senior lawyer told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that in such cases, if the celebrity fails to meet the brand's expectations, whether to refund the brand depends on the specific contract terms between the brand, the intermediary (if any) and the celebrity. If there is a clause in the contract that the Star Party must refund the unfulfilled sales target according to the actual completion rate, the Star Party needs to refund it, and vice versa. If the intermediary makes false promises to the brand without concealing the celebrity, the intermediary may be suspected of fraud and needs to bear legal responsibility.

Previously, "Daily Economic News" reported a case. A company in Suzhou spent 200,000 yuan to invite the "big V" live broadcast to bring goods, but only 2 transactions were made, and the sales were less than 500 yuan, so it sued the cultural company to which the "big V" account belonged for a refund.

In this case, a business company in Suzhou took a fancy to the huge number of followers of a cultural media company's account and signed a "Live Broadcast Promotion Service Contract" with it, stipulating that the cultural media company would arrange anchors to conduct live sales and promotion of the repair cream produced by the company, and the basic service fee was 200,000 yuan.

The Culture Media Company guarantees that the actual sales amount of the repair cream reaches 500,000 yuan, and if the sales amount is not realized, the basic service fee of the proportional part shall be refunded.

After the contract was signed, the business company paid a service fee of 200,000 yuan as agreed. However, through the live broadcast, the repair cream was only sold twice, with a total amount of only 456 yuan. Under the huge psychological gap, the business company sued the Huqiu Court and demanded a refund of 200,000 yuan in service fees.

The Huqiu Court held that the "Live Broadcast Promotion Service Contract" between the two parties was legal and valid, and after the plaintiff paid the service fee to the defendant, the defendant failed to perform its obligations as agreed, which constituted a breach of contract, and the plaintiff had the right to request a refund of the service fee according to the agreement. Since the parties agreed that the service fee would be refunded according to the actual completion rate, the court ruled that the defendant should refund the service fee of RMB 199,817.6.

Many celebrities have faded out of live broadcasts to bring goods

According to Jiupai News, the celebrity live broadcast "bringing goods fever" seems to have begun to ebb. From 2020, the "first year of celebrity live broadcasting", more than 500 star artists have poured into this blue ocean; To the earliest people to "eat crabs" to go ashore at the earliest, Li Xiang, Chen He, Liu Tao and others have successively "retired".

According to Jiupai News, celebrity agent Gu Xing (pseudonym) once said that popular first-line stars will definitely not bring goods, because bringing goods and filming are not compatible. In addition, another reason for the ebb and flow of celebrities' "bringing goods fever" is that there are too many cases of overturning, and stars who still want to film must take care of their feathers, and selling fakes and not being able to sell goods will affect their public image.

In recent years, in the live broadcast boom, many celebrities and artists have overturned their personalities and live broadcasts due to poor delivery and quality problems. Moreover, the sales of many celebrity artists are seriously inconsistent with their coffee positions, and a large number of celebrity artists have chosen to withdraw from the live broadcast room.

From 2020 to the present, when hundreds of celebrities and artists brought goods, in just a few years, celebrities have cooled down significantly.

In August last year, Li Xiang posted on Weibo claiming that "I am retired", which made many netizens in a trance, and the first sister who used to be a star with goods has not been live broadcast for a long time.

In 2019, Li Xiang made his live broadcast debut with the theme of "The First Disclosure of Private Good Things", becoming the first warrior in the entertainment industry to eat crabs. In half a year, she did more than 30 live broadcasts and successfully attracted millions of fans.

According to incomplete statistics, in 2020, at least 500 artists will start their debut with goods, and stars such as Liu Tao, Chen He, Li Chen, and Qin Hailu have started new careers.

Chen He made a "live broadcast room", and brought goods on the same stage with the host Zhu Zhen; Liu Tao, the preferred officer of Juhuasuan, has a new character of "Liu Yidao", and it is rumored on the Internet that his contract price has reached an annual salary of one million. Relevant reports show that Liu Tao's live broadcast debut, the total transaction amount exceeded 148 million yuan.

However, anchors are an industry with a strong head effect after all, and celebrities are no exception, which is especially obvious in 2022. The live broadcast business capabilities of the vast majority of celebrities quickly touched the ceiling, and the platform talent grabbing war basically came to an end, and targeted support was no longer provided in the later stage, and the live broadcast data of celebrities began to fall off a cliff.

According to statistics, starting from 2022, Liu Tao, Qin Hailu, Chen He, Jing Tian and other once-hot "top stream" celebrity anchors with goods have also faded out or completely stopped broadcasting. Among the stars who are still bringing goods, only a few people such as Jia Nailiang can be firmly at the top.

Edit|Duan Lian covers the source source

Proofreading|Liu Siqi

The daily economic news is synthesized from Red Star News, Worry-free Media Official Account, Every Economic Network, Jiupai News, public information, etc

National Business Daily

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