People's Daily Online reporter Shen Jiaping
"There is no endless morning, only endless nights."
Recently, a bottle of "stay up late water" with a unit price of nearly 20 yuan has caused controversy among netizens.
With its peculiar name and packaging, after various Internet celebrities brought goods to "plant grass", the "one whole root" of staying up late water attracted the attention of a large number of young people once it was listed, and offline stores in some areas even "hard to find one. Shelves are empty".
The ingredient list of this product shows that it uses artificially grown ginseng less than five years, and the content of each bottle does not exceed 3 grams.
Under the media attention, the selling point of its "hard core supplement" was quickly "slapped in the face" by industry professionals: "Little ginseng grown artificially for less than 5 years has little effect" "100g of artificial ginseng is only worth 30 to 40 yuan"... …
From "traffic password" to being questioned as "intelligence quotient tax", "one whole root" has only gone through dozens of days.
This embarrassment is not an exception.
In recent years, in the new wave of consumption, all kinds of new brands have sprung up.
Looking closely at the "explosive" paths of these brands, many of them are "grass-planting marketing" and "Internet celebrities bring goods".
"Growing grass" can be understood as the way ordinary consumers carry out product marketing or promotion activities by sharing their own experiences.
People.com.cn's financial survey found that "planting grass" marketing meets the more efficient and precise consumption needs of young people, but at the same time, many advertising and marketing hide behind "good things to share" and "life experience", and false propaganda and misleading consumption are repeated.
The "grass-growing economy" industry chain involving brands, platforms, marketing, Internet celebrities and other parties has hidden "gray areas", and industry standards and management rules still need to be further clarified.
The popular 21-second soft-broadcast video of "Growing Grass" can be priced at 600,000 yuan
According to data from an e-commerce platform, in the just past "618" event, the sales of a domestic hair spray product that focuses on oil control and fluffy increased by more than 500% year-on-year.
"It's amazing, I saw the blogger's hair fluffed up immediately after spraying this spray. It's so suitable for a 'oily' girl like me, 'rush' it!" College student Xiao Yi is a deep "grass planting" hobby She told People.com.cn that she used to search for terms on social platforms to learn about products before shopping.
On the Internet, the "planting grass" model of brand marketing is quite popular.
In particular, "Internet natives" like Xiaoyi are more likely to trust the shared information from social platforms and become the main group affected by the "grass-growing economy".
According to a research report by CITIC Securities, 64.3% of Gen Z (the generation born between 1995 and 2009) will be influenced by the recommendation of "planting grass" when shopping.
According to iiMedia Research, 68.0% of users will accept "grass planting", of which 70.7% of users will buy products that are "planted grass" according to the actual situation, and 26.2% of users will buy almost all of them.
"'Internet celebrities' and celebrities have a large number of 'fans', which can directly lead the trend of 'grass-growing economy'. 'Grass-growing' marketing takes the sharing experience as the main form, avoiding direct utilitarian publicity and making it easier for people to believe ." In the view of Lv Laiming, a professor at the Law School of Beijing Technology and Business University, "planting grass" lies at the intersection of advertising and content sharing, and the ability of "net reds" to "plant grass" is essentially the marketing ability of goods or services.
This ability is being regarded by more brands as a marketing "weapon".
Wei Xing, CEO of MCN Institutional Star Youfan, told People.com.cn that compared with traditional advertisements in newspapers, magazines, and TV, “grass planting” has less investment in marketing, clearer conversion links, and higher overall cost-effectiveness. It also makes it the first choice for many new brands to enter the young consumer group.
According to Tian Liang, the founder of another MCN agency, according to the current market price, a beauty blogger with a fan rating of around 500,000 is generally priced at 60,000-90,000 yuan.
According to a marketing service platform, Liu Genghong, an artist who became popular recently due to aerobics, has 71.52 million fans, and a 21-60s soft broadcast video quoted a price of 600,000 yuan.
"Internet celebrity" Zhang Huiying with more than 3.5 million fans, a 21-60 second soft broadcast video, marked a price of 78,500 yuan.
Wei Xing revealed that, taking the "planting grass" video as an example, the brand side is interested in the completion rate and conversion rate. Compared with the general traffic of celebrities, bloggers have higher vertical fan stickiness and commercial value.
"Therefore, on the 'Growing Grass' platform, celebrities are not necessarily more valuable than bloggers."
"Overturning" frequently "planting grass" marketing and walking in the "gray area"
Wenzi, a post-90s generation, calls herself a senior beauty "component party".
In her opinion, some "net red" bloggers on social platforms have very professional and in-depth research on product ingredients, and she will follow along.
"There are too many popular concepts in cosmetics. It's true and false. It's a small matter to waste money. When it comes to 'three no' products, it's not worth the money." Wenzi told People's Net Finance that last year, the main focus of anti-aging was The beauty ingredient "Blue Copper Peptide" is popular all over the Internet, and related products are expensive.
"But I also saw a lot of bloggers cracking down on fakes, saying that because the blue copper peptide is too expensive, but the color is very weak, many merchants will add blue pigment to shoddy."
"So many 'Internet celebrity' bloggers call 'Blue Copper Peptide', how much do they know about the quality of the product?" Wenzi's question is indeed worth thinking about.
The "grass planting economy" grows wildly, and excessive "grass planting" and false "grass planting" are repeatedly banned.
After the crazy "planting", it may be a large-scale "weeding".
According to People's Daily Online, there are more than 800 results when you search for the entry "Blue Copper Peptide Planting Grass" on a certain platform.
But at the same time, there are more than 500 posts with the key word "blue copper peptide stepping on thunder".
A survey conducted by the China Youth Daily at the end of last year showed that nearly 80% of the respondents had the experience of being pitted by online "grass planting", and over 60% of the respondents believed that skin care products and cosmetics were easily stepped on by "grass planting" on the Internet. Ray product.
"'Growing grass' is a work of conscience and technology." Wei Xing said, based on her personal observation, for the creators who are currently involved in the marketing of "planting grass", "about 30% of the creators have the problem of 'brainless' recommendation. , purely using 'grass planting' as a 'just rice' tool."
Tian Liang pointed out that big V and bloggers with high credibility often have a large-scale professional selection team behind them.
When taking over a new brand, it is usually based on comprehensive consideration of store evaluation, market reputation, appearance, and product after-sales to decide whether to “plant grass” for the brand.
And this is obviously a special "raised account" for marketing, or it is difficult for a smaller team to do it.
"There is still a lack of clear and specific standards or rules regarding 'grass planting' marketing." The statements in the "grass planting" process do not match the facts. Is it false advertising or general false propaganda, or is it a mere misrepresentation?
In Lv Laiming's view, in the era of self-media, the identification of advertising should be expanded and explained in terms of the concept of traditional advertising media.
He believes that whether the marketing behavior constitutes false advertising should be determined according to the specific circumstances and facts.
MCN institutions, bloggers and other parties in the industry chain should also take responsibility in accordance with the "Consumer Rights Protection Law", "E-commerce Law", "Civil Code" and other laws and regulations.
In addition, when the platform is directly involved in the "grass planting" marketing of specific commodities, it should also be directly responsible.
Towards compliance and "planting grass", the division of responsibilities of all parties remains to be clarified
According to iiMedia Research consulting data, the current "grass planting" economy has reached a scale of 100 billion yuan.
In 2022, the number of MCN institutions will exceed 40,000, and the size of the MCN market will exceed 50 billion yuan by 2023.
"Growing grass" is threatening, in addition to reminding consumers to keep their eyes open and "listen to the truth", a more complete supervision mechanism should be established to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
At present, many places have begun to increase the crackdown on false propaganda and misleading consumption.
In March of this year, Qumo Culture, a beauty e-commerce marketing MCN agency, was fined 450,000 yuan by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for recruiting 400 Internet celebrities to "falsely plant grass".
According to the Administrative Penalty Decision (Jian Pu Chu [2022] No. 152021002271 of Shanghai Stock Exchange), Smartee Dental Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. randomly recruited 400 traffic bloggers through the above-mentioned MCN institutions to promote its sales on the Xiaohongshu APP invisible braces products.
However, after verification, the relevant bloggers were not the actual patients or users of Smartee's invisible braces before and when they released the above pictures and texts.
In April, the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Market Supervision issued the "Guidelines for the Supervision and Law Enforcement of Commercial Advertising Endorsements", which included acts such as "planting grass" by celebrities and Internet celebrities into the scope of supervision, and clearly released commercial advertisements in the form of "planting grass" in a disguised form with false content. , Misleading advertising endorsements are illegal.
Wei Xing said frankly that major platforms are also strengthening the governance of illegal content promotion and false marketing "grass planting", and promote related activities to be more compliant through regulations such as deposits and after-sales guarantees.
Lv Laiming emphasized that there are still many problems in the marketing of "planting grass" that need to be clarified.
For example, how to distinguish between pure commodity consumption experience and "grass planting" marketing; how to determine the responsibilities of all parties when "grass planting" appears untrue or constitutes false propaganda; how consumers protect their rights, etc.
In this regard, Lv Laiming suggested that the judgment of the nature of "grass planting" and the specific criteria for advertising should be confirmed as soon as possible; at the same time, the direct parties to false "grass planting", that is, relevant "net celebrities" and bloggers, should be held accountable; A mechanism for information sharing and punishment for dishonesty should be established, and necessary measures should be taken in a timely manner for false "planting grass" behaviors, and real-name publicity should be made.
For brands who entrust others to engage in false "grass planting", they should be punished in accordance with the provisions of the "Consumer Rights Protection Law" and "Anti-Unfair Competition Law", and those who cause consumer losses should be liable for compensation; be liable for punitive damages.
(At the request of the interviewee, Xiaoyi and Tian Liang are pseudonyms in the text)
(Intern Wu Shiyu also contributed to this article)