Five doctors apologize overnight; vulgar ads must be rectified.
Compiled from: Shenzhen Business Daily, China-Singapore Jingwei
On the evening of June 14, the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Administration website published an administrative penalty regarding Beijing Qingyan Boshi Health Management Co., Ltd. (the company behind "Five Female Doctors").
After the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Administration disclosed the administrative penalty, "Five Female Doctors FiveDoctors" (hereinafter referred to as "Five Female Doctors") issued an apology statement on Weibo overnight.
Case review
The illegal facts show that "Five Female PhDs" published an advertisement to promote their products, which read: "Husband makes me angry, drink! Stay up late binge-watching, drink! Another year older, drink! Collagen loss is fast, Five Female PhDs replenish faster. Drink Five Female PhDs, it's all your fault!"
The above content violated Article 9, Paragraph 1, Item (7) of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China (2018) (impairing public order or violating good social customs), and the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Supervision Administration ordered the party to stop publishing the relevant advertisements and imposed a fine of 400,000 yuan.
"Five Female PhDs" stated in their apology that they sincerely accept the penalty decision, resolutely rectify the issue, and solemnly apologize for the adverse social impact caused by the advertisement content.
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[1] The People's Republic of China
Advertising Law
Article 9: Advertisements shall not contain any of the following circumstances:
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(7) Impairing public order or violating good social customs;
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[1] The author's perspective
According to the official website of "Five Female PhDs," the brand was established in July 2019, co-founded by five female medical PhDs from Peking University, with main products including collagen peptide vitamin C drinks. It appears to be a highly educated entrepreneurial team, so why was the advertising copy so vulgar? Perhaps they intended to use these creative ads, sharply contrasting with the PhD persona, to attract public attention and increase exposure and sales. While innovation is good, violating social customs can easily cause aversion, and if they had been familiar with the Advertising Law, they would not have ended up in such a situation.
