Chongqing Outlook｜Behind Jiang Xiaobai’s tough fight against Oriental Selection: Physical enterprises cannot tolerate “traffic bullying”
2024-08-12
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Jiang Xiaobai decided to fight Dongfang Selection to the end.
On August 9, Jiang Xiaobai issued two statements in a row, accusing the Oriental Selection anchor "Tianquan" of making false remarks during a live broadcast that "Jiang Xiaobai is not liquor" and "slandering" the Jiang Xiaobai brand. It also stated that it would not accept Oriental Selection's informal and insincere apology, and would continue to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.
Jiang Xiaobai's tough response to Dongfang Zhenxuan has attracted widespread attention from the public. Some industry insiders believe that this is a helpless move by the real enterprise after being slandered by the leading live broadcasting organizations and facing pressure from public opinion; many netizens pointed out that it is difficult to make up for the losses caused to Jiang Xiaobai with just an apology; at the same time, some netizens "attacked" the comment section of Jiang Xiaobai's account and made radical remarks.
Why do professional anchors from leading institutions frequently fail? Why do some brands still find it difficult to escape negative attacks from the public opinion field, even if they are accidentally hurt?Traffic should not become the capital for leading live broadcast organizations to act arbitrarily. How to promote the "upward" and "good" business network environment is worthy of attention and thinking.
▲ Jiang Xiaobai responded to the apology from the host of Oriental Selection and said he would not accept it. / Screenshot from Chongqing Lookout
For live broadcast organizations, there is nothing wrong with "Wang Po selling melons" style marketing, but distorting the facts and engaging in unfair competition of "praising one and stepping on another" will only erode the trust of consumers.
In this incident, the anchor "Tianquan" said in the name of "Chinese liquor level 3 taster" when promoting a certain brand of liquor, "If you look at the packaging of Jiang Xiaobai now, there are no words "baijiu" on it because it is not allowed" and "If you buy Jiangjin Xiaoqu, there will be no this label (small gold label)... because it is not distilled from the solid state, it cannot be considered solid (fermented) liquor."
According to Jiang Xiaobai's official statement and industry insiders, the bottles of Jiang Xiaobai products are clearly marked with brewing materials, pure grain solid-fermentation liquor certification, national standard codes, etc. The "Little Gold Label" mentioned by the anchor is a logo issued by the Liquor Professional Committee of the China Food Industry Association. Currently only some companies use it. Therefore, the "Little Gold Label" is not a necessary standard for judging light-fragrance pure grain liquor.
The liquor incident in the live broadcast public opinion field also indirectly reflects that the current "trust crisis" in the live broadcast market needs to be taken seriously. Recently, live broadcast chaos such as the Daliangshan anchor falsely helping farmers to sell goods, the "1 yuan book" low-price traffic gimmick, the "fake doctor" and "fake student" false persona, and the "borderline" promotion of counterfeit products have been frequently exposed, and consumers' trust has also been frustrated in the repeated "pitfalls".
The underlying logic of live streaming sales is inseparable from building a trust relationship. By reducing the intermediate links in the circulation of goods, the anchor can provide consumers with more transparent product information, control product quality, and thus improve transaction efficiency. It can be said thatNo matter how high a live streaming e-commerce platform flies in the traffic boom, it can only fly farther and more steadily if it wins the trust of consumers.
However, once the live streaming e-commerce platform deviates from fairness due to the "sponsorship" of brands and is driven by sales, and then engages in behaviors such as "pulling down" other competing products and misleading consumers, it will inevitably lose the trust of consumers in the long run and be cut off from the market.
The "traffic password" is not a willful bargaining chip.In the face of "huge wealth", the platform must strictly control the quality of product selection and avoid false exaggeration and misleading propaganda, so as to live up to the trust of the market and "family members" and achieve "steady and long-term success".
▲Live streaming sales routine. Wang Wei/Xinhua News Agency
The frequent failures of live streaming products have exposed the various hidden dangers brought about by the wild growth of the live streaming economy. Jiang Xiaobai’s choice to “hard fight” against Dongfang Selection also allows us to see the hidden struggle between e-commerce platforms and physical enterprises under the influence of traffic. As Jiang Xiaobai wrote in the statement: “It is difficult for us to remain silent.”
The reason why this incident has attracted industry attention and heated public discussion is that it has brought out a phenomenon worthy of vigilance - physical enterprises are, to a certain extent, easily "kidnapped" by traffic and suffer from "traffic bullying" from large platforms.
On the one hand, live streaming e-commerce has become oligopolistic in terms of traffic. A few leading platforms control the traffic, which means they control the evaluation rights.
Internet traffic naturally has a "clustering effect", which has caused some leading live broadcast platforms to "bully customers". If upstream companies want to gain exposure for their products, they must "recharge" the live broadcast platform for advertising cooperation fees, or pay a huge "pit fee" to ask anchors to bring products, otherwise they will be preempted by other competing products.
On the other hand, the serious imbalance in the public opinion influence between physical enterprises and live streaming platforms can easily cause enterprises to fall into a "self-proving trap" when they suffer from "traffic bullying."
As the saying goes, "It takes only one mouth to spread rumors, but it takes a lot of effort to refute them." Some platforms have huge influence, and even some anchors have formed their own "fan circles." "Traffic bullying" has become a new public relations method. However, physical enterprises, which are relatively weak in the field of public opinion, will find it difficult to make enough noise to prove their innocence once they are maliciously slandered.
Previously, when Xiaomi Motors was released, they were subjected to organized "traffic bullying". A series of malicious rumors were widely spread on major platforms, and many of Xiaomi Motors' self-developed technologies and industry firsts were slandered as "stolen" or "fake". In response, Xiaomi officials and Lei Jun personally have publicly refuted the rumors many times, but they still cannot stop the continued fermentation of negative public opinion, and it is difficult to hold the rumor makers accountable.
In view of the characteristics of the live broadcast economy, the person in charge of relevant real enterprises pointed out to @重庆聊望 that the current live broadcast institutions, especially the leading ones, have an increasingly powerful voice, and their speech power cannot be ignored. Once they release false information, it can cause great damage to the brand that the real enterprises have carefully built over the years, forcing the enterprises to invest a lot of resources in crisis public relations, and such negative impacts are often deeply rooted and difficult to reverse quickly.
New formats and models also bring new challenges to social governance. This public opinion incident reminds us that it is not easy for physical enterprises to develop, and live streaming cannot disrupt the competitive order and fish in troubled waters through "traffic bullying". Only when live streaming e-commerce resonates with the real economy and runs in both directions can it create a healthy business environment and move towards a mutually beneficial and win-win sustainable development path.
▲Chaos in live broadcast. Photo by Wang Peng/Xinhua News Agency
The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting not long ago and clearly pointed out that "it is necessary to strengthen industry self-discipline and prevent 'involutionary' vicious competition."
You must know that there are no winners in the vicious "involutionary" competition. Poaching and sabotaging each other will only hinder high-quality development.If we eat the food of one company and smash the bowl of another, our physical enterprises and national brands will be the ones that get hurt in the end.
Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a special notice to deploy a one-month special campaign across the country to "clear and rectify false and vulgar phenomena in the field of online live streaming", which specifically mentioned issues such as "pulling strings and inciting wars" and "conducting inappropriate marketing"; the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed to "improve the system to promote the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy", which provides directional guidance for targeted solutions to the current problems of my country's digital economy development being large but not strong, fast but not good.
Under the new economic landscape, a truly healthy and friendly business environment should allow companies that excel in traffic operations to have the courage to make their voices heard in the market, while companies that focus on the real economy can also focus on their work with peace of mind.
This requires relevant departments to conduct effective supervision in a timely manner, find a balance between "relaxation" and "regulation", and urge the sustainable development of new formats and models. For example, we should speed up the construction of a credit supervision and punishment system for online live streaming, establish a "credit blacklist", increase the exposure of live streaming chaos, and impose heavy penalties on illegal and irregular live streaming to make them "painful enough to not commit the same offense again."
At the same time, live broadcast organizations and platforms must also exercise strict self-discipline and not let the "bottom line" be taken away by the goods. Instead, they must establish a long-term development vision and actively shoulder social responsibilities. Specifically, some live broadcast organizations should timely standardize management systems, improve the professional quality of anchors and employees, strictly control product quality, continuously improve the awareness of integrity and law-abidingness, and create a healthy and positive corporate culture atmosphere.
The live broadcast room is not a place outside the law, nor is it a moral trough. The real economy cannot tolerate "traffic bullying", and national brands cannot be arbitrarily smeared. Creating a more inclusive and friendly business network environment still requires joint efforts from all parties.
