A Chinese advertising firm behind a sexist publicity campaign for an “anti-ageing” drink which told women that looking younger would please an angry husband has been fined 480,000 yuan (US$67,000) for its role in promoting the product.
On July 28, the marketing supervision authority in Beijing said the Red Dates Culture Company had violated “good social customs” with the ad and had breached China’s Advertisement Law.
The agency was fined 220,000 yuan and ordered to hand over another 260,000 yuan paid to them after the ad was made.
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The video ad claimed, without evidence, that a drink called Five Doctors, made by a beauty product firm of the same name, was rich in collagen peptides and had anti-ageing, anti-wrinkle and skin-whitening properties.
A slogan in the ad proclaimed: “One bottle of this drink is equal to using six skincare facial masks”.
“My husband is mad at me. Drink! Stay up late to watch TV series. Drink! I am one year older. Drink,” a series of female actors declare in different versions of the advertisement.
“Collagen is lost quickly from my body, but Five Doctors can help replenish it more quickly,” the ad narrator claims. “Drink Five Doctors. I have to drink it because I am forced by you.”
Five Doctors was founded by five women, all claiming to have received PhD degrees from the Peking University Health Science Centre in 2019. The collagen peptide drink is its signature product.
The company made a public apology in June after it was fined 400,000 yuan (US$56,000) for the claims made in the ads.
“We will adamantly correct our mistake and make a sincere apology to the public for the vicious impacts caused by our advertisement,” it said in a statement in mid-June.
Many people felt uncomfortable with the ad, mainly shown on digital billboard screens in lifts in residential towers and office buildings.
“It’s so disgusting! It aims to mentally control women, making them worry about their age and appearance,” one online observer said.
Another person asked: “How could this ad get approval to be displayed in public?”
Sexist or improper advertising products often trend on mainland social media.
In February, a beauty salon in Shanghai triggered an online backlash because of its ad denigrating women who do not remove body hair by comparing them to orangutans.
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