—— Chen Junshi, academician of China Academy of Engineering and general consultant of National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center.
Six-wing KFC strange chicken, Master Kong waste oil, Wahaha Botox ... Recently, these food rumors have continuously become popular push contents of nearly 100 WeChat official accounts, and they have been screened in the circle of friends.
"In the first quarter of 20 15 alone, some products lost 2 billion yuan." Wahaha publicly stated that rumors on online platforms such as WeChat not only caused great damage to the brand, but also caused a serious decline in market sales.
In the face of repeated attacks of rumors, since April, Wahaha, Master Kong, KFC and other giants have taken the operating companies behind the alleged rumors to court and demanded compensation for economic losses.
This time, major food companies sued more than 10 WeChat official account operating companies, and the total claim amount exceeded 6 1 10,000 yuan, which was also the first case of online food rumor claim in recent years.
Further investigation shows that the use of WeChat to spread rumors on WeChat official accounts has shown a trend of corporatization, behind which the business models of various WeChat operating companies are clearly presented, and some large food companies have fabricated rumors and maliciously competed. 20 14 10, wechat official "Mitchell" released "Nongfu Spring stopped production, I dare not drink this water anymore! I want to buy a water dispenser! According to the picture in the article, Nongfu Spring's natural drinking water is seriously polluted and has been discontinued. Once launched, it received more than100000 forwarding in a short time.
The Beijing News reporter looked up the past WeChat content of "Miqier" and found that compared with Nongfu Spring's articles, the forwarding volume of its ordinary WeChat content is usually thousands of times, and the forwarding volume of hundreds of thousands has made WeChat official account of Miqier get unprecedented attention.
Nongfu Spring couldn't help but take Wuxi Yitailianna Trading Co., Ltd. behind "Mitchell" to court. According to the industrial and commercial data of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, this Wuxi Yitailianna Trading Co., Ltd. was registered in 2006. The legal person is Zhang Xia with a registered capital of 30,000 yuan. Its business projects include jewelry, handicrafts, daily necessities, cosmetics, economic and trade consulting, etc.
According to the information registered by Italiana in China Manufacturing Trading Network, this company was engaged in women's jewelry in the early days, and had a crown-level credit store in Taobao Mall.
The latest official certification date of "Mitchell" is 2065438+March 24th, 2005. Judging from the pushed WeChat content, Italiana's business as a whole turned to the operation of the direct selling brand "Infinitus". Because it owns cosmetics, health products, water purifiers and other products, beauty and health care content has become the focus of "Mitchell".
Breast milk poisons babies, ignorance kills people, and eight warning signs of cancer. Stay away from milk tea and love life! I won't drink any more. Judging from the titles and contents of these WeChat messages, the push mode of "Miqier" mainly relies on health warnings and reminders to attract readers to read and forward.
Beijing News reporter contacted Wuxi Yitailianna Trading Co., Ltd. as a public relations company. Lin, the person in charge of the official WeChat account, told the reporter that the opening of "Mitchell" company is mainly to promote "Wuji" products.
When asked if he could spend money to push the specific content, he provided the price of each 800 yuan, which would be higher if he made headlines, but he did not guarantee the reading volume and forwarding volume. Combing a number of micro-signals suspected of rumors, the Beijing News reporter found that WeChat promotion has been corporatized and chained. Many WeChat companies have become the main business of the companies behind them. Most of the companies involved have parent companies behind them, and the same company has dozens or even hundreds of official WeChat accounts to promote the spread of rumors.
The official WeChat account of 10 sued by KFC belongs to Shenzhen Win Chen Anzhi Success Culture Communication Co., Ltd., Taiyuan Zero Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanxi Weidao Technology Co., Ltd. The Beijing News reporter noticed that only six official WeChat account companies under Shenzhen Win Chen Anzhi Success reprinted the rumor of KFC's strange chicken.
Shanxi Micro-channel Technology Co., Ltd. also has nearly 10 official WeChat accounts, such as micro-channel, cold humorous jokes, micro-channel traffic eye, inspirational quotations of life sentiment and so on. The Beijing News reporter tried to call the company's public mobile phone, and even the prompt information of the mobile phone number was "the largest micro-marketing alliance in Taiyuan".
With the intensive prosecution of many WeChat WeChat official account, more WeChat alliances and WeChat marketing circles have surfaced. A person in charge of a Guangdong marketing company who did not want to be named said that, like the "Fujian Gang" in Weibo, such WeChat operating companies are now concentrated in southern China such as Guangdong and Fujian, and have extended their reach to the whole country, taking shape.
"The business model is guidance. When a marketing company develops nearly ten influential WeChat official accounts in the province, it will also develop nearly ten WeChat official accounts to locate other cities in the country and develop agents and operators to join in the local area. " The person said.
In Wahaha's rumor attack that "Shuang, AD calcium milk contains Botox", it was the processing and birth of WeChat marketing company.
According to the public trial data of Hangzhou court, the initiator of this rumor is Jilin woman Yu. In June of this year, 65438+ 10, she published the article "Wahaha AD Calcium Milk and Shuang Bian Containing Botox" in Tencent Weibo. On April 10, Wuhan Xinzhongchang Trading Co., Ltd. released "The kindergarten teacher just sent it! Mothers turned to look after the baby and said Wahaha "contains Botox". On the same day, Guangzhou Mosi Network Technology Co., Ltd. published the article "There are more and more children suffering from leukemia in Shiling, and the reason is so amazing" through the official account of "Wei Shiling", claiming that "drinking Wahaha drinks will lead to leukemia."
The Beijing News reporter noted that Guangzhou Mosi Network Technology Co., Ltd. has official WeChat accounts such as Weishiling and Huadu Deye, with over 65,438+10,000 fans. Lin, the person in charge, claimed to be WeMedia Guangdong Branch, the largest WeChat marketing alliance in South China. The alliance has nearly 500 official WeChat accounts, covering 50 million fans. On June 3, the Beijing News reporter contacted the sued Yingkou Fei Yi Network Technology Co., Ltd., Wuxi Wuji Road Health Consulting Co., Ltd. and Guangzhou Mosi Network Technology Co., Ltd., and the other party gave a consistent answer: the articles related to rumors published by WeChat were all online news forwarded at will.
"The news of Master Kong's use of waste oil is only reprinted from the website, not a paid advertisement. I was complained after it was issued, and we have deleted the relevant links. " A person in charge of "Hot Search", which first published the article of Master Kong's waste oil on April 27th, told the Beijing News reporter.
Another Taiyuan Zero Technology Company, which was sued for spreading "live maggots in KFC chicken wings", also claimed that it had no intention to forward it. A person in charge of Liang said that the article published by WeChat official account reprinted the content broadcast by a TV station in Guangdong. "We just saw the news of being sued by KFC on the Internet and can only respond."
In fact, the insistence of WeChat official account on "random forwarding" has become a common way of making profits in the industry. It is the standard practice of WeChat marketing to get a large number of fans and spread them through exaggerated titles and content, and then make money through advertising fees.
A promoter in charge of the operation of multiple micro-signals in Shenzhen told the Beijing News that it is a common marketing method to adapt and piece together online content. "The more sensational the title content, the better, blur the location of the incident, or change it directly to the local area. Or take the topics created by other WeChat promoters, transplant the flowers and spread them twice. This regionalized post is very read. "
The ultimate goal of painstakingly concocting rumors is to save money and grab advertising fees. In the WeChat marketing circle, the official WeChat account will generally get tens of thousands of fans, which has certain advertising value, so business owners naturally come to us.
Dong, the head of Yingkou Media, who was sued for allegedly spreading rumors of Master Kong, told the Beijing News that advertising with the help of enterprises is still the main profit model, and companies such as watches and masks have taken the initiative to find the door. The advertising price is generally around 1.50 ~ 300 yuan/1 10,000 fans. The number of fans of "Yingkou from the Media" has reached more than 80,000, and the price of advertising in the headline of WeChat official account is around 2,000. "In the official WeChat account, some fans reached 654.38+ million, and the advertising price was around 3,000 yuan/article." In an interview with the Beijing News reporter, many food companies first pointed their doubts at competitors for some concentrated online rumors. But these need further investigation by the police.
"There were rumors of waste oil on the Internet last year, but this year's May Day holiday broke out again." Li Yilin, a spokesman for Master Kong, told reporters that in just a few days, it was reprinted more than 600 times and read more than one million times. The time node and motive of the outbreak are questionable. "The organized rumor attack that broke out in such a short time should be promoted by the black hand behind the scenes."
Wahaha said that the recent rumors of attacking the products of beverage companies were "spread by criminals with ulterior motives." At present, some information about the network water army has been collected as evidence for further rights protection. "
Master Kong also pointed out in the statement that the current market competition in the food industry has become fierce, leading to a vicious competition situation in which online rumors are used to attack opponents.
This practice is not without precedent. Last year, Master Kong went to court with his rival Uni-President Group for rumor attacks.
According to the filing document No.2014 of Master Kong suing Uni-President Enterprise, in August last year, employees of Hubei Xiaogan Uni-President Enterprise Food Co., Ltd. released posts such as "Japanese-made products are not credible, Master Kong goes against the sky" and "Master Kong makes your friends stunned" in Tianya Forum and Huaiyin Forum, claiming that Master Kong marked the production date of instant noodles in advance and called for boycotting Japanese-made Master Kong.
Among the materials submitted by Master Kong to the court, Zhou was warned and punished by the public security organs for fabricating facts and spreading rumors. At the same time, Master Kong also sued Uni-President Group and Zhou, claiming that they instructed employees to spread rumors of slandering Master Kong on the Internet, which seriously affected the sales of Master Kong in the current quarter and demanded compensation for the corresponding economic losses.
The Beijing News reporter saw in the evidence submitted by both parties to the court that Zhou said that it was a company arrangement to use WeChat friends circle to repost. Uni-President Company has more than 1 10 employees in Xiaogan area, requiring salesmen to communicate through WeChat and set up a special WeChat group to issue work instructions. Regarding Master Kong's post, after the employees of Uni-President Company communicated in the group for a long time, the directors and managers all forwarded it to their circle of friends.
On May 26th this year, Xiaogan Shinan District Court ruled that employees of Uni-President Company publicly apologized to Master Kong for 30 consecutive days, and compensated Master Kong 1.3 million yuan.
As for the motive of spreading rumors about Master Kong, employees of Uni-President Company argued that it was for the purpose of market competition when responding to the lawsuit. "We are selling unified instant noodles, and we are very concerned when we see the negative information of Master Kong's instant noodles. After all, we are competitors, and Master Kong's business is poor. My business will be better. Anyway, as long as it is an incident that hurts Master Kong, it is good for us to operate unified instant noodles. "
On the 8th, Yang Shouzheng, spokesman of Uni-President Group, replied to the Beijing News reporter that he was "unaware" of the matter.
Can claims exceeding 6 1 10,000 yuan stop rumors?
From emails, forums, Weibo to WeChat, KFC's "6 wings and 8 legs", Master Kong's "Vietnamese gutter oil" and Wahaha's "Botox" have actually been circulating for a long time, but they have been quickly spread by WeChat again.
According to the official data provided by KFC to the Beijing News reporter, by the end of April, KFC * * * found that there were more than 4,000 posts on WeChat official account, of which 130 account had more than 65,438+10,000 posts. According to this figure, this "negative information" of KFC has been forwarded at least 6.5438+0.3 million times.
As of May 6th, the rumor of Master Kong's gutter oil appeared during May 1st this year. This information was posted on the micro-signal for 699 times, with a cumulative reading of 1.52 million times and more than 70 articles with a reading of over 5,000.
Also repeatedly concocted is "Wahaha Botox". On April 12, Hangzhou Wahaha Group stated that these rumors caused some products of Wahaha to lose as much as 2 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year.
In the face of rapidly spreading rumors, major food companies have chosen to sue and filed huge claims. According to the court filing documents obtained by the Beijing News reporter, Master Kong has sued Yingkou Fei Yi Network Co., Ltd., Wuxi Wuji Road Health Consulting Co., Ltd. and dehui city Noah Network Technology Co., Ltd., and has formally filed a case. At the same time, it also submitted the 17 public account to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, and sued three official WeChat accounts in Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jiangsu, demanding compensation of more than 50 million yuan.
"* * * counted more than 800 WeChat WeChat official account suspected of spreading rumors, and selected dozens of them to sue one by one. The amount of each claim reached 6.5438+0.5 million. " A person from the Legal Department of Master Kong told the Beijing News that a series of lawsuits have been initiated in Northeast China, South China and other regions, and nearly 40 rumored micro-signal companies have been prosecuted through criminal and civil lawsuits.
KFC also recently filed a lawsuit against the official account of 10 WeChat suspected of spreading rumors, claiming a maximum of 1.5 million yuan from each defendant. According to the preliminary statistics of the Beijing News reporter, at present, Nongfu Spring, Wahaha and Master Kong all filed claims with the operating companies behind the official WeChat account, among which Master Kong claimed 50 million yuan, Wahaha claimed 6.5438+0 million yuan, KFC claimed 4.5 million yuan, Nongfu Spring claimed 200,000 yuan, and Wang Laoji claimed 6 million yuan, with a total amount exceeding 6.65438+0 million yuan, which may become the first case of online rumor claim.
Most food companies say that this is not enough to make up for the loss. Qu, president of KFC, believes that "the amount claimed is far from making up for the losses suffered. But if you do something wrong, you have to pay the price. " Master Kong also said that rumors have seriously damaged Master Kong's business reputation and brand reputation, and "the losses caused are incalculable".