「Core Tips」
How to identify the short video content of the real moutai is actually to sell the fake moutai. When fakes begin to target the short video traffic dividend, how should the platform respond?
Author| King?
Edited by | Zirui Zhang
The increasingly expensive Moutai and the more and more popular short videos have allowed criminals to see "new business opportunities".
Recently, the Chongqing police cracked a case of making and selling counterfeit Moutai liquor, and arrested a total of 24 criminal suspects. When the police destroyed four "black dens" of production, storage and sales, they seized more than 800 bottles of counterfeit Moutai brand wine finished products, more than 3,000 jin of base wine to be filled, 14 sets of counterfeiting equipment, and 27,000 sets of packaging materials at the scene, and the preliminary estimate was 100 million yuan.
"Fake Moutai" is often there, but it is not common to hire "Internet celebrities" to find buyers on short video platforms.
In this case, in order to expand sales, the criminals hired "net red" anchors to produce video content that identified the true and false Moutai brand wine, and registered multiple accounts on the short video platform to play it on a rolling basis, and then promoted it after accumulating a certain popularity.
When fake Moutai flows to the short video platform, the huge traffic of short video has become a coveted channel for criminals. How will the major short video platforms that have been criticized be treated?
1. Counterfeit sellers are eyeing short video traffic
When the original intention of the short video platform to record and share a better life began to be linked to business, "changing taste" naturally became a logical result, the most indispensable of which was the problem of "selling fakes".
It is the business "rules" that are well versed in the Internet world, in the fake Moutai case cracked by the Chongqing police, the criminals in the independent collation, filling, packaging, storage at the same time, but also in the channel also found another way, hired Internet celebrity anchors to explain how to identify the real and fake Moutai wine to attract traffic.
How strong is the traffic effect brought by "Moutai"? "Leopard Change" logged on to platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, B Station, Xiaohongshu, etc., and entered "Moutai" in the search bar, and the more frequent video categories appeared were: Moutai wine true and false identification method, Moutai wine price list / daily market, Moutai wine live broadcast, Moutai wine recycling, etc. Among them, the number of video views and likes about the authenticity of Moutai is extremely impressive.
In the comment area of these authentic videos to identify Moutai, many users will mention the question of "how to buy", and the answer given by the anchor is almost always "private message".
After "Leopard Change" randomly sent 2 anchors on Douyin and indicated that "I hope to buy Moutai wine", the anchor will send a WeChat signal, and even deliberately use "typo + expression" as a hint to avoid platform monitoring.
In the exchange with the anchor after adding WeChat, the other party said that the Moutai wine in his hand was not directly taken from the manufacturer or distributor, but "received by himself, or taken from the channel", as for what channel it came from, the other party did not give a clear reply, but constantly marketed users to place orders, and emphasized that "their points are very famous in a certain region" and so on.
As for why it is not openly operated on the short video platform, the answer given by the other party is: "Old wine cannot be on the online store"; at the same time, the advantage of not having an online store is that consumers can "point to one shot" and ship on the same day. For the question of "no platform party to do protection, payment is not assured" put forward by "Leopard Change", the other party has never replied directly, but constantly emphasizes that it can be packaged and taken photos and shipped on the same day.
After the whole process, these anchors first gather traffic through the "Moutai authenticity identification" video, and then convert the traffic of these public domains into private domains through WeChat, and then market them.
"The problem of selling fake liquor on short videos is not new." A former Byte Commercial in charge of quality inspection Ms. Chen told Leopard Change: "I am responsible for reviewing the qualifications, trademarks and security deposits of the incoming merchants. Alcohol merchants are specific to the investment, which is completely different from the entry threshold of other retail purposes, you need to fill in a variety of qualification certifications and platform research forms when applying, after filling in, there will be strict manual review in the later stage. ”
Ms. Chen said: "After these elements are met, the wine merchant may be eligible to open a store on the platform, and during my tenure, the security deposit for wine is 200,000, which is very high." But even so, there are still many liquor sellers who play catty and will pour inferior liquor into high-end wine bottles. However, if you meet a knowledgeable consumer, you will find a professional organization to do identification after buying. Therefore, the platform has also received such complaints before. ”
A senior practitioner in the industry told Leopard Change that in recent years, under regulatory requirements, the restrictions on anchors and merchants carrying goods by short video platforms have become more and more stringent, which can also be seen from the content of the "fake Moutai wine" case in which the internet celebrity anchors did not choose to directly bring goods, but used the so-called public welfare and popular science content as a cover.
"This kind of content is easier to get platform recommendations and increase traffic weight than direct marketing; more importantly, it will also weaken the user's consumption vigilance to a large extent, but it is easy to stimulate consumption." It can be seen from media reports that in just a few months, this gang has produced and sold about 20,000 bottles of high-imitation Moutai brand wine. ”
The person further said, "In the later stage of entering the sales process, in order to evade supervision and scrutiny, the means of selling counterfeits are becoming more and more hidden." Under normal circumstances, the anchor will not directly hang the chain, because doing so is likely to be directly banned by the platform. They are more likely to leave other contact information in the introduction, comment area or when interacting with the audience, such as joining an exclusive WeChat group, jumping out of the short video platform and then selling. ”
2. Why is it always Moutai?
In some extraordinarily large counterfeit cases, you can always see the figure of Moutai?
This may not be difficult to understand. The "scarcity" of Moutai in the consumer market and capital market makes Moutai a "financial asset" with investment value.
Li Fei, who is in charge of marketing work, made a small profit because of his experience of buying Moutai. He spent 14,000 yuan in July 2017 to buy a bottle of 3L Feitian Maotai. He told Leopard Change that the original purpose was to give people away, but then did not send them out. Not long ago, he saw from an e-commerce platform that the same specifications, but the year update of the same Moutai price has exceeded 25,000 yuan / bottle, he inquired from the second-hand market, 2017 factory 3L package feitian almost 40,000 yuan, the price tripled.
In the era of consumption upgrading, people's strong purchase demand for Moutai wine has made the market terminal continue to be out of stock. Even if Moutai has successively increased the ex-factory price of non-standard wines and series of wines since 2021, this still cannot change the situation of short supply. In addition, in recent years, as a synonym for collecting wine and investment wine, aged Moutai is a hot darling of major auction venues.
An investment banker pointed out that "the commodity attribute of Moutai is sauce wine, but due to the complex production process and long production cycle of Moutai (a bottle of wine takes about 4 or 5 years to leave the factory), this also invisibly accelerates liquidity and increases scarcity." The consumer market and the capital market are accompanied by each other, and the fullness of consumption power will definitely affect the rise of Moutai stock price and market value. ”
"Therefore, many leading enterprises in medical, technology and other industries have even been identified as 'X Mao', which can explain the multi-faceted value of Moutai as a commodity or an investment product." Similar to the characteristics of Moutai, the commemorative coins, stamps and other categories issued by the stamp market also have such a right value. The investment banker said.
The huge space for interests will naturally make some people desperate to take risks.
According to the police investigation, the "fake Moutai case" attaches great importance to the counterfeiting process, and the new equipment is used to automate the labeling process in the counterfeiting process, and the anti-counterfeiting chip used is extremely simulated and difficult to identify with the naked eye. If you refer to the gross profit margin of Moutai in Guizhou in the past few fiscal quarters is more than 91%, according to the amount involved in the case of 100 million yuan, if the sales of the people involved in the case are successful, the profit is at least more than 90 million yuan.
"Not only Moutai, the profits of many high-end wines are too high, and when the word is the first, there will be more and more 'routines' in the middle," said Mr. Wang, the former byte commercial account manager, pointing out, "If the previous fake wine was completely counterfeited from the bottle to the liquor, then there are too many tricks of counterfeiting now." ”
Mr. Wang said that many merchants who sell fake wine are not selling chemical fake wine (methanol), but pouring low-priced inferior wine into high-end wine bottles, and then selling at the normal price of high-end wine to obtain huge profits, like the kind of counterfeiting industry chain that even chips are taken into account. Most of these wines may also have quality inspections, but because of the poor quality, it will be very uncomfortable to drink too much.
The dao is one foot high, and the devil is one foot high.
"The platform has a relatively high entry threshold for wine merchants, so there are actually very few certified wine merchants on major platforms at present." Merchants or individuals involved in alcohol drinks will hardly sell directly on the platform, under normal circumstances, they are transferred to the private domain through WeChat and then sold, so that on the one hand, they can avoid platform monitoring, on the other hand, even if problems are found, the cost of user rights protection is also very high", Mr. Wang admitted, "If consumers want to buy wine on the platform, try to be more secure in the merchant's own brand live broadcast room, or in the big V live broadcast room." ”
3. How does the platform face the attack of fake goods
From e-commerce to short videos, these counterfeiters have been running with traffic.
In the era of short videos, the lament of "the world's bitter fakes have been dead for a long time" has not subsided. Although the short video platform has made a strict contraction from various dimensions such as live broadcasting, content management, brand exposure, and industry prohibition, and is also deliberately strengthening the boundaries of ordinary content and commercial content, it cannot be denied that selling fakes to users through short video content is indeed more difficult to find and deal with than the graphic and text mode of traditional e-commerce. The same is true for both in-sale and after-sales.
On the traditional e-commerce platform, sellers who open online stores must retain information such as business licenses and transaction records, and the platform also provides secured transactions, using technical means to screen suspicious goods, and there are also specialized agencies to deal with consumer complaints and reports.
In the short video platform, the content creator is just the short video platform as a platform for releasing commodity information and trading channels, commodity transactions, payment for goods will be transferred to other channels other than the platform, and the short video platform cannot record the complete information chain and transaction chain at all, which greatly increases the regulatory costs of the platform and the law enforcement costs of the regulatory authorities, and consumers whose rights and interests are damaged may also fall into the situation of no way to complain.
As for how short video platforms should strengthen marketing management, the above-mentioned senior practitioners said that they can be upgraded in accordance with the "Regulations on the Administration of Internet Live Broadcasting Services" issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China on November 4, 2016. According to the clear provisions in this regulatory document, live streaming service providers should establish a blacklist management system, include users who violate the regulations in the blacklist, and prohibit them from re-registering their accounts.
At the same time, short video platforms should also strengthen the systematic identification of content output through technical means, manual review and other supporting measures, conduct source monitoring and standards for spam advertising content and potential counterfeiting behavior, and increase the reporting channels inside and outside the station to increase the cost of selling fakes. Of course, the platform should also make some consumer education in moderation, and do not breed fertile ground for counterfeiting because of greed. ”
It is true that this time the operation method of fake Moutai has more or less refreshed people's cognition of the "routine" of selling fakes, but from a positive point of view, when this "routine" has not really formed a "atmosphere", the short video platform still has time to make a rectification response in advance.