Text/Fan Cheng
(The author Fan Cheng, special commentator of Litchi News, well-known commentator; this article is an exclusive manuscript of Litchi Network and its "Litchi News" client, please indicate the source when reprinting.) ）
On March 24, P&G China issued a statement saying that it solemnly apologized for the inappropriate content of a recent article on the P&G Member Center account for disrespecting women. The article contains "Women's feet stink 5 times more than men's?" I don't believe that now smell "women's hair is twice as dirty as men's", "women who love clean, panties are dirtier than men" and other controversial content. Procter & Gamble said it had deleted the article.
The articles sent out by themselves, deleted by themselves; their own publicity to consumers, apologized themselves. Procter & Gamble's round of operation can be said to be a typical "lifting a stone and dropping it on its own feet". Looking closely at this article, rollover is actually an inevitability. For example, many female readers may say: I smell my husband and my feet, or does his stink?
Regarding foot odor, the basis given by Procter & Gamble is that "the reproductive rate of bacteria in men's feet is 400%, and that of women is 2300%...", but some media interviewed a number of senior dermatologists, all of whom said that the above statement has no scientific basis. For example, an expert in a third-class public hospital in Beijing said that the cause of foot odor is usually caused by excessive sweat secretion as the initiating trigger, and there is no case where women secrete too much than men. Moreover, even if the reproductive rate of this so-called colony is scientifically based, it is difficult for different people to divide the degree of foot odor simply according to sex because of different living habits and physiological conditions and different degrees of personal hygiene.
Interestingly, the search found something like , " Why don't girls' feet stink?" What is the scientific basis for the question of "why do people always think that girls' feet don't stink" is also popular on social media. This may reflect to some extent that in real life, people's cognition is more that "men's feet are generally smellier than women's feet", which is a kind of empiricism under daily observation.
In order to carry out anti-empirical science popularization, it is even more necessary to be reasonable and well-founded. In other words, science popularization should have the appearance of popular science, there should be a certain seriousness and rigor, and science popularization cannot be blindly based on self-interested marketing. Ironically, P&G set up the "Science Communication Department" a few years ago as a publicity highlight. This time because of an unreliable "science popularization" overturn, it is simply a waste of previous achievements.
In addition to the superficial offense against women, perhaps it should be more real: Is P&G's ad also suspected of content fraud? If there is no corresponding scientific basis, it may constitute false propaganda, which is not only a problem of marketing failure, but also a problem of illegality. In this way, it is worth further investigation and accountability.
Article 3 of the Mainland's Advertising Law stipulates that advertisements shall be truthful and lawful, and express the content of advertisements in a healthy form of expression, which conforms to the requirements of building socialist spiritual civilization and carrying forward the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation; article 4 stipulates that advertisements must not contain false or misleading content, and must not deceive or mislead consumers. After P&G apologized, how to self-examine and accept the investigation should also be paid attention to.
In the era of social media, the advertising and marketing of enterprises must pay attention to a full range of self-examination, not only to comply with laws and regulations, but also to assess the possible response and acceptance of the audience, as well as the adverse consequences that may be induced. Frankly speaking, if P&G can know in advance that this advertisement will be the current social effect, it is estimated that it would rather waste the upfront investment than release it. But why did it come out in a grand manner? This is also a problem.