Chinese Well-Known Actress Banned for False Advertising

Chinese actress Jing Tian was punished for illegal advertising endorsement. After the exposure, beauty brands endorsed by Jing Tian drew a line with her. It is worth mentioning that there have been few examples of fines for false advertising in the cosmetics industry.

---

Recently, the topic that Chinese actress Jing Tian was punished for illegal advertising endorsement hit the top of a hot trend on the Chinese social platform Weibo. The State Administration for Market Regulation also issued an article saying that it firmly supports the investigation and handling of Jing Tian's illegal advertising endorsement case according to the law. It is understood that Jing Tian was fined $1.086 million.

According to the penalty information, the product endorsed by Jing Tian had no valid evidence to prove its efficacy of "blocking the absorption of oil and sugar". Jing Tian, knowing that laws and regulations stipulate that ordinary food products shall not be advertised for therapeutic and health effects, and without effective means to verify the efficacy of the endorsed products, still claimed in the advertisement that the endorsed products have the efficacy of "blocking the absorption of fats and sugars" in her name and image. Her behavior has violated the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law.

Jing Tian's illegal income from the above advertisement endorsement totaled $388 thousand. Following Article 61 of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter the Advertising Law), the relevant market supervision bureau issued an administrative penalty decision to confiscate the illegal income and fined Jing Tian $698 thousand (the total amount of confiscation was 7,221,200 yuan $1.086 million).

After the incident came to light, the official account of Dior Skincare on the Weibo platform, which was still interacting with Jing Tian on April 30, quickly deleted all the content updates about Jing Tian. Chinese beauty brands such as Fulfil and Wetcode also made cuts with Jing Tian and deleted publicity related to her. The Blue Moon also cleared its official content on its official account on Weibo, and now there is no more content related to Jing Tian.

Subsequently, Jing Tian issued a letter of apology, saying that she would cooperate with the relevant departments and resolutely put an end to such incidents from happening again.

It is worth noting that Article 38 of the revised the Advertising Law of 2021 stipulates that natural persons, legal persons, or other organizations who have been administratively punished for making recommendations or certifying in false advertisements for less than three years shall not be used as advertising spokespersons. In other words, Jing Tian cannot endorse advertisements for three years.

In recent years, there have been few examples of fines for false advertising in the cosmetics industry, in which international and Chinese big-name cosmetics groups have been involved.

In February 2022, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Market Supervision published on its official website the administrative punishment decision issued to Estee Lauder. Estee Lauder was fined $358 thousand for publishing false advertising content through several channels.

According to the administrative penalty decision, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision found that to promote the product of Extra Moisture Repair Essence, Estee Lauder (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd. published video or print advertisements with the product efficacy such as "youth index +77%" and "smoothness +20%, translucency+20%" through its official website and other channels with small print labels, at a total advertising cost of $358 thousand.

The content of the above advertisements was based on the clinical reports issued by the third-party testing laboratories commissioned by the parties concerned. After verifying the clinical reports, it was found that the efficacy of "youth index +77%", "smoothness +20%, translucency+20%", etc. advertised in the above advertisements were for samples of different ages, under certain restricted conditions, in combination with sunscreen products. The data was obtained from the study.

The study data were obtained from samples of different ages and under certain restricted conditions with the use of sunscreen products, and the person referred to the overall concept of "youthfulness" as the one-sided indicator of the recovery of the number of skin metabolites.

However, the survey showed that the recovery of the number of skin metabolites was not the same as the improvement of skin rejuvenation and that the age of the sample had a greater impact on skin metabolites, softness, and smoothness, radiance, etc. The older the age, the more obvious the improvement in skin condition. At the same time, the results of the consumer survey showed that the small print labeling in the advertisement was not sufficient to make consumers fully aware of the true meaning and prerequisites of the efficacy of the relevant products, and the content of the advertisement had a substantial impact on consumers' purchasing behavior.

In summary, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision held that the above-mentioned acts of the party violated the provisions of Article 4(1) and Article 28(1) and 2(2) of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, and published advertising content containing false or misleading information, and ordered the party to stop publishing illegal advertisements, eliminate the influence within the corresponding scope, and punished the party with a fine of double the advertising fee, totaling $358 thousand.

It is worth noting that the new advertising law, which was revised as early as 2015, began to regulate the extreme terms in advertisements, etc. The Regulations on Control of Advertisement formulated by the "cosmetic advertising management approach" requires that the advertising content of cosmetics must be true, healthy, scientific and accurate, and shall not deceive and mislead consumers in any form.

Cosmetic advertising is not allowed to appear, including but not limited to: the name of the cosmetic, the method, ingredients, utility and performance of false exaggeration; the use of another person's name to ensure or to mislead the utility of the implied method; the use of the "latest creation", "latest invention" The use of "the latest creation", "the latest invention", "clean natural products", "no side effects" and other absolute words.