Celebrities Now Responsible for Product Endorsements
Celebrities could be held legally responsible if they endorse substandard food products, under the new Food Safety Law passed by China's top legislature last week. All organizations tasked with supervising food safety will also be banned from recommending particular food products to consumers when the law comes into effect on June 1.
The law was drafted in response to the spate of serious food safety incidents that have occurred in China in recent years, such as the recent scare over milk and baby formula contaminated with melamine. It contains wide ranging provisions designed to ramp up security at every stage of the production process, from how much pesticides and fertilizers farmers can use to what additives manufacturers can add during processing.
For the first time in China, the law creates a legal basis for holding all brand spokesperson responsible for the food products they endorse. Many brands pay celebrities significant sums to endorse their products but the celebrities were not held responsible for any damage caused by the products they endorsed under previous laws.
Whether the laws will prove effective and enforceable remains to be seen. Celebrities and medical specialists were banned from providing endorsements for medicines and medical products, yet they frequently appear on ads for such products. As CMM-I readers will be aware, government authorities regularly issue notices warning advertisers, publishers and broadcasters to refrain from running illegal or fraudulent ads every three months or so, to little avail.
The State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) suspended 3,344 ads for violating China's advertising laws in the third quarter last year alone. The vast bulk of the ads were deemed legal because they promoted their products in a deceptive, misleading or straight-out fraudulent manner.
The power of celebrity endorsement cannot be underestimated and Chinese celebrities are notoriously sensitive about public scandals. By implementing such regulations, the SAIC may well have found an effective way to at least limit the negative impact that shoddy food products continue to have both domestically and internationally. The rules also indirectly address growing public concerns about the excesses of a celebrity culture in which the famous are rewarded handsomely for selling their images to endorse products they have never seen or used.
We can expect to see less celebrities (and others) endorsing food products as a result of the law. It remains to be seen how this shift will impact on advertising practices and, ultimately, adspend. Will companies prove as willing to shell out big bucks for prime time slots if they don't have a star to promote their product? Stay tuned for an interesting year in the mainland ad world.