Coconut Tree's 'enroll and get a car, a house, admirers' hiring ad drew a ¥400k fine

In March 2021, 椰树集团 posted a recruitment ad on its official Weibo for its in-house management school: '椰树集团培养正、副总经理学校再招生！专业不限只要懂写作，入学就有车、有房、有高薪、肯定有美女帅哥追' — enroll and you get a car, a house, a high salary and good-looking partners. The ad immediately drew public criticism for vulgarity.

Hainan's market regulator opened an investigation, and in April 2021 椰树集团海南椰汁饮料有限公司 was fined 400,000 yuan for publishing advertising that '妨碍社会公共秩序或者违背社会良好风尚' (disrupts public order or offends social good taste).

It was not a first offence. In March 2019 the same company had been fined 200,000 yuan for the same reason. Yet 椰树 kept the style: in April 2022 it re-released a nearly identical recruitment ad, only swapping '肯定有美女帅哥追' for '有前途、能致富', and in 2024 it was fined again — 400,000 yuan for slogans including '用椰子擦乳' and for using state-agency staff in commercial marketing.

The episode captures 椰树's deliberate strategy: a loud, retro-vulgar visual and copy style that is instantly recognisable and that it refuses to drop, even as regulators keep ruling specific ads unlawful. The brand makes the controversy part of the product, and pays the fines as a recurring cost of doing it.