The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2024
Flortte's lip gloss applicator and shade names drew a fine — 'kiss the little jj'
Chinese cosmetics brand Flortte named lip shades 'kiss the little jj' and angled its applicator to resemble genitalia. Shanghai regulators fined it 25,000 yuan.
Flortte (花洛莉亚)
What happened
In September 2024, Chinese cosmetics brand Flortte (花洛莉亚) was reported to regulators after its lip gloss applicator design and marketing photography were flagged for sexual suggestiveness. The applicator of a new lip gloss was shaped in a way that reviewers said resembled male genitalia, and the product's promotional images used camera angles that drew the same comparison.
The scrutiny extended to shade names from the brand's lip mud line, launched in 2021 and sold through 2023: '亲亲小居居' ('kiss the little jj'), '亲亲neinei,' and '亲亲阿咪' — internet slang terms that the regulator found 'objectively contain sexual implications.' The total read count on related topics approached 300 million.
On December 3, 2024, the Shanghai Minhang District Market Regulation Bureau announced a 25,000 yuan fine under Advertising Law Article 9(7) — 'impeding public order or violating good social customs.' Netizens called the fine too small: comparable cases like Coconut Palm's suggestive ads drew 200,000–400,000 yuan fines.
Why it happened
- The product was the ad: the applicator shape and the camera angles were not accidental — they were design choices made to look like something else, and the audience saw exactly what was intended.
- The shade names were a pattern, not a typo: 'kiss the little jj' and 'kiss neinei' are slang terms that only function as double entendres — the brand was selling innuendo as naming convention.
- The fine was a cost of doing business: 25,000 yuan against a brand with hundreds of millions in sales is a rounding error, and netizens noted the disparity with other penalties.
- This was not the first time: the brand had been called out for similar suggestive content before, suggesting the strategy was deliberate — the attention was the point, and the fine was budgeted.
The lesson
When the design, the name, and the camera angle all point the same direction, the regulator reads them together. The fine was small; the brand's reputation for innuendo was not.
Sources
- 新浪财经 — 'Flortte fined 25,000 yuan for suggestive ads; netizens say penalty is too light', 2024-12
- 搜狐 — 'Top 10 brand PR disasters of 2024: Flortte, Bee & Flower, and more', 2024
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