The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2025
Douyin banned Ma Liuji's founders, and the brand's sales shrank to a fifth
The accounts behind nearly 40% of Ma Liuji's Douyin sales were banned in a day — a brand built on its founders' drama paid for that drama.
Ma Liuji (麻六记) · Douyin · 2025-02-08
What happened
Ma Liuji, the Sichuan restaurant chain founded in 2020 by Zhang Lan and her son Wang Xiaofei, had built its business on the family's personal brand. Its online channel accounted for about 70% of revenue, and the Douyin accounts of Zhang and Wang contributed close to 40% of the brand's Douyin sales, Sohu reported. Sales had ridden family drama since Wang's 2022 divorce, peaking at around ¥120 million in Douyin sales in November 2022.
On 8 February 2025, days after the death of Wang's ex-wife, Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu, Douyin's safety centre permanently banned four accounts — "Zhang Lan·Qiaosheng Live", "Zhang Lan's Selection", "Wang Xiaofei" and one more — for "malicious exploitation of the deceased for marketing hype" and recommending fake videos. Tencent News carried the announcement; Weibo suspended Zhang Lan's livestream function the same day.
The ban took the brand's main sales channel offline overnight. Store-level matrix livestreams across Jinan, Beijing, Hefei, Guangzhou and Qingdao partly compensated — Qilu Evening News counted over ¥2.5 million of sales in the first two days — yet total Douyin sales still slid from about ¥7 million on 10 February to ¥2 million on 17 February, per Hongcan via Sina. By July 2025, monthly Douyin sales had shrunk to ¥10–25 million, more than 80% below the November 2022 peak, China.com reported, as the chain also faced a food-quality scandal over mouldy noodles.
Why it happened
- Forty percent of sales lived in two accounts the brand did not own — a platform moderation decision, not a market decision, erased the channel
- The traffic was leased from gossip: audiences came for the family feud, so when the feud's broadcasters were silenced, the audience left with them
- The brand had no second engine: stores could stream, but a founder-led channel that once did millions a day could not be replaced by ¥2.5 million of store streams in two days
The lesson
Revenue that rides a founder's personal drama is leased, not owned — one platform decision can delete 40% of a brand's sales overnight.
Aftermath
Ma Liuji responded by pushing livestreaming down to its physical stores — a 37-store, 15-city matrix that partially offset the loss. The recovery stalled: by July 2025 sales were still around a fifth of their peak, and a mouldy-noodle incident that month forced a nationwide Costco delisting, stacking a quality crisis on top of the traffic one. The founders' personal accounts remained banned.
Sources
- 腾讯新闻(雷达财经): 张兰母子栽了个大跟头!本人:不服,曾蹭王健林被王思聪"炮轰"(含抖音封禁公告)
- 搜狐: 张兰汪小菲抖音遭封禁,麻六记线下营收如何破局?
- 新浪网(红餐网): 张兰汪小菲被"封杀"后,麻六记的生意却越来越好了?
- 中华网(新浪财经): 麻六记销售额已缩水至此前五分之一 流量与品控双重危机显现
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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