The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2019
Naobaijin's health ads fined twice in Shanghai for disease-treatment claims
In November 2019 Shanghai Xuhui fined brain-tonic Naobaijin ¥50,000 twice for ads implying it treated heart disease, stroke and insomnia.
Naobaijin (脑白金) — 上海黄金搭档生物科技有限公司 · 2019-11
What happened
Naobaijin, the 'brain tonic' gift-set built on the slogan '今年过节不收礼，收礼只收脑白金', marketed its products as a remedy for middle-aged and older people's ailments. In late 2018 it ran two stretches of copy that the regulator read as disease-treatment claims.
On its official site from September to October 2018, the '探索年轻态' section described what Naobaijin could do for the body — wording covering '心脑受损冠心病高血压中风心肌梗塞' and '免疫受损过敏易感染体质弱肿瘤', presenting a food supplement as addressing heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and tumours.
And on its Tmall flagship store from late January to March 2018, the product page for the 脑白金 capsule-and-liquid gift set asked whether '三四十岁的中青年睡眠障碍者' should take it and told them to '更应该及早服用脑白金' — steering people with actual sleep problems toward a supplement as the answer.
On 11 and 23 November 2019 the Shanghai Xuhui District Market Supervision Administration fined the company ¥50,000 for each episode and ordered the misleading ads stopped. The fines were the latest turn in a long history of 黄金搭档's health claims drawing regulators, and they did little to dent a brand whose name was already shorthand for aggressive supplement marketing.
Why it happened
- The ads sold a food supplement as a fix for serious conditions — heart attack, stroke, tumours — claims a health product cannot carry
- Targeting real sufferers ('睡眠障碍者') with 'you should take it sooner' turned an ad into medical advice the product was not qualified to give
- Fines were a recurring cost of a marketing machine built on health-halo claims rather than on what the supplement could actually do
The lesson
When a supplement's copy drifts into treating real diseases — heart, stroke, insomnia — it is medical advice, not marketing, and regulators price it as such.
Aftermath
Shanghai Xuhui fined the company ¥50,000 twice in November 2019 and ordered both ads stopped. The brand continued selling the same gift-set premise, and 黄金搭档's advertising drew regulators again in later years.
Sources
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