The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2024
A Tokyo clinic bought its Google rating — a flu-vaccine discount for a five-star review
A Tokyo clinic offered flu-vaccine patients a discount for posting a five-star Google review — a stealth ad the CAA ordered it to stop.
Yushinkai Medical Corporation · 2024-06-06
What happened
From December 2023, Machinoma Omori Internal Medicine Clinic told patients who came for their influenza vaccine that if they posted a five-star or four-star review of the clinic on its Google Maps profile, the cost of their flu vaccination would be discounted. The offered stars were the condition for the price cut.
The reviews posted under this condition appeared as ordinary customer feedback. Nothing made it clear they were the clinic's own promotional display, so the clinic's rating read to other consumers as independent opinions.
Because the display was one a consumer could not identify as the business's own representation, the Consumer Affairs Agency found a violation of Article 5(3) of the Premiums and Representations Act. On 6 June 2024 it issued a corrective order under Article 7(1), requiring the practice to stop, the violation to be publicised, and recurrence-prevention measures to be put in place.
Why it happened
- A five-star review bought with a discount is not a customer's honest opinion
- Google reviews are read as peer judgement, so a paid rating is quieter and more persuasive than a billboard
- The target was a flu shot — a medical purchase where the patient trusts the clinic
The lesson
A review is only worth as much as the reader's belief that it is independent. Buying your own Google stars with a discount turns patient trust into advertising — and the CAA called it stealth.
Aftermath
The corrective order required Yushinkai to stop offering the review-for-discount deal, notify consumers that the reviews were a violation, and establish recurrence-prevention measures shared with its medical staff and employees. The case is a textbook ステルスマーケティング enforcement against a clinic that bought its own rating.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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