Society

Real trouble for stars who promote fake products

By Wang Jingqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-19 07:09

Beijing - Celebrities who advertise fake products or promotions could lose their glitter when they are held responsible under a new draft amendment to the Advertising Law.

Sun Hongzhi, director of the Department of Advertising Regulation of the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, said on Tuesday that the amendments will specify what responsibilities celebrities will have to take if they appear in commercials for fake products.

The current advertising law does not cover stars.

While the nation's new food safety law stipulates that celebrities are responsible for any substandard food products they speak for, there is no law regulating liabilities in other products, including medicines.

Sun said stars appear frequently in commercials, some of which have turned out to be fake or exaggerated and triggered public anger for being misleading.

"No matter who you are, celebrity or not, once you are engaged in fake product promotion and cause harm to society and customers, you should be held legally responsible," Sun said.

The amendments will also address advertisements in new media like the Internet and mobile phones, which are not specified under the current law.

"The current law took effect in 1995 when most Chinese did not even know about new media, but now commercials have expanded from traditional to new media, and fake commercials on the Internet and cell phones have led to a lot of customer complaints," said Sun.

For example, Qumei capsules, a weight-loss product that had accounted for about half of the diet drugs on the Chinese market, were recalled across the country last October as they were found to contain the banned drug sibutramine.

Many customers later complained that they started to take the product after seeing commercials with famous female movie stars Gong Li and Fan Bingbing.

Hou Yaohua, a famous comedian, was in 10 commercials for products that were later listed as illegal or fake at the end of 2009.

"I think it's very necessary to include celebrities in the law. We customers follow them a lot in buying products. By specifying their responsibilities, the law should force them to be more careful in accepting commercials," said Liu Yunhui, a 28-year-old white-collar worker in Shanghai.

According to the department's statistics, China's advertising revenue hit 234 billion yuan ($36 billion) in 2010.