Celebrities in all fields are often invited to participate in product advertising. Artists and content creators become the most popular faces because they have a good personal brand, high coverage and their own support from audiences. However, many of them advertised falsely and sold health-related items such as functional foods, milk, and weight loss candy but poor quality, causing public outrage.
Doan Di Bang and his wife are having their sunscreen revoked because the sunscreen index is much lower than the index shown on the packaging. Previously, the company's shampoo was also revoked.
In the scandal of nearly 600 fake milk products discovered, at least 5 artists/celebrity were "named" for inflating the product's uses.
In the case of Kera vegetable candy, Thuy Tien, Quang Linh Vlog, and Hang Du Muc, 3 of many people were temporarily detained for investigation.
With the words "I have used it and found it effective", "this product is very suitable for busy people like me" and attached a shopping basket, "livestream laws" can attract thousands of views and convert them into product purchases.
When these incidents are discovered and handled, advertisers may be administratively sanctioned, but the number of consumed products can reach hundreds of thousands.
Explaining the reality that Vietnamese audiences can easily believe in products introduced by famous artists, media expert Le Thom - Lecturer at the Academy of Public Administration and Management - said that social prestige and crowd psychology are popular factors in Asian consumer culture.
"When a beauty queen, singer or TikToker is loved for introducing a product, the public often assigns that product to their reliability, regardless of whether the celebrity does not have related expertise or lacks independent verification.
The psychology exploited here is the hadron effect, where an outstanding individual in field A is trusted in field B, even though they are completely unrelated.
Along with that, social networks become an ideal environment to amplify crowd psychology and spread emotions, making consumer behavior more emotional than reasonable. In that context, celebrities, whether accidentally or intentionally, become effective but risky marketing tools, especially when lacking control of content and professional ethics".
Thuy Tien herself also admitted to the investigation agency that she has a great responsibility because she is a celebrity, so "there are many people who will buy this product for me".
Thuy Tien's answer shows the paradox of advertising activities. She became famous, sought after, and had many advertising contracts thanks to her reputation on social networks, but at the same time, her career collapsed because she was not aware of her social responsibility.
Expert Le Thom assessed that social networks are an environment and tool, while the fact that an individual is honored as an "idol" or turned away by public opinion is not entirely determined by social networks, but is the result of interaction between social networks - the public - the actual behavior of that individual.
Therefore, public opinion will criticize the inconsistent characters between the published image, the established reputation and the actual actions. They do not respect audiences and consumers as they promised.
