“Those who buy cigarettes get priority at checkout”, who is being insulted?

Recently, some netizens took a photo of an in-store slogan at a store of the snack chain snack brand “Snack Youming”, which read “Those who buy cigarettes will be given priority at checkout” and “Guaranteed to be real cigarettes, and you will pay 100 for fake ones.” The photo quickly sparked heated discussions on the Internet.

Some netizens complained that they had heard that military personnel were given priority before, and that first aid was given priority. This was the first time I heard that cigarettes could also be given priority, but they really couldn’t figure out how the cigarette buying group was similar to the groups that had previously enjoyed priority, and it was difficult to recognize the logic that cigarette buyers would enjoy priority.

Social networking site screenshots

The behavior of Snack Youming’s store is generally an induced consumption behavior, but it is different from inducing through incentives – such as buying cigarettes and giving small gifts. This is a forced induction, that is, if you don’t consume, you will face losses or be at a disadvantage, so as to force customers to make targeted consumption.

However, this kind of forced induction can easily produce two adverse consequences:

First, it is easy to arouse public resentment, because it seeks benefits for a few people at the expense of the rights and interests of most consumers, putting most consumers in a coercive situation. In a fully competitive field such as snack sales, it is easy to cause consumers to lose due to psychological discomfort, which in turn leads to a decline in overall sales and damage to the brand image. For brands like Snack Youming, which are mainly franchised stores and have relatively loose management, we must be especially wary of individual stores damaging the entire brand image for their own benefit.

On the other hand, this kind of promotional behavior that harms the interests of most people or has a coercive nature can easily lead to violations or even illegality due to excessive profit-seeking and insufficient consideration. If it is an incentive inducement, there will be no problem, but this kind of coercive or forced induction involves the subject’s qualifications and whether there is authorization. For example, the behavior of this store, some people questioned whether there is an illegal promotion of tobacco.

The Advertising Law clearly stipulates that “it is prohibited to publish tobacco advertisements in mass media or public places, public transportation, or outdoors.” The two slogans of the store, “Those who buy cigarettes will be given priority at checkout” are welfare inducements, and “Guaranteed genuine cigarettes, and you will pay 100 for fake ones” are quality promises. The combination of the two is suspected of promoting tobacco products, thus constituting illegal tobacco advertising.

This incident also serves as a reminder to other companies or organizations that no matter what purpose they want to achieve, they must put respect for consumers first. Consumers must not be put in a position of being coerced or forced to do something they do not want to do just because of short-term utilitarian demands. Otherwise, they will lose big profits for small gains, lose long-term gains for immediate gains, and even small immediate gains may not be obtained.