Initially, my question was how to strictly regulate the sales of pharmaceutical-related products (including supplements) on social media in China. I didn’t think social media can be used as a formal channel for purchasing pharmaceutical products. So, I would like to appeal to everyone through my way not to buy these products on social media.
Topic
Does the form of video marketing have an unconscious effect on people？
What
My first intervention was to compare the number of purchases in the form of video sales on social media with the number of purchases in the form of face-to-face sales and to investigate whether the characteristics of video in social media (heavy use of sound effects, special effects, virtual backgrounds) increase the purchase rate unconsciously. I posted a sales video with a lot of sound effects, special effects, and a virtual background of the hospital online.
Feedback
I received 106 responses, of which 78 people chose to buy, accounting for 73.6%. I sold to 31 people in face-to-face sales, and only 6 of them chose to buy, accounting for 19.3%. I send this comparison to my social media to tell people that people will unconsciously be brainwashed by special effects on social media, thus reducing people’s sanity when shopping, in this way I hope to urge everyone not to buy medicines on social media.
Reflection
I can’t make sure that all my video buyers are from my target group, which directly affects the accuracy of my experimental data. Because of this, my intervention was not convincing, thus the first intervention did not achieve the desired results.
Presentation to Dargen
After that, I did a presentation to Dragons. Dragons gave me a lot of new advice and brought some areas and issues to my attention that I had never noticed before.
First, I started my presentation as a pharmaceutical salesman. I would like to introduce you to my self-medication, which I call a panacea that can cure all ailments. To my surprise, everyone present, including my classmates, Dragons and Zuleika, showed great interest in buying the medicine in my hand. I think I simulated the situation on TikTok in China. I then went on to explain the harm they bring to people (why I have to change it), why people buy it, the “help” social media provides them, and my interventions.
In the end, I received an affirmation from Long about my project and physical performance, as well as the following suggestions:
- How can I deliver my interventions accurately? How can I make sure that my promotional videos on TikTok are noticed by my target group?
- How do I convince people that what I describe in my video is true and that those supplements are false claims?
- The terminology and principles related to medical treatment and pharmaceuticals are complex, how to simplify the relevant information to people?
- Investigate related cases: Some food products in the United States falsely advertise ingredients, such as hiding some fat-causing ingredients.
- Interventions are not so much about solving this problem, but more about how to solve this problem, such as making a paid plugin and making this plugin enter a virtuous circle.
- Whether there is a connection with traditional Chinese medicine.