What changed
A coordinated campaign of short videos made it look as if restaurants were abandoning food delivery and livestreaming. Several businesses used the same crude template and banner, while operators produced the clips in batches to drive local traffic.
The investigation traced one network to Sichuan Shizhou Culture Media Co. Its operator described a 3,800-yuan monthly package offering 15 videos to build an account and attract attention.
Why it matters
The videos were not necessarily statements of the businesses’ real policies. One restaurant that used the “cancel delivery” theme still handled delivery orders. Another had never offered delivery at all. The operator’s explanation was blunt: consistency mattered less than creating public discussion and turning that attention into traffic.
That makes the banner more than a marketing gimmick. It can make a commercial promotion look like a shared public campaign, especially when multiple accounts repeat the same message at once.
The same pattern appears beyond restaurants. A clothing shop used the banner, and its staff said the association named in the videos was linked to the company running its account. Other account networks reportedly directed attention toward paid courses and commercial services.
Experts said this kind of content may violate Chinese rules. They urged platforms to look for coordinated signals such as synchronized posting, nearly identical wording and links to paid services, rather than deleting videos one at a time.
The legal outcome, platform penalties and scale of the campaigns remain unclear. But the business model described here is clear enough: manufacture a provocative claim, gather attention, then convert that attention into paying customers.
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