We Found A China-Made Beverage With Packaging So Saucy, Chinese Govt Banned Its “Pornographic” Ads
The lady posing suggestively on the can is very attention-grabbing, though.
Not sure if beverage or tabloid front page
There’s a lot going on for this drink, which is emblazoned with so many taglines that we struggled to even figure out what it was supposed to be. We eventually found out that it was a coconut juice beverage made by China-based company Ye Shu Pai (which translates to “Coconut Tree Brand” in Chinese).
As if determined not to waste any space to advertise itself, the company also boasted that it had been “holding strong for 34 years”, and its coconut juice came from “freshly-squeezed coconut meat from Hainan Island”, which is famous for being a major producer of fresh coconuts.Ye Shu Pai’s current brand ambassador is Chinese actress Xu Dongdong, who is pictured posing suggestively on the can (this becomes relevant later, which we will explain in a bit).
We tried this unusual chilled beverage, and found it very interesting. It tasted like coconut milk diluted with sweet coconut juice. In other words, creamy coconut water, though the company insisted that it does not add “coconut milk or flavouring” to the drink.
Pretty refreshing and worth trying, if you can get over wrapping your hand around a random woman’s waist as you consume the drink. It is available locally via Shopee, Lazada, Chinese departmental store Yue Hwa and Scarlett Supermarket.
‘Pornographic’ ads banned by the Chinese government
In 2021, Ye Shu Pai got in trouble with the Chinese authorities for its overtly-sexual advertisements. According to Hong Kong-based online news portal hk01, the National Radio and Television Administration of China banned all broadcast ads for the coconut juice drink as they were deemed as being “almost pornographic”.
In the TV commercials, scantily-clad buxom models were filmed frolicking on a beach, with one ad zooming in on a woman’s ample cleavage as she promoted the beverage. The ad’s tagline was “alluringly curvy, fair, tender and bountiful”. Um. Are we still talking about coconuts here? Though this explains why the brand’s ambassador Xu Dongdong was photographed awkwardly twisted like an S bend pipe.
Watch the ads and judge for yourself:
The staff recruitment ad is just as wild
Ye Shu Pai’s brazen Weibo recruitment ad for its “managerial school” also caught flak from Chinese netizens, as it stated: “No professional qualifications required, you just have to know how to write”, and promised that its graduates will get “a car, a house, high salary and plenty of good-looking men and women pursuing you”.
Graduates were apparently guaranteed a job at the company and bonuses such as a “CN¥6 mil (S$1.8mil) house with a sea view” and “CN¥10 mil (S$1.96mil) villa”. The saucy product ads eventually caught the attention of the Hainanese authorities, who issued Ye Shu Pai a fine of almost S$40,000 in 2020 for causing “adverse social impact”.
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