Is it worth taking the unethical "peeping on women" marketing route for more traffic? Deep-seated anxiety behind the high growth of MNSO (09896).

The "non-members cannot pay the bill" incident has just passed not long ago, and MNSO (09896) has once again received several negative hot search topics in succession. These days, "MNSO A Lei's Diary," "MNSO Apology," and "MNSO Involved Blogger Account Privately" have successively rushed to the top of the hot search list. From the offline aggressive "scanning code to attract new customers" to the online controversial "borderline marketing," these controversial operations seem to be at odds with the profit-report that was handed in not long ago. On one hand is the splendid performance, on the other hand is the successive public opinion backlash, what exactly happened to MNSO? Using peeping at women as marketing material? Some netizens discovered in a video posted by a blogger named "A Lei's Diary" on TikTok, with over 500,000 fans, that there was content about peeking at the female residents downstairs after the renovation of a floor. The key point is that the caption of the video marked "MNSO," "MNSO Home Textiles," and "Dormitory Memory Foam Mattress," and the product is known for its "light and thin" features. Looking at the content of the blogger on other platforms, it can be found that the video in question belongs to the ongoing "King of Home Decoration" series, mainly using funny and exaggerated ways to tell a series of funny clips about "when you hire your friends to decorate your home to save money." And this creative idea of entertaining peeping behavior, in the context of brand and product association, quickly aroused a lot of consumers' resentment and questioning, especially many female consumers deeply felt offended. It should be noted that the young women being peeped on in the video are MNSO's core consumers. Huaxin Securities research report shows that MNSO's consumer profile is mainly 16-28-year-old students and young white-collar female groups. Open e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, the promotional videos for MNSO bedding and other related products mostly feature women. After the incident escalated, the account of the blogger involved has now been turned into a private state. MNSO also issued an apology letter urgently on the evening of July 13, announcing the termination of cooperation and the removal of related content from the entire network. In fact, this is not the first time MNSO has offended its core customer base due to marketing failures. In 2024, MNSO's official flagship store once used inappropriate adjectives such as "retarded crying," "crazy screaming," and "pants" when introducing the well-known IP "chiikawa" products, exposing the lack of basic understanding of the cooperative IP by the brand, and directly stinging the large fan base who pay for it, leading to strong dissatisfaction. From disrespecting the IP loved by consumers to now using a male perspective on peeping storylines to promote home textile products targeted at women as the main decision-makers, it seems that MNSO's marketing control failure is evident. Regarding this phenomenon, public relations expert and senior digital marketing director Wen Sha objectively pointed out that in the era of algorithms, the logic of planting grass for fast-moving consumer goods brands with large volumes is often handed over to operating agencies or marketing companies, and the brand usually only clarifies the general direction of communication. "In a huge volume of materials, it is really difficult for the brand to strictly control every material. It is possible that the tails of influencers with 500,000 fans may have inappropriate content in order to increase traffic, but as a listed group, this cannot be an excuse to shirk responsibility, allowing content to compromise towards vulgarity is irresponsible to the brand reputation in itself," Wen Sha emphasized. In contrast, industry analyst Zhang Shule has a more severe attitude. He pointed out that since it is a business cooperation, the brand side cannot have not reviewed the video beforehand. Turning a blind eye to this kind of borderline traffic reveals its marketing's "traffic KPI" characteristics. Zhang Shule said that women are the main decision-makers for household consumption, using marketing topics from a male perspective shows that the brand side does not truly understand the target audience's experience, "besides the standard cold official announcement, they are at a loss." It is worth mentioning that the apology letter with the stamp of "Innovative Selection Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd." was sent from the account "MNSO Home Textiles He Tong," which has a fan base of only 63 as of the evening of July 15. According to Tianyancha App, the former is wholly owned by MNSO (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., while the latter's enterprise certification body is Nantong Hetong Textile Co., Ltd., with no equity connection to MNSO after a full tracing. In contrast, MNSO's various platform official main accounts have not made any statements on this matter. Public relations expert Wen Sha believes that this may be seen as taking advantage of a loophole to some extent: "Usually, it means a wait-and-see attitude, and the subsequent actions depend on how serious the situation escalates. If it becomes serious, the statement issued can 'save the day,' if less severe, the matter will pass." What happened to MNSO? The disorder and omissions in online promotion, along with another controversy caused by MNSO offline recently, seem to be similar at the underlying logic level. Just before this, consumers in many places concentrated complaints about MNSO's offline stores requiring mandatory membership registration to pay the bill, even for buying a bottle of water. The official response later stated that the membership restriction "only applies to hot-selling trend items such as blind boxes and plastic plush toys." Although this response clarifies it in words, it indirectly admits a fact: MNSO is trying to use high-demand popular products as a drainage tool, forcibly converting public domain traffic into private domain members. Whether it is using controversial and vulgar storylines online to attract attention for traffic, or using popular IP figures offline to forcefully draw new customers, and obtain user data, these operations reflect the deep anxiety that MNSO brings to maintain high growth stories. From an accounting perspective, MNSO's first-quarter results in 2026 were outstanding. The financial report shows that its quarterly revenue reached 5.688 billion yuan, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year; the profit during the period was as high as 1.248 billion yuan, a significant increase of 199.7% year-on-year. However, if we carefully analyze the profit structure, we will find that the substantial increase in profit in the first quarter largely depends on the investment income from its early investment in the AI unicorn MiniMax. The financial report shows that the investment in this artificial intelligence industry enterprise brought in an unrealized fair value change income of 874.6 million yuan; excluding this non-recurring income and exchange rate losses, MNSO's adjusted net profit growth rate in the first quarter was actually 8.1% year-on-year. Looking back at the entire year in 2025, due to factors such as the 812.7 million yuan loss from dividing Yonghui Superstores, MNSO's net profit in 2025 dropped by about 54% year-on-year. This means that, setting aside the ups and downs on paper brought by cross-border investments, MNSO's physical retail foundation is facing a test. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, MNSO Group's global store count has reached 8,565. With consumer traffic in first and second-tier cities in China becoming saturated, the logic of trading scale for growth may encounter bottlenecks. When offline natural traffic touches the ceiling, accumulating a large private domain member pool through new customer acquisitions becomes an important chip to demonstrate its continuous monetization capabilities to the capital market. This not only explains why frontline stores must undergo the pressure of consumer complaints to forcibly attract new customers but also to some extent, explains why the online marketing team spares no effort to convert traffic. In recent years, MNSO's strategic vision has been ambitious, always trying to shake off the label of the "low-end ten-yuan store" and transition to a globalized "super brand." However, there seems to be a continuous disconnect between the high-end strategic vision and the rough execution at the end. Zhang Shule pointed out that MNSO's image as a ten-yuan store is deeply rooted in people's minds, and trying too hard to elevate its positioning through trendy IP may result in a fragmented brand image. On this basis, Wen Sha also added that MNSO started with channels and business models, although it has achieved huge scale, it has not truly established a resonant and great brand value system that resonates with contemporary young people. "It's not easy to run a profitable business, but it's obviously much harder to run a great business," she concluded.