The Soy Milk Account With 4 Million Followers Is Selling Something Else

I opened a shopping app to buy soy milk powder. The first result was not the official Yonghe Soy Milk store. It was a store called Yonghe Soy Milk Instant Drinks Flagship Store. It had 4.05 million followers. The official store had 607,000. I clicked the first video.

It began with a couple on a sofa. The woman rested her leg on the man. He pushed it away with a look of disgust. The camera cut to a bathroom. A lace slip dress. Black stockings. At about 15 seconds, the video started selling soy milk. The caption read: “Buy one, get eight. Place an order and receive a portable mixing cup.”

The video was not an outlier. The account has posted more than 1,900 short videos since September 2024. The format repeats. Put plot, male-female tension, and revealing outfits at the front. Put the product and the promotion at the back. The video does not need to relate to soy milk. It only needs to keep viewers from swiping away before the product appears.

I looked up the account. The verified entity is Hangzhou Kuaibamao Trading Co., Ltd. A second account, Yonghe Soy Milk Light Meals Flagship Store, is verified to Hangzhou Weiwo Trading Co., Ltd. Neither company has an equity link to Shanghai Yonghe Food Technology Co., Ltd., the core operator of Yonghe Soy Milk.

That detail matters for lawyers. It does not matter for shoppers. A shopper sees the name Yonghe Soy Milk. A shopper sees the words flagship store. A shopper sees the brand’s products. The shopper assumes the store is the brand. The shopper does not open a business registration database before adding soy milk powder to a cart.

According to The Consumer Report, a customer service staff member at Shanghai Yonghe said the company authorizes other companies to sell its products. As long as a store is labeled a flagship store, the products are supplied by the brand. The staff member said the company would investigate the videos internally. The staff member also said the company has a department that supervises content posted by authorized accounts.

That answer raises a question. If the company supervises authorized accounts, how did this content run for so long? The account has more than 4 million followers. It has posted nearly 2,000 videos. This is not a single mistake. It is a working method. The method uses cheap attention to drive traffic to a product page. The brand supplies the product. The authorized seller supplies the attention. The brand gets sales. The seller gets sales. The brand also gets the reputation that comes with the content.

Yonghe Soy Milk is not a small brand. It entered the mainland market in 1995. It opened its first directly operated store in Pudong in 1999. It built a soy milk powder production base in 2004. It once had about 3,000 stores. It was a familiar breakfast for a generation. That history is the brand’s most valuable asset. It is also the asset most at risk when an authorized account uses black stockings to sell soy milk powder.

The problem is not that the brand wants younger customers. Every legacy brand wants younger customers. The problem is the method. Younger customers do not buy soy milk powder because a video showed a woman changing into stockings. They buy soy milk powder because it is convenient, tastes good, has enough protein, and fits into their morning. A video about a rushed office worker mixing a cup at her desk would do more for the product than a shower scene.

The same pattern has appeared elsewhere. Earlier this year, Supor, a kitchenware brand, was criticized for borderline videos on its official account. The criticism was sharp because the brand is known for cookware, not for suggestive content. The pattern keeps returning because the platform rewards it. Short-video platforms measure completion rate. A suggestive opening keeps viewers watching. A product explanation does not. Sellers respond to the metric. Brands that do not manage the metric get the consequences.

Yonghe Soy Milk can fix this. It can publish a list of authorized accounts. It can explain which accounts it reviews and which it does not. It can punish service providers that violate content rules. It can take back authorization when necessary. It can shift its metrics from completion rate and exposure to repurchase rate, search volume, and brand-term health. If the brand only looks at GMV, channels will use any means. If the brand starts looking at brand equity, channels will restrain themselves.

At six in the morning, a row of Yonghe Soy Milk sits in a convenience store freezer. A clerk adds ice to a cup of tea. Someone buys an iced Americano. The soy milk stays where it is. Maybe tomorrow someone will take a carton. But today, no one did.