JD apologises after viral loan advert is panned online for being insensitive to people on low income

China’s second-biggest e-commerce player JD.com has apologised after a commercial produced by its finance affiliate was hammered on the internet for being in bad taste and held up by many netizens as the latest example of over-aggressive marketing.

“We sincerely apologise. There is no excuse … it was completely wrong,” said the company in a statement on Thursday. “There is a problem with the orientation, culture and values … the operations team [in this instance] has blindly pursued performance, lost themselves and forgotten their responsibilities.”

The advert, produced by JD Finance and which went viral on TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin and Weibo, featured a scene on an aeroplane where a man with low income, worried about the well-being of his airsick prone mother, takes out an instant loan of 150,000 yuan (US$22,900) via JD Finance to upgrade her cabin seat.

Beijing-based JD.com said in a statement on Weibo that the company had set up a special investigation team to look into the incident and would conduct a comprehensive review to “find the problem at the root of the team’s culture” and hold people responsible.

The incident comes as China tightens regulation of online content deemed harmful, illegal or politically sensitive. The China Advertising Association (CAA) in June recommended content censorship and real-name user registration for live-streamed promotions. The Cyberspace Administration of China recently put responsibility for content not just on the websites that host it but also service providers and content producers.