National Tide 1980.

Although alcohol is not as valuable as art, its advantage is that it is an addictive substance.

This era has a wide range of people who enjoy this hobby, and the issues of health impacts and drunk driving accidents have not yet been brought to the table, so everyone is consuming with an indulgent attitude.

In addition, high-proof liquor can be stored for a long time, appreciates in value with age, and even has the special property of a "lipstick effect."

The so-called "lipstick effect" actually refers to an interesting economic phenomenon, also known as the "trend of preference for low-priced products."

This theory was first proposed by Americans.

They found that whenever the economy is in recession, lipstick sales will skyrocket.

Therefore, in economics, the economic theory of "lipstick effect" refers to the fact that when the economy is in recession, people tend to buy cheaper non-essential items such as lipstick to bring themselves psychological comfort.

Actually, it is.

Because even in the Republic decades later, although many consumers would think that high-end liquors cost thousands of yuan, the transaction price of Feitian Moutai is more than two thousand yuan.

However, as a consumer product unique to the mainland Chinese market, the price of liquor is not high compared to cars, houses and other luxury goods that we are willing to go into debt to buy.

At the same time, apart from business receptions and official banquets, a large amount of liquor consumption still falls within the scope of daily fast-moving consumer goods.

Therefore, the consumption characteristics of the liquor industry coincide with the "lipstick effect" theory.

If we ignore the interference of "health" and "drunk driving" on the market, the consumption of liquor in the mainland market is almost an amazing existence that can transcend economic cycles.

Therefore, Ning Weimin had no intention from the beginning to sell off all the inventory he had accumulated with great difficulty during the buying spree. He even had a strong reluctance to sell.

After all, the market trend for mid- to high-end liquor is a long-term one, and today’s prices are just the starting point for huge profits, not the end point.

It's not even a relay.

Especially since he planned to turn the catering industry into a long-term business, it became inevitable for him to have a huge private wine cellar.

His future plan in this regard is to continue buying and storing Moutai and Wuliangye year by year depending on the situation.

At the same time, see if there is any opportunity to become an agent with a higher status for the two wine and beverage companies, so as to increase the scale and save costs.

Then, they sell the purchased goods at a high premium through their own catering companies and tobacco shops, and at the same time, they also ensure a certain quantity every year and consciously stockpile them.

The wine you wait to drink will become a precious old wine as time goes by, achieving a double fermentation of quality and price.

If he waits until the stocks of Moutai and Wuliangye are listed, he will use his financial advantage to purchase stocks of these two companies, ultimately completing the virtuous cycle of being a market maker in liquor and personally creating a perfect closed loop from which he can easily reap huge profits for a long time.

Everyone says that being both a referee and an athlete is a serious violation of the principle of fairness and is a form of cheating.

So what does it matter if someone like him even occupies the position of organizer?

Think about it, the consumption of liquor in the country is a huge market worth trillions of dollars every year.

Moreover, due to the formation of new drinking habits after the founding of the People's Republic of China, white wine, which was originally only liked by those who were "bitter and tired", has completely knocked over the original noble wine, rice wine, and reached an extremely distorted price level.

In addition, before Ning Weimin traveled through time, the stocks of Moutai and Wuliangye in the A-share market were in the main upward trend and had been setting new highs. At that time, their combined market value had exceeded two trillion yuan.

So what worries does he have?

To be honest, even if the benefits from business are not counted, the stocks alone would make him a wealthy man.

Don’t make too much of it. Even if he hits the 5% red line, the stocks he has hoarded according to this standard would be worth hundreds of billions!

It's like giving him more than 10 billion US dollars in assets for free, which makes me excited just thinking about it.

Therefore, after the panic buying, Ning Weimin still allowed Zhang Shihui to use the money from the previous arbitrage to continue buying Moutai and Wuliangye in the market.

Even when the economy entered a period of weakness, it had a significant impact on the high-end catering market in Beijing. Even the business of Tan Palace Restaurant suddenly dropped by 30%, and Maxim's Restaurant reduced its turnover by 20%. However, Ning Weimin was not at all panicked.

Because he saw the long-term market changes in the future, this is a completely risk-free and lucrative business model.

What's more, when all else fails, there are always bright spots in the west. In a sluggish economic cycle, high-end consumption is no longer popular, but there is still low-end consumption.

At this time in the capital city society, the high cost-effectiveness of gingerbread men became more and more prominent.

The same "lipstick effect" seems to be more vividly demonstrated in the business of gingerbread men than in white wine.

Neither Shen Cun nor Ning Weimin had expected that the already high daily turnover of the Gingerbread Man would increase by nearly 20%.

The turnover miraculously went against the trend and continued to maintain the full operating peak when it first opened and invited celebrities to help.

In fact, after enjoying the gingerbread men, many customers took away more of them, whether because the queue was too long or the price was too affordable.

No, it should not be said that it is fully loaded, but rather that it is overloaded.

This directly made Shen Cun and Ning Weimin once again realize the problem of supply chain. In addition to further expanding the scale of the central kitchen, it is also necessary to work hard on the supply of multiple sources of goods.

Otherwise, if this problem is not solved, the gingerbread man will not even be able to guarantee dinner, so how can he continue to expand?

This also made Ning Weimin more clearly aware that high cost-effectiveness in business is always the kingly way.

After all, there are only a few people in this world who can achieve financial freedom, and most working people can only live frugally.

The cheapness and benefits brought by small profits but quick turnover are the foundation for an enterprise to prosper long-term and expand its scale, there is no other way.

As for him as a businessman, the wisest thing to do is, of course, to hold two cards in hand, making money from the rich while also taking care of the needs of the general public.

Otherwise, you will have to endure the uncertainty and wealth impairment risks brought about by the major economic cycles and sudden "black swan events".

As for uncertainty, there are a few things that need to be discussed again.

The first thing is that the direction of the mainland entertainment industry has changed significantly at this time. In addition to the gradually warming up of American film and television dramas and cartoons, the mainland entertainment industry has also ushered in a "typhoon" from the southeast.

This incident originated at the end of 1987. After the Taiwan authorities announced a major move to allow people to visit relatives in mainland China, many veterans on Taiwan began to return home to look for their relatives.

Then on January 1988, 1, Jiang Mouguo, the leader who had controlled the Formosa region for 13 years, died of illness.

The film "Laughter and Tears of Mainland China", which was shot based on real scenes in mainland China, was released publicly on the island.

In March 1988, the highest legal body of the Republic issued an amnesty order, no longer pursuing the historical crimes of certain people before the founding of the People's Republic of China.

As a result, cross-strait civil and cultural interactions began to heat up rapidly and entered a honeymoon period.

After the Spring Festival of this year, overseas pop songs were introduced to mainland China for the first time - the album "Wolf" by Taiwanese singer Qi Qin, and then "Follow Your Feeling" by Su Rui.

The Taiwan TV series "Last Night's Stars" has become a romantic drama that dominates the screens of TV stations across the country, and the theme song of the same name has also become the most requested song on mainland radio stations.

All of a sudden, all high school students in mainland China stopped listening to mainland music. Except for Cui Jian's "Nothing at All", which still had a slight aftereffect in the mainland pop music scene, all others were overshadowed.

Even the songs of Fei Xiang and Zhang Qiang are cooling down rapidly. What is playing on the streets is no longer "The bitter north wind blows, the endless yellow sand sweeps by..."

Or it could be the lighthearted “Follow your feelings, hold on to your dreams…”

Or the melancholy "Last night, last night's stars have fallen..."

After all, how can a cover song be as good as a mature original pop song?

Mainland original music is still immersed in the tail end of the Northwest Wind, and the only newly released song of decent quality is "Shan Gou Gou" by Na Ying.

The reason was that at that time mainland music creators were in the midst of a commercialization boom. In order to keep up with the trend and grab sales, they became tainted with shoddy work, and singers' favorite thing to do was to perform for money.

Then it is not surprising that such a group was absolutely crushed by the popular singers from Taiwan who are as popular as a hundred flowers blooming.

At that time, the only two TV series that could compete with it were "Snow City" and "Plainclothes Police", and the singer of these two theme songs, Liu Huan, finally made it and emerged in the mainland music scene thanks to the influence of the TV series.

Needless to say, the sudden "typhoon" had a significant impact on Ning Weimin's revenue from tapes.

He really had to admit that this Zhang Qiangliu was absolutely timely. Before leaving, she recorded a tape of "Walk Away with Style" for him, then took the money and left with style.

As a result, because this album was released in quantity of 500 copies, it was hit by the "typhoon" and its sales were hampered. It no longer has the glory of its early years.

This resulted in Ning Weimin seeing a backlog of his singers' tapes for the first time, and he estimated that at least millions of tapes would go unsold.

The soundtrack of the movie "Li Xianglan" was also affected. Four million tapes were released, and it was originally expected that all of them would be sold out, but in the end, 300,000 of them could not be sold at all.

Although Ning Weimin is definitely still making money, this is undoubtedly a small setback for him who has always been successful in the entertainment industry, especially his music albums, which have been very popular and he has always had to increase their circulation.

Similar to the fate of the music tape, the Japanese drama "Black Leather Notebook" with a huge star lineup from the Mist Studio finally got the release permit.

However, due to the sensitive subject matter, the show was first trial-broadcasted on a local TV station in Beijing in mainland China in accordance with the requirements of relevant departments.

Then the relevant departments re-evaluated the effect, and when the national television station finally broadcast it nationwide, it happened to coincide with the hit of "Last Night's Stars".

From the perspective of cultural harmony, the story of a Ginza mama-san who rises to power by blackmailing rich people is obviously not as likely to touch the hearts of ordinary people in the mainland as the story of the emotional conflict between two generations of a poor family.

What's more, most of the stars in "Black Leather Notebook" are not familiar to mainland audiences.

In addition, this Japanese drama was ultimately shot in only eleven episodes, basically one hour per episode. The overall length is a bit unsatisfying for current mainland audiences.

Moreover, in order to conform to the mainland's broadcasting habits, the national television station edited each episode of nearly an hour into eighteen episodes. This resulted in the ending of each episode often not being on point and no longer being the turning point for the plot.

So even though "Black Leather Notebook" had decent ratings, the number of viewers exceeded the entire population of Japan.

It also helped Matsumoto Keiko gain a lot of fans in the mainland, but it did not meet Ning Weimin's personal expectations at all.

In fact, the ratings of this drama are still lower than the ratings created by Yamaguchi Momoe back then, and it cannot be compared with the "Last Night's Stars" that attracted thousands of viewers.

This directly led to the revenue of Ning Weimin's advertising company's related business also being lower than expected.

But the good thing is that Ning Weimin still has Teresa Teng, the Asian queen of singing.

From a causal perspective, Ning Weimin's promotion of Teresa Teng's participation in the 1988 Spring Festival Gala directly promoted the progress of cross-strait relations, and of course he was able to enjoy the benefits of this "typhoon".

"Crazy Rich Asians" produced by Fog Studios is the highest-grossing movie in mainland China this year. In the current market environment where movie theaters are losing audiences rapidly, it has once again achieved the goal of being sold out for two weeks in its release, attracting countless scalpers.

The soundtrack of "Crazy Rich Asians" was essentially Teresa Teng's first solo album released in mainland China. So even though Ning Weimin did not get any revenue from the movie, the music album still sold like hot cakes.

I don’t know if people today all have the idea that they “owe Teresa Teng money for a tape,” but the initial batch of 8 million tapes Ning Weimin planned to issue was not enough to sell.

Another four million was added to the additional issuance, and I don’t know if it will be enough at the moment.

The only thing that is certain is that this music album is destined to break the record for magnetic tape releases in mainland China.

Moreover, the theme song of this movie, "The Flowing River", is a masterpiece of the Japanese enka school.

This song has a grand style and uses scenery to express emotions, expressing the singer's insights brought about by his rugged life experiences.

In fact, the musical expression of this song is quite similar to that of "Applause" from Taiwan.

This has also aroused the interest of many folk singers in the mainland.

At one time, many people began to cover this song, and anyone who did not sing it would feel a bit out of date.

Therefore, the losses inside the dike are compensated by those outside the dike.

Ning Weimin can be said to be using magic to fight magic. He used the Asian queen of pop, who also came from Taiwan, to counter the dimensionality reduction invasion of "Typhoon" on the mainland music market.

But this is only temporary. Ning Weimin is well aware that an era of earth-shaking changes in the mainland entertainment industry is about to come.

The future is the era of original music and the era of singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. People in mainland China who are engaged in pop music will not have an easy time.

Foreigners who are ahead of the mainland market in terms of information, experience, technology and performance level will dominate the mainland music market for up to twenty years.

And it is not limited to the music industry. The film and television industry is probably the hardest hit by this situation.

This year, apart from the two mentioned above, the only TV series in mainland China that was truly highly recognized by the audience was "The Last Emperor" starring Chen Daoming and Zhu Xu.

Perhaps it was because they wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the movie "The Last Emperor", or perhaps they were dissatisfied with the fact that the works of Italian directors deviated too much from history.

After the filming of the movie of the same name was completed, the National Television Drama Production Center immediately formed a team to shoot this biographical film that is faithful to the original history.

As for the film industry, the funds that Ning Weimin used to feed back to mainland China with the help of the Japanese market have not yet produced direct results so quickly.

The quality of films in mainland China this year was acceptable, and the only films that had high box office were Chen Peisi's "The Stupid Manager" and "Red Sorghum" which won an award at the West Berlin Film Festival.

To say that there is a gap between the old and the new is an exaggeration. No wonder the number of moviegoers in the mainland continues to decrease by millions.

There are no good movies, so what’s the point of watching them?

So if Ning Weimin doesn't want to see history repeat itself, and wants to do his best to bring more benefits to people in the mainland entertainment industry in the next 20 years, he should prevent all the meat from being snatched away by "foreign monks".

How to deal with this will be a huge challenge for Ning Weimin. (End of this chapter)