Back to the teenage years

Chapter 562 Quality
Zhang Yunqi was sitting alone in a taxi, heading back to the Kempinski Hotel. Through the window, he saw a night bird circling in the sky, looking solitary, which made him feel quite annoyed by the spring breeze.

He felt somewhat sympathetic.

Don’t you want to stay in a hotel with him when you first meet him?
With this in mind, Zhang Yunqi began to wonder whether he should buy a courtyard house in the capital. There was no need to elaborate on the appreciation of the house. As long as he bought it, his billionaire fortune would increase by several hundred million. The most important thing was that he would no longer have to live in the dormitory and be checked by the dormitory aunt! He could hug his wife and talk about his ideal life all night long!

The Kempinski Hotel was not far away. When Zhang Yunqi arrived, Hu Zhibiao and his group of seven or eight people were already waiting for him at the door of the room. They were all middle and senior management and key business personnel from the Aihua Operations Center, as well as Wang Xiaokai, who were going to report to him as their boss.

Zhang Yunqi opened the door and everyone went into the living room of the suite. After the waiter served tea, fruits and snacks and left, Hu Zhibiao reported the general situation to Zhang Yunqi.

In just this short afternoon, Hu Zhibiao's team did a lot of things. They went to CCTV to coordinate advertising, and went to the advertising production company to implement the new product launch of Aiwa Electronics. Tomorrow he plans to lead the team to visit the capital's supermarket channels, and at the same time arrange for people to recruit and set up an office in the capital to facilitate subsequent market operations.

In terms of CCTV advertising, in fact, the bidding for CCTV's prime time this year was completed as early as November last year. The most popular bid was of course the "A Special Segment", such as the advertising broadcasting rights after the "News Broadcast". These time periods have always been regarded as "nuclear weapons" for brand exposure because they cover hundreds of millions of viewers across the country. Major companies need to compete for the year-round broadcasting rights through sky-high bidding.

Aiwa Electronics was established in early October last year. It was not realistic for them to compete for the CCTV bid in November, and they did not have the funds. Of course, in addition to the November bidding, CCTV also has other advertising sales activities, such as quarterly bidding, monthly bidding, or separate bidding for advertisements for certain special programs, direct negotiation or separate bidding for special projects. Zhang Yunqi's idea is to continue to follow last year's strategy to launch this year's Jackie Chan "Good Kung Fu Version" new advertisement.

In terms of the marketing activities for Aiwa Electronics' new VCD player, Zhang Yunqi was more in favor of Hu Zhibiao's strategy of local TV station advertising + shopping mall bundling sales. This was a sustainable marketing strategy, but it lacked a hot topic. What he needed now was a way to make Aiwa Electronics' VCD a big hit at the new product launch conference.

Zhang Yunqi thought for a moment and said, "This time, our new generation of Aiwa Electronics VCD players feature the super error correction function. In this case, my idea is to hold a super error correction competition at this new product launch conference."

Hu Zhibiao was stunned: "Ring match?"

Wang Xiaokai, who was standing beside him, was always smart: "Are we going to compare our product with other manufacturers' products in terms of VCD error correction function?"

Zhang Yunqi nodded.

Hu Zhibiao also understood what Zhang Yunqi meant. He lit a cigarette and said, "Since it's a competition, the function competition must be eye-catching, have a gimmick, and be direct enough. Boss, this seems to be quite difficult to achieve."

Zhang Yunqi couldn't help laughing when he heard this.

Because the Super Error Correction Competition was a classic marketing case of Hu Zhibiao in his previous life. If he was stumped, there would be no way to do this.

According to what Hu Zhibiao did in his previous life, this competition was to set up "rings" in major electrical appliance stores, and consumers would bring their own scratched discs and play them on Aiwa VCD players. The violent test would prove the VCD player's super error correction ability. If successful, the consumer would receive 10 genuine discs as gifts, and then the competition would be widely promoted through television and newspapers.

Of course, there will be many creative challenges in the middle, such as the extreme challenge, where the staff randomly draws a level 5 damaged disc. If you play it for 30 seconds without any lag, you will be given a "Titanic" VCD. If you fail, you will be given a new machine on the spot. There is also a ring PK, where some users of competing products are invited to PK on the same stage, play the same damaged disc, and use a decibel meter to measure the cheers on the spot to decide the winner.

The competition organized by Hu Zhibiao in his previous life was definitely a classic example of offline marketing in China in the 90s. During the event, Aido Electronics' VCD sales soared from an average of 3 units per month to 12 units, and its market share jumped directly from 14% to 31%. Its annual sales soared by 300%, and it became one of the undoubted industry leaders that year! More importantly, this super error correction competition caught its competitors off guard. Shinco urgently launched an advertisement that "sandpaper can't wear it down". Wanlida was even more furious and even criticized Aido's "violent marketing misleading consumers" on "Focus Interview", but this did not affect Aido Electronics' continued trend in the Chinese DVD player market.

After this commercial war, error correction function became the standard feature of China's VCD player industry. The industry's error correction standard was forced to upgrade, and the error rate of mainstream models increased from 10^-4 to 10^-6. That year, the National Quality Supervision and Inspection Administration's random inspection showed that the proportion of consumers asking about "error correction capability" when buying VCDs increased from 18% to 79%!

Zhang Yunqi vaguely remembers that the Chinese VCD player market was plunged into a melee over the "error correction function" in June 1996.

It was still early April 1996, and he believed that Aiwa Electronics' competitors did not really pay attention to how important the VCD super error correction function was to the Chinese pirated DVD player market! Otherwise, Shinco and Wanlida in the past would not have been beaten so badly by Aido Electronics.

To take a step back, even if they knew, these manufacturers would not be able to catch up with Aiwa Electronics, because it used a record-breaking order of 4 million yuan to lock in the underlying protocol of Philips' movement, and could directly graft the super error correction function!
As for those competitors who are slow to react, it can be predicted that after they react to the business war initiated by Aiwa Electronics, they will inevitably have to spend some time negotiating with the American ESS company, plug-in the ES3207 decoding chip, and forcibly modify the error correction logic of the original Philips movement to enhance their error correction performance. However, this will also increase the cost of their VCD players and increase the failure rate, resulting in a shortened movement life!
Under such circumstances, how can these friendly competitors compete with Aiwa Electronics?

Thinking of this, Zhang Yunqi did not hesitate. He said to Hu Zhibiao, "I'll give your team a week to plan and implement this matter. Is there any problem?"

Hu Zhibiao put out his cigarette and nodded.

His mind works quickly enough when it comes to market operations. He used to think it was a bit difficult to visualize, but now he thinks it is not that complicated. The complicated part is whether he can come up with a creative idea. Once he has one, the next step is to deal with the specific issues of implementation.

Of course, the materials for the implementation of the plan cannot be prepared in a few days. Tomorrow is Friday, and the event must be held on the weekend when there are many people, and it also needs preheating, so Zhang Yunqi temporarily scheduled the event for next Saturday.

He said, "In a word, we must use the flow of people to create a crowd-watching effect, so the preheating must be done well, and television, newspaper media and radio stations must all be used. For example, you can call in on the radio station, and listeners can call the hotline to describe the disc problem, and have a chance to win a 'VIP seat in the competition' to attract the audience. By the way, tomorrow you can arrange for someone to post a challenge letter of "You dare to draw, I dare to broadcast - Aihua VCD National Competition"! This kind of suspense marketing, you are better than me."

Hu Zhibiao smiled and said, "Boss, you're putting a lot of pressure on me. I'll think about it carefully over the next two days, and I'll come up with a specific implementation plan the night after tomorrow. Other plans will also be advanced simultaneously."

Although Hu Zhibiao said this, he was still very confident in his marketing planning ability. Of course, his execution ability was indeed very strong.

Zhang Yunqi drank a sip of Longjing tea and started to draw a big picture: "There is motivation only when there is pressure. Last year, Aihua was mainly struggling in the central China region. I believe you all know that this new product launch conference is our clarion call to enter the national market. It will determine the position and market share of Aihua Electronics in the entire Chinese VCD player industry. If it succeeds, we will all share the benefits. Bonuses will definitely be included, and I will allocate another option, and you can share it according to your performance."

The middle and senior managers of Aiwa Electronics Operation Center present were very moved by the last sentence. In fact, they were not familiar with this young boss and had few opportunities to meet him, but from the company's rules and regulations and welfare benefits, there was one thing that they were deeply touched by: Zhang Yunqi did what he said.

Zhang Yunqi added: "I think we should hold the first match in Xidan Electric City in the capital, where there are many people. Once the market heats up, the competition will be fully rolled out in first- and second-tier cities across the country."

At this point, Zhang Yunqi put down his teacup and said, "But in this way, we will inevitably have to fight with our friendly merchants in the four major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Well, let's test our quality."

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