Huayu: Starting from Fahrenheit

Chapter 427 Record Pricing
The signing ceremony between Wu Zhuo and Sony Music caused a huge sensation.

Firstly, in China, most people don't know what Wu Zhuo joining Sony Music means.

But that exorbitant signing fee alone was enough to make the media collectively go wild.

Wu Zhuo signs contract with Sony for a record-breaking signing fee.

[6000 million, not RMB, but USD, makes Wu Zhuo one of the highest-paid singers globally.]

[A star! Sony offered a record-breaking 4.2 million yuan signing fee to secure the contract of international superstar Wu Zhuo.]

Meanwhile, news of Sony Music signing Wu Zhuo quickly spread overseas.

While people abroad were equally incredulous at Wu Zhuo's signing fee, news of the upcoming release of his new album also spread far and wide along with the sensation caused by this signing.

In New York, Jamie plopped down in front of his computer as soon as he got back from playing basketball.

After playing basketball, the next step is, of course, to play video games.

After logging into his League of Legends account, he opened Spotify, the largest music platform in the United States, found his favorite singer Abel Wu, and clicked play all songs.

“oh whoa…oh whoa…”

You know you love me, I know you care.

"Just call me and I will appear immediately."

……

Jamie hummed along to the music and started the game.

The two games ended quickly, and the songs playing in the headphones had already reached the eleventh song.

It's a Chinese song called "The Wind Rises".

This song is one of Wu Zhuo's more popular Chinese songs abroad, even more popular than some of his English songs.

“Stop and go along the way”

"Follow the traces of youth drifting"

Jamie hummed along to Wu Zhuo's song, and surprisingly, he sang it exactly the same.

After the song "The Wind Rises" ended, Jamie temporarily turned off the music.

He was a little tired.

Moreover, he had listened to almost all of Wu Zhuo's songs. Listening to them repeatedly would make even the best songs a bit tiresome.

"I wonder when Abel will release another song! It's been a year and there's still no news."

Jamie muttered to himself as he opened Facebook and found Wu Zhuo's account.

I glanced at the latest post; it was posted yesterday.

"The scene of signing the contract with Sony Music."

The text is accompanied by an image.

The picture above is a photo of Wu Zhuo shaking hands with the president of Sony.

"Abel, when are you going to release your new song?"

"Congratulations to Abel on joining the new company. Hope you release an album soon."

"Ahhh... Abel, have you forgotten your fans in Europe and America?"

The comments section was filled with urging Wu Zhuo to release a new song.

Jamie was also annoyed.

That damn Abel, he hasn't released an album in over a year.

Surprisingly, they weren't in a hurry at all.

He also opened the comments and posted:
"I've been waiting day after day, Abel, when are you going to release a new album? If you don't release an album soon, next time you come to America, I'll let you try this."

Jamie simply posted a picture of a gun.

Goodness, Jamie seems to have triggered a chain reaction.

In the subsequent comments, various threatening remarks increased.

Some even said that if Wu Zhuo doesn't release an album within a month, they'll beat him up the next time they see him.

……

He frequently follows Wu Zhuo's Facebook account.

He would go online from time to time to interact with his fans.

That evening, after finishing work and returning home, he turned on his phone as usual.

I logged in and checked my Weibo account first.

He joined Weibo last year at the invitation of the blog.

He doesn't need to do any marketing; as soon as he joined, his number of followers exceeded several million, and has now exceeded ten million, making him the celebrity with the most followers on Weibo.

After interacting with people on Weibo for a while, Wu Zhuo finally opened Facebook.

His Facebook following is equally large, even surpassing that of Weibo in China, with 23 million followers, second only to Jackie Chan, making him one of the top 20 people with the most Facebook followers.

"I am grass."

When Wu Zhuo opened the comments section, he was immediately startled by the threatening comments that filled the entire section.

"I didn't offend you guys, did I?!"

Wu Zhuo swiped down and glanced at it.

Goodness, the number of comments has exceeded two million, and most of them are threatening him to release an album soon.

Although Wu Zhuo knew that most of these people were joking.

But this still made him a little apprehensive.

Everyone knows there are a lot of crazy people in America.

Who knows if one of these lunatics might actually come looking for him with a bang-bang-bang when he goes to America next time.

So he quickly posted an update.

"The new album is complete. Pre-orders will begin globally on March 3rd, and it will be officially released on the 15th. Please give it your support."

Then, those friends who preach the truth, please remain rational.

He also included a picture of his new album below the text.

"If we don't send out 'bang bang bang,' are you not going to tell us?"

"Abel, you're so inconsiderate. Remember to report more often in the future."

"I knew it. When faced with the truth, even Abel has to obediently submit."

It was daytime in North America, and countless people were watching Wu Zhuo's every move.

He had just posted a Facebook update when a series of replies immediately appeared below.

Wu Zhuo, somewhat speechless, replied to the guy who said there is no God before the truth:

"Yes, everything is fair and just in the face of truth."

Wu Zhuo is not worried that his Facebook post will disrupt Sony's publicity.

His original plan was to promote it on Facebook.

It's just a day or two earlier now.

Wu Zhuo has a lot of followers on Facebook.

Within half an hour of the post being published, it had received over 200,000 likes and over 100,000 shares.

"Ahhh, I've finally waited for this!"

"There aren't many good songs this year, so we'll have to rely on Abel."

"Yes, I've been waiting for Abel to release an album, but there's been no news."

"It can't be fake, right?"

"@Upstairs, it's true. Sony has announced that pre-orders will begin on the 3rd. Online and offline sales will be available simultaneously."

Now in 2011, all advertising models have undergone a complete reshuffle.

With his past life experience, Wu Zhuo is clearly at the forefront this time.

Most of the promotion for his new album was concentrated online.

To this end, Sony contacted a large number of popular Facebook influencers to participate in advertising Wu Zhuo's new album.

[Abel's new album is out! I've already received the free sample, it's so cool! This is definitely the best album I've listened to this year.]

[I highly recommend everyone check out the song "Faded," it's amazing! A completely new musical style and concept, it's practically a must-have for clubbing!] [Thanks to Abel for the album, I've received it, and after listening to it, I only have one word to say: Awesome!]

Numerous online influencers have been actively promoting Wu Zhuo's new album on platforms such as Facebook.

Meanwhile, offline, advertisements for Wu Zhuo's new album release began playing continuously on the giant screen in Times Square, New York.

Then, posters announcing the release of Wu Zhuo's new album were uniformly pasted on the entrances of offline stores.

It's worth mentioning that Wu Zhuo's album wasn't released online as he had initially planned.

Sony believes that the traditional offline record market still has potential.

Therefore, just like the previous album, this album will be released simultaneously online and offline.

If you enjoy listening to music online, you can buy albums on several leading music platforms in Europe and America.

If you prefer listening to CDs, you can also buy physical albums at traditional record stores.

Of course, this takes into account that the audience has now largely moved online.

The main promotional focus for Wu Zhuo's album is still online.

While numerous influential figures and social media influencers on Facebook recommended Abel Wu's new album, several music platforms that have partnered with Sony also prominently featured the release date of Abel Wu's new album on their homepages.

Not just in North America.

In Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other regions, the promotion of Wu Zhuo's new album became a hot topic due to Sony Music's aggressive marketing campaign.

On the 1st, after some back and forth with various platforms, the pricing for Wu Zhuo's album in Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea was finally revealed.

First, in North America, the official digital album is priced at $8, the same as the physical CD, while the vinyl record is priced at $15.99.

In Japan, the digital album is priced at 2100 yen, which is approximately 101 yuan.

In South Korea, it costs 1.2 won, which is about 60 yuan.

In fact, Wu Zhuo also wanted to standardize pricing.

However, this is unrealistic because the demand for records and the differences in economies in different countries result in different record prices.

A uniform price would only be possible if it were set at a very low price.

Otherwise, it's easy for prices to become too high in certain areas.

The current pricing is based on factors such as the general price of record sales in the local market and Wu Zhuo's popularity.

And without a doubt, record prices are the highest in Japan.

There's nothing we can do about it; Japanese records are just that expensive to begin with.

The singers in Xiao Rizi (a popular Taiwanese singer-songwriter) are exploiting their fans, so Wu Zhuo (another singer-songwriter) can't break the rules and set a very low price!
As an international artist who doesn't often perform in Japan, setting the price at 2100 yen is actually a way of taking care of his fans.

If someone else were in Wu Zhuo's position, they would probably quote a price of three or four thousand yen.

Of course, this is actually related to Japan's high per capita income.

High per capita income naturally leads to higher prices.

Similarly, due to the high price of records, Japan has consistently been the number one record market in Asia and the second largest market in the world.

Even Western singers cannot ignore this market.

There's a saying in Europe and America that if your records don't sell well in Japan, then no matter how popular you are in Europe and America, you can't be considered a global superstar.

After pricing was finalized in the other regions, pricing in the domestic market was the subject of another round of debate.

Yes, it was an argument.

Wu Zhuo himself felt that the domestic digital music market was immature, and the maximum price he could set was 30 yuan.

Sony felt the price was too low and disagreed; their target price was 45 yuan.

Wu Zhuo and Sony argued about this several times.

Finally, both sides compromised and set the price at 37 yuan.

This price includes Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Wu Zhuo has always been a staunch supporter of unification.

Since he is a pro-unification advocate, he will not discriminate in this regard.

Even though the general pricing in Hong Kong and Taiwan could be higher, he gave up setting a price higher than that in mainland China.

Once the price was set, Wu Zhuo immediately began promoting the album.

Because he is also busy filming "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", Wu Zhuo's promotional plan this time is to hold a large-scale fan meeting in several major countries.

The first event will begin in Shanghai.

Once this is finished, he will immediately fly to Hong Kong and Taiwan, then Japan, South Korea and Singapore, then North America, Canada, Australia, and then Europe.

Undoubtedly, due to the large number of scenes, filming for "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" will have to be postponed again.

Stephen Chow's side had no objection to this.

He wasn't in a hurry to begin with.

Then he thought that the higher Wu Zhuo's global reputation, the higher the selling price of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" would be in the global market.

The reason why Wu Zhuo is now being pursued by film companies in the country is because of this.

Besides his great influence in the country.

Another major reason is his international influence.

Every movie he stars in fetches a high price internationally.

Leaving aside North America, just looking at Japan and South Korea, Wu Zhuo's "Ip Man" series, "Fleet of Time", "Painted Skin", and even the very first one, "Connected", were all imported and screened in Japan and South Korea.

And each of them achieved very high box office returns in their respective regions.

Among them, "Ip Man 2," which had just finished its run a month ago, even topped the weekly charts in South Korea for two consecutive weeks.

Because of his strong box office appeal in Japan and South Korea, film distributors in those countries typically buy the rights to his movies at extremely high prices.

He almost recreated the glory days of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, and others.

That's why, even if Stephen Chow had to wait, he would wait until Wu Zhuo finished promoting the album.

On March 3, Wu Zhuo's fan meeting in Shanghai officially began.

Considering the large number of fans attending, Wu Zhuo did not choose a regular square, but instead made a reservation at the Shanghai Stadium.

The stadium can accommodate 1.8 people, which is just right for use.

In fact, Wu Zhuo's fan meeting could be considered a mini-concert.

He was going to perform two songs that were already available on music platforms that day, "Special Person" and "Actor," as well as some of his previous songs.

On that day, all 18,000 seats at the venue were filled.

These fans all came in by purchasing tickets.

In fact, Wu Zhuo didn't want it to be like this either.

He also wants to meet with his fans for free.

But it's impossible.

Given his current popularity, if he were to hold a free fan meeting, it would likely cause widespread traffic congestion in the area.

It's even possible that students from other cities might skip class to come and participate.

Furthermore, if he were to organize a free event, securing a venue would be extremely difficult.
There are almost no suitable venues for him to hold free fan meet-and-greets now.

Therefore, in order to avoid causing trouble for the local area and to screen out too many people, he specifically set a requirement for ticket purchase for entry.

Of course, this is not an isolated case for Wu Zhuo.

In fact, whether it's a domestic or foreign singer, many of the so-called fan meetings actually require tickets to enter.

Many of them are even more ruthless than Wu Zhuo.

Because fan meet-and-greets are the kind of events that allow for close interaction.

Many companies set very high prices.

Among them were people who offered prices as high as a thousand yuan.

Compared to them, Wu Zhuo charges a fee, but it's not expensive, only 70 yuan per person.

Of course, many people came.

Other people's fan meetings usually don't have more than a thousand people.

Only Wu Zhuo can manage to get over 10,000 people attending his fan meetings.

(End of this chapter)