Restart life

Chapter 460-0450 [Guiding the Stars]

The place Zhang Chaoyang brought Chen Daoming to for dinner was the same private restaurant he often ate at.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Chen Daoming explained the situation: "I'm very sorry, I just renewed my contract with Prida last month. It's a three-year exclusive mobile phone endorsement."

"It's okay, we can cooperate again in the future." Chen Guiliang was speechless when he heard this.

Since Chen Daoming has been the spokesperson for Prida, even if the contract is not renewed this year, Chen Guiliang will definitely not invite Chen Daoming again.

Because Prida is too low-class!
This company originated in Shenzhen. It initially relied on Huaqiangbei to make counterfeit mobile phones. A few years ago, like Tianyu, it obtained a license and became a legitimate company.

This year, Prida also launched a smartphone, but it is a pseudo-smartphone equipped with the MTK platform.

Its selling points include long battery life, dual SIM dual standby, large keyboard, counterfeit money detector light, large speaker, large screen handwriting, one-click hiding of contacts... It can only be said that this product is quite suitable for middle-aged and elderly successful people, and having Chen Daoming as the spokesperson is particularly in line with the market.

Forget it, I'm too lazy to hire a spokesperson, I'll just make a TV commercial without any characters appearing.

The three of them sat down to eat.

Chen Daoming is not a man of many words, but he is not a silent one either; he always knows how to respond at crucial moments.

Zhang Chaoyang asked curiously, "How did you manage to poach Ye Peng? He's incredibly talented; he was responsible for Baidu's marketing reforms and channel restructuring over the past two years."

Chen Guiliang was both amused and exasperated: "Brother, you really specialize in studying Baidu? You should spend more time studying your Sohu instead."

"Sohu is doing quite well now," Zhang Chaoyang said.

In the years leading up to Baidu's rapid expansion, channel management became chaotic, the sales team was inefficient, and customer service quality was inconsistent. Ye Peng was the one who cleaned up all these messes.

In addition, he has many other achievements at Baidu, which I will not go into detail here.

Ye Peng has now left Baidu, and Xiang Hailong has taken over his position. Baidu's marketing strategy will soon change, shifting from focusing on channel management to maximizing traffic monetization; from keyword advertising to full-domain marketing that takes advantage of every opportunity.

To put it bluntly, Ye Peng set up the framework and followed the rules, while Xiang Hailong just went for it if he had money.

Chen Guiliang said, "He resigned on his own; it has nothing to do with me."

“He has risen very quickly in the past two years, and is now almost second only to one person at Baidu. Why would he resign voluntarily under such circumstances?” Zhang Chaoyang said he found it hard to believe.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "He said he was sick."

Zhang Chaoyang laughed: "There are quite a few sick people in that place."

Chen Guiliang changed the subject: "Stop developing Sohu Weibo. What's the point of throwing money into it every day? And Sohu Blog too, how many people still use that stuff?"

"I'm just waiting for ByteDance's Weibo to make a mistake, and then I'll seize the opportunity to take over the market!" Zhang Chaoyang stated his thoughts directly.

Chen Guiliang said, "Whatever makes you happy. How much of the current group-buying traffic are you handling?"

Zhang Chaoyang said, "Anyway, it's no worse than Sina Weibo."

This month, the "hundred-group war" has evolved into a "thousand-group war," with all sorts of random websites launching group-buying promotions.

Moreover, without Chen Guiliang's guidance, Weibo became the main battlefield for the group-buying war. Merchants and users on ByteDance, Sina, Sohu, Tencent, and other Weibo platforms posted group-buying information every day.

Many Weibo users even follow each other because of group buying, agreeing to do group buying together even though they don't know each other.

Chen Daoming suddenly asked, "What is group buying?"

Zhang Chaoyang explained: "It's group shopping. Merchants offer group discounts online, and consumers who know each other or don't know each other can buy together."

According to his understanding, Chen Daoming said, "It's like a group of consumers coming together to do small-scale wholesale with merchants?"

“That makes sense,” Chen Guiliang said.

Chen Daoming praised, "You IT elites are quite resourceful."

Faced with the group-buying model, Chen Guiliang reacted the fastest, launching new features on Renren.com, HaiNei.com, and ByteDance Weibo. This made group buying more convenient for users and easier for merchants to publish group-buying information.

It took Sina Weibo more than half a month to catch up with the group-buying feature launched by Chen Guiliang, and I wonder how many hairs the Sina Weibo programmers lost.

As for Sohu, it was a week later than Sina.

This wave of group-buying traffic has been incredibly lucrative for ByteDance's various social media products. ByteDance's Weibo, in particular, has further widened its user base, leaving Sohu, Sina, and Tencent far behind.

After finishing their meal and conversation, Zhang Chaoyang invited them to have some fun.

Chen Daoming politely declined.

Chen Guiliang simply said he had something to do and drove to pick up Xu Fengyin to go shopping.

"It's the weekend after all, and you're bringing me here to shop?" Xu Fengyin looked at the Hailong Building.

Chen Guiliang said, "Just taking a look around."

The G7 ham sausage has gone on sale, and Chen Guiliang wants to know how well it's selling.

Xu Fengyin was initially a little unhappy, but when she saw the Ham Sausage G7 on the counter, her eyes lit up: "Wow, this phone is so beautiful!"

Chen Guiliang took it and looked at it, then called Zhou Guangping: "How does the Ham Sausage G7's unibody aluminum alloy design avoid signal problems?"

Zhou Guangping said, "We just studied it, and strictly speaking, it's not a unibody metal design. There's a noticeable horizontal break at the bottom, with a plastic window embedded inside, where the phone's cellular antenna is located. There's also a plastic strip on the back, where the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS antennas are located. Don't worry, it can't compare to our M1."

After repeated and careful observation, Chen Guiliang discovered that the design of this sausage casing did indeed have a sense of separation, with the metal being divided by plastic strips.

It looks impressive at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it's not so appealing.

Zhou Guangping asked, "Have you come up with a name change for M1?"

Chen Guiliang said, "How about we create a Big Dipper series? No English letters or Arabic numerals, just a completely Chinese name. Hongmeng M1 will be renamed 'Hongmeng·Tianshu'. I've even thought of the advertising slogan: 'Creating the world, guiding the stars.' Creating the world is Hongmeng, guiding the stars is Tianshu, also implying that this phone leads the era." Pretty cringeworthy.

"Isn't using only Chinese insufficient for internationalization?" Zhou Guangping asked with concern.

Chen Guiliang said, "As long as the mobile phones are made well, I don't care whether they are internationalized or not."

Zhou Guangping said, "You should discuss it with Ye Peng. I won't get involved in the marketing."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Guiliang walked back to the counter: "How are these sausages selling?"

The sales clerk recognized Chen Guiliang immediately: "It's selling quite well. It's not exactly a blockbuster, but it's definitely a popular phone."

"Thank you."

Chen Guiliang then said to Xu Fengyin, "I'll give you a real all-metal unibody phone another day. This one's a bit of a trick, it has a plastic bridge on the back."

"Is this one pretty?" Xu Fengyin asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "It's much prettier than that."

Earlier this year, Google also entered the smartphone market, launching the "Google Nexus One." However, it was not released in China.

The Samsung i9000 was just released in China, priced at 4999 yuan. It's clearly aiming to compete directly with the Apple 3GS, as they are priced exactly the same.

The smartphone market is becoming increasingly competitive.

Nokia's smartphone market share is declining rapidly and is estimated to drop to around 50% by the end of this year.

HarmonyOS phones are under a lot of pressure. Last year, there were few competitors in the same price range, which is why they were frequently sold out. This year, consumers have more choices, and there are phones at all price points. Capacitive screen phones from the Android camp are about to make a major incursion.

The two strolled around for another ten minutes before going downstairs and driving to the actual shopping street.

Chen Guiliang bought Xu Fengyin a bag.

Xu Fengyin was quite happy carrying the bag. She was after Chen Guiliang's body, but she would accept luxury gifts if given to her.

I bought a bag, went to see a movie, had dinner in the evening, and then went to the hotel.

The clouds dispersed and the rain stopped. Xu Fengyin was too tired to move, so she lay down next to Chen Guiliang and browsed Weibo.

"What are you doing?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Xu Fengyin said, "Group buying is very popular now. If you don't understand group buying, you'll be out of touch."

Chen Guiliang remarked, "You white-collar elites really know how to be fashionable."

Xu Fengyin laughed and said, "So you're just making money off us, right?"

"That's quite true," Chen Guiliang laughed.

After finishing her group purchase, Xu Fengyin continued scrolling through entertainment news. This girl has become so vulgar; she used to barely read entertainment gossip, but now she's obsessed with Weibo, eating melons every day.

Moreover, Zhuo Wei has also made a splash this year, from exposing Feng Xiaogang's extramarital affair at the beginning of the year to having new scandals revealed almost every month.

It did, however, attract several waves of traffic to ByteDance's Weibo account.

Chen Guiliang leaned over for a look and was speechless. "The charity fraud scandal is still going on? Isn't this the kind of gossip that came out before the Spring Festival?"

Xu Fengyin said, "Someone has dug up new information related to the ink-splashing incident. The water seems to be quite deep, and I estimate it will be censored soon."

Sigh, we can't let Xu Fengyin be the only one who's vulgar, so Chen Guiliang also took out his phone and started playing with it.

It's all a mistake of the times; we shouldn't have had Weibo in the first place.

In the past, after they finished their business, they would definitely be cuddling together and being affectionate right now, instead of lying on their respective beds playing on their phones.

It seems like we've jumped to a new era in an instant.

Xu Fengyin suddenly asked, "You're a celebrity too, and you live in Beijing. What if Zhuo Wei takes a picture of you one day? Don't let him take pictures of us."

"Who cares? I'm thick-skinned, I'll just ignore it." Chen Guiliang is becoming more and more understanding now.

"Wow, there's some new gossip!" Xu Fengyin exclaimed in surprise.

Chen Guiliang asked, "What new melon?"

Xu Fengyin said, "Ziwei got into a car holding hands with a director named Wang Xiaoshuai. Wang Xiaoshuai sounds familiar, what movies has he directed?"

Chen Guiliang glanced at it and said, "The photos are so clear, it's probably a publicity stunt to promote Wang Xiaoshuai's new film. Now they release the photos to attract attention, then deny it to attract more attention, then insiders dig deeper to attract more attention, and then the person involved denies it again. One photo can cause a lot of trouble for months."

"Haha, it seems like that really works." Xu Fengyin laughed.

Xu Fengyin went to Ziwei's Weibo and refreshed it several times before laughing, "Ziwei has denied the rumors, saying she's still single and needed help when she was drunk... That's pure nonsense. She walks so steadily in the photos. Who can't tell the difference between holding hands and being helped?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Big sister, spend less time on Weibo in the future. It's no fun following entertainment gossip all the time."

"What's interesting?" Xu Fengyin asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "Draw some fan art when you're free. I really like your art style, especially the bondage and tentacles..."

Xu Fengyin said, "I only drew those things to relieve boredom before I had a man. What's the point of drawing them now that I have a man? I'll draw them again when you're no longer able to."

"Who says I can't do it?" Chen Guiliang roared, flipping over and lunging forward to demonstrate his strength.

(End of this chapter)