Huayu: This celebrity doesn't follow the rules.

Chapter 47 The Battle of Traffic-Driven Imitation (Seeking Monthly Tickets, Brother)
Jiang Ye scribbled his battle plan all over the whiteboard in the conference room, the ink from his marker almost seeping through to the back of the board.

The five newlyweds huddled in a corner, clutching their laptops. Bai Mengyan kept refilling the coffee pot, and the air was filled with the mixed smell of instant coffee and tension.

She followed Jiang Ye around all day, thriving as his assistant and almost forgetting that she was supposed to be in the entertainment industry...

"Thank you all for your hard work, still working overtime so late!" Jiang Ye placed the tablet on the table. "For the next week, we need to give it our all. The higher the number of views for the show, the higher your bonuses will be!"

After making his promises, he began to assign tasks.

“Little Grass,” he said, looking at the chubby girl with glasses, “your twenty regional groups are too scattered. Tonight, merge them into three groups of two thousand each.”

He tapped the table with his fingertips. "Don't bother with Baidu for the group announcement. Just say 'Welcome to come and criticize. If you criticize well, we'll give you the same sandals as the princess.' Find Wang Meng to cut out a picture of the shoes and put it up."

? ? ? ? ?

Li Xiaocao was taken aback, but still nodded while biting the pen, the pen tip poking a hole in the notebook.

She wouldn't have come to this new company if she hadn't heard that she could see celebrities there!
She was just there to coast along, so she did whatever the boss told her to do...

Who knows when it will go bankrupt!

Jiang Ye had already turned to Zhang Meng, who was still holding the list of influential figures with the prices changed.

“Your misspelling of ‘male to female’ is actually a hook.” Jiang Ye suddenly laughed. “@ChasingDramaGirlMeow’s copywriting starts with what a male transmigrates into as a female, pulling the gender misplacement trope to the extreme, such as what expression a straight man would have if he suddenly got his period.”

He paused, then added, "Add another sentence: the princess's hands were shaking when she flirted with the palace maids. Post #ThePrincessIsPoisonous# and #MengZiyi'sAuraOfAggression# together."

Zhang Meng paused, her pen poised: "Then, @FujoshiDaily, should we mention the scenes between the Crown Prince and the Ninth Prince?"

“Mention it, of course we’ll mention it.” Jiang Ye pulled over a whiteboard marker and underlined the word “bromance.” “Let them write that the Crown Princess is sandwiched between two handsome men and is actually thinking about braised pork. Use the edited screenshot of the Crown Princess glaring at the elbow as the accompanying picture. Even though her face looks like an inflatable doll, it’s still a good contrast.”

Wang Meng exclaimed "Ah!" and her face instantly turned bright red.

She joined the company because she thought the boss was handsome...

Jiang Ye turned to her and said, "Don't keep your Photoshop skills to yourself. Take all the costumes that were made from gauze skirts and curtains in the drama and make a collection of Taobao-style outfits from the Crown Princess's wardrobe."

"Let's find a few more good costumes borrowed from my school for comparison. Don't worry about whether they're new or old, just pick the ones with the best texture and take high-resolution screenshots. On one side are the gauze skirts made from our curtains, with open-toed sandals and court robes, and on the other side are those proper python robes embroidered with gold thread. Let's put them together in a nine-square grid."

"Send it to @FilmCriticismFirstOfTheDayTomorrow and tell them to criticize it as much as they want, without holding back at all."

While Xiao Liu and Xiao Chen were still staring blankly at the Excel sheet, Jiang Ye handed them a stack of printed screenshots of the bullet comments.

He pointed to the screenshot of a comment about "hair being blown around by a wind machine," and said, "You two should extract all the comments containing the word 'poor' and compile them into the TOP 10 most embarrassing scenes of the production crew being poor."

He thought for a moment and added, "For example, the whole cast shares one lipstick, and the guards' armor is made of paper. Organize it and send it to Li Xiaocao so she can find a marketing account to post the hashtag #HowPoorIsTheFilmSet# tomorrow."

"..."

The meeting lasted for more than an hour. Finally, Jiang Ye threw the marker into the whiteboard tray. The pen hit the metal and made a crisp sound, which made the newcomers in the corner shrink their necks.

He rested his hands on the conference table, his gaze sweeping over the faces filled with confusion, and suddenly chuckled softly.

“You must be a little confused right now.” He bent down, picked up the tablet, and opened the screenshot of the barrage of complaints. “But look closely, each of these comments that call it ‘outrageous’ and ‘cheap’ has more than a dozen replies arguing about it.”

"So from now on, there's only one thing you need to do: turn these insults into hooks."

Jiang Ye then walked to the whiteboard and drew a huge arrow at the very top with a marker, pointing from "criticism" to "trending topics".

“I’ve got it,” he turned around, a fierce glint in his eyes, “What we need now isn’t reputation, but to have the entire Weibo community discussing just how outrageous that ridiculous and low-budget ‘Princess Promotion’ really is.”

"Being criticized is still being criticized; once everyone is criticizing you, the traffic and data will naturally come."

"..."

At three in the morning, Jiang Ye sat alone in his office, the blue light from the computer screen reflecting on his tired but excited face.

He opened QQ, found a contact whose nickname was "Chief Instructor of the Online Trolls," and typed a line of text:

"Let's get started!"

A few seconds later, the other party replied:
"Understood, target has been locked onto 'Men's Diary 3'."

……

The next day, in Yanjing, at the Sohu Media Building.

Da Peng walked into the conference room with a cup of coffee. On the wall, data reports from the "Diao Si Men" series were projected:

《屌丝男士3》，2014年3月26日搜狐视频独家上线，30天播放量突破4.2亿次，单集最高播放量5800万次。

The entire series, spanning three seasons, has accumulated 14.3 billion views, accounting for 18% of the platform's total online drama views that year.

Weibo topic popularity: The main topic #DiaosiMen# has garnered 15.7 billion views and 826 million discussions.

"How's the script discussion for season four going?" Da Peng asked, flipping through the project proposal.

Xiao Zhang from the scriptwriting team adjusted his glasses: "It's still being optimized, but what Director Zhang means is..."

He paused for a moment, then said, "The cost needs to be reduced by another 20%, and it would be best to include more advertisements."

Da Peng didn't say anything, but just took a sip of coffee and sneered inwardly.

Cut costs again? Do they really think the audience can't tell it's shoddy?
He is currently the deputy general manager of Sohu Video Content Center, and also serves as the director and lead actor of the "Diaosi Men" series.

"Dapeng Studio" was just registered on the 4th of this month.

He's been a bit irritable lately!
Zhang Chaoyang advocates for "traffic priority" and demands increased advertising integration.

Dapeng insists on "content as the foundation" and believes that excessive commercialization damages the user experience.

At the planning meeting a few days ago, Da Peng even questioned him directly: "Are you going to cut costs again? Are you going to make the actors bring their own lunch boxes to film?" However, at this time, he did not have the idea of ​​starting his own business.

What truly prompted him to consider leaving Sohu was the movie "Jianbing Man".

Released in July 2015, the film grossed 11.6 billion yuan on a budget of 50 million yuan. As the director, he did not receive a single penny, only a basic salary of 10,000 yuan.

Even so, he didn't leave Sohu until 2018!

The assistant knocked and came in, looking rather grim: "Brother Peng, the public opinion team just detected some...unfriendly discussions."

He handed over the tablet, the screen displaying the latest trending post from the "Diaosi Men" online forum:
"Princess Promotion Diary is way more daring than Men's Diary!"

The original poster wrote: "Just finished watching 'Princess Promotion,' the male-to-female transmigration plot is hilarious, a hundred times fresher than Da Peng's old tropes!"

Hot comments:

"The third season of 'Men's Diary' has run out of new ideas; it's all the same old jokes."

"If Da Peng dares to play a male-to-female transmigration game, I'll eat my keyboard on live stream!"

"The production team of 'Princess Promotion' was poor but full of creativity, while 'Men's Diary' is now just full of advertisements."

Da Peng stared at the screen and suddenly laughed: "Interesting."

He sat down at the computer and casually clicked on the first episode of "Princess Promotion".

He originally just wanted to see how good this "extortion drama" really was, but...

"What the hell?"

Ten minutes later, he couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"A man transmigrating into a woman? That's a pretty wild premise!"

Half an hour later, he slammed his hand on the table: "This show is going to be a hit!"

As a pioneer in the domestic online drama market, Da Peng knows all too well what kind of content can generate massive traffic.

He himself produces low-budget web series!

Although the costumes and props of "Princess Promotion" were cheap, it won out with its imaginative plot, fast pace, and daring use of internet slang, perfectly hitting the sweet spot for young viewers.

A man transmigrates into a woman; the gender reversal provides comedic relief; modern thinking clashes with ancient court life; an ambiguous romantic subplot...

Any one of these elements could be used to create a viral topic.

Dapeng stroked his chin, his eyes gradually becoming playful.

Who is the director?

"A student from Beijing Film Academy named Jiang Ye!"

"A student from the Beijing Film Academy? This kid... he's not just trying to scam people, he really knows his stuff when it comes to web dramas!"

He turned to his assistant: "Go, register a new account and reply to this post."

"Even if 'Men's Diary' is terrible, it's still original. Isn't 'Go Princess Go' just copying the premise of 'Switch'?"

The assistant was taken aback: "Won't this... incite conflict?"

Dapeng narrowed his eyes: "That's exactly what I want to do, incite conflict."

He knows this game all too well: controversy equals traffic, and traffic equals money.

He was quite optimistic about the other party's drama, and since they had offered it to him, he didn't mind giving it a try...

Who's freeloading is still unknown!

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the scenery of Yanjing.

"The fourth season of 'Men's Diary' is about to start filming. What do we lack? Popularity."

"Now, 'Princess Promotion' is offering itself up to us, helping us generate buzz for free."

"Let them curse, the more they curse, the better."

Dapeng turned around and gave instructions to his assistant:

"Let our PR team get involved too, release a press release comparing 'Princess Promotion' and 'Men's Diary,' with a headline like 'Newcomer to Web Series Challenges the Pioneer?'"

"Find a few comedians to fabricate a story about Da Peng revising the script for 'Men's Diary 4' overnight."

"Stir up some controversy on Baidu Tieba and Weibo, and let netizens argue about who is the king of low-budget web dramas."

……

In the afternoon, Jiang Ye looked at the new topic that suddenly appeared on Weibo.

#Newcomer to Web Series Challenges Pioneer#
#Dapeng revises script overnight#
He squinted and smiled.

Dapeng certainly didn't disappoint him; he truly is a seasoned veteran!
Move quickly!

In that case, this war of exploiting online traffic for publicity can begin...

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(End of this chapter)