HuaYu: Starting with Photography to Navigate the Entertainment Industry

"Which direction?"

Zhou Man stared at Xu Lang with shining eyes, and even Zhang Hanyun stopped.

"Let's go back and talk!"

Xu Lang led the two back to the classroom of the photography academy.

As soon as he entered the classroom, Xu Lang's playful and irreverent expression vanished, replaced by seriousness and focus, as if he had found an interesting toy.

He stood on the podium, staring at Zhou Man.

"What is your purpose in promoting Zhang Hanyun this time?"

"Aiming for a top-three finish in the finals!"

"wrong!"

"Um?"

Zhou Man and Zhang Hanyun were both confused by Xu Lang's use of the word "wrong." How could the target be wrong?

Xu Lang ignored them and wrote two words on the blackboard: Target.

champion!

"You guys don't even dare to say you're aiming for the championship, how pathetic are you!"

Zhou Man frowned after being scolded by Xu Lang, but Zhang Hanyun jumped up excitedly.

"Brother Xu, now you're starting to act like a young man!"

Xu Lang snapped his fingers in response, then continued to ask:

What were the key factors that influenced her to win the championship?

This time, Zhou Man pondered for a moment, "According to the competition rules, there are actually only two factors that can affect the ranking: the opinions of the expert judges and the SMS votes from the audience."

The expert judges' opinions mainly focused on singing skills, while the audience's text message votes reflected overall popularity.

"good!"

Xu Lang then looked at Zhang Hanyun, "Girl, tell me the truth, how's your singing? Compared to the other two, do you have an advantage?"

"I..."

Zhang Hanyun really wanted to say "I am the best," but she opened her mouth twice and couldn't say it. In the end, she could only mutter to herself:

"My voice is going through puberty, which is affecting my performance."

"Don't make excuses, it just won't work!"

Xu Lang turned around, crossed out "Expert Judges", and then pointed to "SMS Voting".

This time, Zhou Man took the initiative to speak:

"Hanyun is very popular. She was always the most popular in the Chengdu division."

"The highest?"

Xu Lang snorted coldly, "Since you're the highest scorer, you might as well just wait to win the championship. Why bother coming all this way to find me?"

"Well..."

Zhou Man was so angry at Xu Lang's retort that she couldn't catch her breath and kept patting her chest.

"But now there are three core issues. One is that the expert judges were not satisfied with Han Yun's singing skills, saying that she only got to where she is today because of her cute image, which lowered the audience's evaluation of Han Yun."

Secondly, through data monitoring, we discovered that HanYun's popularity seems to have reached a bottleneck and can no longer grow.

In addition to the third point, the spread of negative rumors has severely damaged Han Yun's image. If this continues, her popularity may decline, or even reverse.

"Yes, the evaluation is very objective and comprehensive."

Xu Lang turned around and wrote three words on the blackboard:

Singing skills?

bottleneck?

Scandalous information?

Xu Lang pointed to the first word,

"Poor singing skills are a major flaw, and it's really hard to fix."

After pondering for a moment while stroking his chin, he said:

"Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work in the future. Even if it really doesn't work in the future, we should give the illusion that it will."

So he wrote four words after "singing skills":

Development potential!

"Well..."

Upon seeing these four words, Zhou Man frowned. "How is this demonstrated?"

Xu Lang ignored her and continued speaking:

"A data bottleneck? According to what you said before, Zhang Hanyun's audience is mainly primary and secondary school students. This group seems lively, but it's actually at a disadvantage!"

"Yes, we definitely suffered a loss."

Zhou Man nodded in agreement, "Nowadays, most children don't have cell phones, so they can't vote even if they want to, which definitely limits our vote count."

"Um!"

Xu Lang turned around and wrote two words behind the data bottleneck:

Breaking out of its niche!

Finally, he looked at the last word:

Scandalous information?

"What effective measures do you have in place to address the negative rumors about her?"

When it comes to scandals, Zhou Man gets a headache.

"This is indeed very difficult. We have been trying to refute the rumors and have sent lawyer's letters to some individuals and media outlets, but with little effect."

Xu Lang knew this outcome without even asking Zhou Man. The same applies to later generations: the more you refute rumors, the hotter they become. The only solution is to wait for them to cool down.

However, the nature of Zhang Hanyun's competition requires a high degree of time management. By the time the rumors subside, Zhang Hanyun's career will have faded.

Xu Lang pondered for a moment, then wrote four words after "dirt":

Go with the flow!

"Go with the flow? What does that mean?"

Zhou Man and Zhang Hanyun were both stunned, but through this process of sorting things out, Xu Lang's mind became clearer and clearer.

Suddenly, he slammed his hand on the lectern and shouted:

"Haha, I've got it!"

His shout startled Zhou Man and Zhang Hanyun. "Teacher Xu, what did you think of?"

Xu Lang turned around again and wrote four words on the blackboard:

National Schoolgirl!

Then, he circled the character "学" (xué, meaning "to learn"). "Just as I initially suspected, the key lies in this character '学'!"

"Huh? Brother Xu, what do you mean? Tell me quickly!"

Zhang Hanyun frowned as soon as she saw the word "study," a common problem among underachievers—she scratched her head whenever studying was mentioned!

"Your grades aren't good, that's just how they are, there's no hiding it, right?"

Zhang Hanyun was being stared at by Xu Lang. Although she was reluctant to answer, she finally nodded helplessly.

"good!"

Xu Lang added five more words after "poor academic performance":

Adolescence and rebellion!

Poor academic performance plus rebelliousness – this is every parent's nightmare!

In the eyes of parents, boys with this kind of children are considered delinquents, and girls are considered rebellious girls.

Xu Lang stared at Zhou Man and asked bluntly:

"Would you want your child to play with someone like that, or rather, would you want your child to take that person as a role model?"

"Of course I don't want that!"

"Snapped!"

Xu Lang snapped his fingers and said excitedly:

"Yes, that's the crux of the matter!"

Seeing that the two were still a little confused, Xu Lang pointed to Zhang Hanyun and explained:

"Because you are young and cute, and with the deliberate packaging by your agency, the kids all feel that you are very approachable, so they like you."

But in the eyes of parents, you're a poor student, a good-for-nothing delinquent. They don't want their children to take you as a role model, so your audience will always be those little kids, and you'll never break out of that circle.

At this point, his voice became heavy:

"If you want to break through and win the championship, you must abandon or even overturn your original image, break out of your circle, and make yourself liked by a higher-quality group, such as parents."

"what?"

Upon hearing Xu Lang's words, Zhou Man jumped up immediately, exclaiming, "Impossible!"

To abandon or even overturn the original image is to destroy one's own Great Wall.

With only ten days left until the finals, there's no time to rebuild one's image.

Besides, Zhang Hanyun's current "national schoolgirl" image has been proven by the market and has achieved great results, so how could she possibly give it up?

That's why Zhou Man reacted so strongly.

"Impossible?! Ha!"

Xu Lang threw down the chalk. "Impossible! What are you doing here?"

He pointed at Zhou Man and Zhang Hanyun, "If you ask me, you two shouldn't waste your time here. Go back to Chengdu and just focus on getting a third place, that would be good enough."

What do you want, a bicycle?!