Chapter Ninety-Nine: The Strongest Public Relations Team
The forum created a customized voting section for the grand battle between SI and YL, which would close on the fifteenth, at eleven in the evening. The supporting votes between both parties were 63.5: 36.5, with SI taking the lead.
Xiao Yu was not surprised by this result. In his previous life, when the situation was reversed with SI declaring war on YL, they could achieve almost half the supporting votes. This time, with YL as a somewhat questionable challenger and as an enterprise that just began to show off its achievements, the industry’s insiders would probably feel that they were advancing prematurely. Considering their overall strengths, the majority would lean towards supporting SI.
Among the people who supported YL were people trying to cause trouble, and a minority were YL’s diehard fans. The rest of the supporters were probably people who were convinced by YL’s outstanding performance over the past six months. They carrying the hope that YL would topple the well-known brand, SI.
The core of all these uproars could not be done without the efforts of YL’s publicity and public relation team.
This was something Xiao Yu had wanted to ridicule about ever since his previous lifetime. Normally, if an enterprise that suddenly rose in fame got caught in the whirlpool of public opinion, it would have a hard time getting away. However, YL was different. Ever since Yan Jin took over YL, they had never been in a crisis because of public opinions. The way that YL had smoothly progressed so far and even became a renowned brand in the industry was raising people’s hackles.
As a newly established enterprise, one could say that its design capabilities were lacking, and the team’s abilities were not strong enough. But no matter what, no one could comment that their public relation team still had room for improvement.
That was because as a jewelry company, YL already had S City’s most terrifying public relation ability. Their powers were a bottomless pit. So terrifying that all the stress from public opinions to date had been easily resolved. It was to the extent that people from the same profession came to the profound realization that to defeat YL, they could only go head-on with their true capabilities. If they were to use dishonest practices, it would never be successful.
Yet towards the issue that questioned YL’s capabilities all this time, when the former SI chief designer and current mystery designer, Xiao Yu, became their ally, they had gained a huge powerup. Without a doubt, it allowed YL’s already superb public relation team to advance even further. From a simple defense, they had become an invincible team with both attacking and defensive powers.
Xiao Yu could now get close to Yan Jin and even obtained all of the passwords to his social media accounts, but to this today, he still couldn’t understand how YL’s strongest public relation team came about.
It was partly because Xiao Yu had not looked too seriously into it. Everyone had something they specialized in. He was a designer, so he would investigate deeper into the things that involved the mystery designer. He would even remember all the parts where the latter had made changes to the final draft. Even after experiencing death once, it had never affected that part of his memories.
As for the other memories… one could easily look at Xiao Yu’s fragmented memories and realize that there were many problems.
There was once a headhunting company that wanted to get someone from YL’s public relations team. After they went, they were shocked to realized that YL did not have such a department. They did not even have a liaison department. It was simply a new company that had many job vacancies.
The only place that seemed to resemble the publicity department listed a young man surnamed Shao as the department head. After knowing the headhunting company’s intention, he shocked the industry with a universally shocking speech.
“What? Headhunt me? Sure, I’ve been fed up with that Yan Jin for a long time now. When can I leave?”
The headhunting company was elated. The originally planned to get the employees. They did not expect to get a department head.
“Conditions. I’m fine with everything else. At the very least, I shouldn’t be earning less than what I’m getting now. Weekly salary of two hundred thousand shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
The headhunting company was taken aback. For a weekly salary of two hundred thousand, that would mean an annual salary of thirty million. But if this person was really that capable……
“Benefits could be cut back. Like, three months of paid vacation leave every year.”
Headhunter: It may be possible with an overseas company……
“At least seven or eight overseas company outings at five-star hotels.”
Headhunter: ……
“Oh right. Actually, none of those are important. I’m a very flexible person. How about this? You find a hit man for me to get rid of Yan Jin. I’ll go with you for free.”
Headhunter: I’m so stupid to be seriously considering it.
Very soon, there were no headhunting companies courageous enough to lay their hands on YL’s public relation employees. Even when they knew that the department head was just talking nonsense, they simply couldn’t handle the entire public relation team’s atmosphere of trying to see who could outtalk their nonsense.
“I have no opinions on the other conditions, but can I bring along my company allocated wifey with me?”
“Money is not an issue. But I’m a little reluctant to part with that three-story sea view employee’s hostel.”
“I’m a fan of space flight. Our company’s annual space trip is my unswerving conviction.”
For a period of time, several people from the headhunting companies that had tried to test the waters had been diagnosed with a varying levels of psychological sickness.
After the incident, Yan Jin purposely called for Shao Yue and asked when YL gave him a weekly salary of two hundred thousand, three months paid vacation leave, seven to eight overseas company outings at five-star hotels, wives, sea view hostels, and space trips.
Shao Yue replied in deadly earnest: “A man must have a dream. Otherwise how are we different from salted fish?”
“Then what about space trips? You read too many sci-fi novels?”
“That’s a long-time dream for all citizens who grew up in this country. It’s every citizen’s dream. The country’s dream is my dream. Everyone has the duty and rights to sacrifice our meager power for our country’s dream! I’m looking down upon you. Just because you don’t have a dream, now you’re scoffing at the dreams of others? You’re so wrong…”
“Get lost.”
This time around, the concealed talents in YL’s public relation team had no doubt showcased all of their powers. Along with the publicity department, they boosted YL’s support rate and puzzled many veteran figures.
One should know that if this incident had happened half a year ago, YL’s support rate might not even reach five percent. Xiao Yu’s contribution was naturally the main reason for it. However, the public relation team’s efforts could not go unnoticed for fully utilizing the capital created from the mystery designer in the past six months.
He believed that after this incident, YL’s public relation team would once again catch the attention of the industry. Whether the devastated headhunting companies would make a comeback was unknown.
After all, the masochists in this world were quite plentiful. They would get used to being tortured anyway.
Even in such a situation, the deadline was at eleven in the evening on the fifteen. The support rate for YL on the forum had been stuck at forty-five percent, still lower than SI.
The truth was, Xiao Yu knew very clearly that these support rates on the forum were not important at all. The reason he paid attention to the forum was because it was his habit from his previous life, to hear what everyone had to say on the forum whenever something big was happening in the industry.
This kind of customized forum had very few new opinions. The majority of them were veterans in the industry. Although some of them would blabber nonsense because of their experience, they did provide useful opinions. As a professional, Xiao Yu would naturally take the best out of it and change the contents to what was useful to him.
Because of the overabundance of professionals, the effects from YL’s public relations team on the forum were minimal. The voters would still use their professional opinion to analyze the problem and not move along with YL’s pace because of their exaggeration.
In fact, the forum was not a place where YL’s public relations team displayed their strengths.
On the sixteenth at midnight, the game had an update. The concept rings were uploaded onto the merchandise market and the intense voting had officially started.
Yes, this time, SI and YL’s competition would be decided be a week of voting by the game players.
The players would receive a chance to vote at random during the game and vote for the concept rings that they preferred the most. The group that won the most votes would have the priority of getting it commercially manufactured. All the players who voted would also have a certain rate of winning the actual merchandise for free as a reward.
This was an activity that the gaming company had launched for all the players. And what would decide the fate for SI and YL were the total votes that both companies would received in the end.
On the sixteenth at midnight, as a currently popular game, even when all the updates were only done by midnight, the hardcore players silently waited for the updated version and the merchandise. The moment they entered the game, they rushed for it.
Within an hour, the latest voting data had been revealed. At the same time, the industry was watching SI and YL bet everything on this deal.
Tit for tat…
Or not.
Anyone with a discerning eye could tell that the works from both companies were very similar. It was not to the extent that people would think there was plagiarism. The possibility of concept products looking similar were very high. The characteristics of the game characters were for all to see. The points that could be used in an accessory were very limited for both parties. Plus, merchandise deals were uncommon for S city’s jewelry companies. If one had to analyze just by seeing if the merchandise had fulfilled the characters’ traits, it would be hard to tell even as a professional.
However, it was because it was a situation where the merchandise traits were similar, that one could tell the good and bad of the merchandise and easily analyze it from a professional viewpoint.
The forum instantly exploded. The night was destined to be a sleepless night.
Too bad Xiao Yu did not manage to stay up. Before it hit midnight, he already fell asleep on the iPad.
……
When Xiao Yu woke up the second day, he realized that the touch was different.
Where was his soft little house and his warm little blanket?
Achoo.
Xiao Yu was more awake after he sneezed. He got up from his iPad and pulled out a piece of tissue to wipe his nose.
Thank god Yan Jin wasn’t back from yesterday. Otherwise he would scold him for being so playful.
Oh right, he accidentally fell asleep last night. He hadn’t even seen how things had turned out.
Xiao Yu switched on his iPad and looked at the time. It was ten. It had been ten hours since the voting for the merchandise had started. The latest news would probably be released soon.
Originally, the voting results would only be visible to those who had logged into the game. But Xiao Yu did not need to go through the trouble of doing that. He could see it from the forum.
The moment Xiao Yu had clicked open the forum app, the first thing that popped out was YL’s advertisement. Thus, he clicked on the advertisement and prostrated himself in admiration for YL’s public relations publicity department.
The entire advertisement had one picture, and it was a screenshot. The screenshot was taken from a WeChat conversation and had only four sentences –
A: Go make a poster page. Advertise YL’s merchandise rings.
B: Okay boss. Any requests?
A: No need to be too complex. Put a QR code on it and get them to see for themselves at the official page.
B: QRcode.jpg
