Meng Chang returned to the publicity department after leaving Boss Pei’s office.
He suddenly felt immense pressure after he sat down in his seat.
Previously, he only felt that the publicity for Mission and Choice was too important. He was a little moved, but between his conscience and commission, he chose the latter without hesitation.
However, on further thought, it was actually quite difficult to mess up this publicity plan.
That was because there was too much invested in ‘Mission and Choice’ . It was a game and a movie. What’s more, it was said that Lu Zhiyao had participated in it as well. Such a huge production, the slightest news about it would cause a huge reaction.
It was impossible for no one to be interested in it.
Meng Chang pondered for a moment. Since the publicity plan could not remain unknown, he could only work hard to reverse publicize it to reduce its popularity.
It would be best if this publicity plan could make people feel uncomfortable and disgusted. At the same time, he could get a commission.
Meng Chang opened Qiandu and prepared to search for relevant information.
He did not know much about games and movies. He could only be considered an amateur enthusiast. However, that was not a problem. There were still two weeks to the publicity plan.
According to Boss Pei’s request, they would only start promoting Mission and Choice next month. These two weeks would be enough for Meng Chang to supplement some relevant knowledge and think of a publicity plan that would be enough to make the audience feel disgusted.
“Let’s see if there are any rumors about Mission and Choice online.”
Meng Chang first searched for the keyword “mission and choice”.
In order to develop a publicity plan for a certain product, one had to first know what everyone’s attitude towards it was. If everyone had a good impression of it, that impression had to be strengthened; if everyone had a bad impression, he had to first consider reversing and changing that impression.
Of course, this was a normal publicity model. Meng Chang had to do the opposite.
“Oh? There are so many search results?”
“That’s not right. I remember that Tengda has always been very good at keeping secrets. Why would there be so much news? What’s more, I don’t think it’s on the hot searches…”
“No, that’s not right. What the hell is that?!”
Meng Chang looked at the search results carefully and felt a little dizzy.
“Mission and Choice (Game Software) – Qiandu search engine”
“Do you still remember ‘Mission and Choice’? Did the development of domestically-produced games really blow up in its hands?”
“The Worst Game in History, Mission and Choice”
“‘Mission and Choice’ is ranked first. Nine trashy games in the history of games that cheat the most money!”
The search results were all similar.
Meng Chang felt a little puzzled. He took a closer look and realized that Mission and Choice had the same name as a standalone game in the history of domestically-produced games that was known as the “disgrace of the domestic games industry”!
That was a game that had been in the 90s for more than a decade.
Meng Chang usually did not play games and basically knew nothing about the history of domestically-produced games. He only knew from the company that Boss Pei’s new game was called Mission and Choice. He had no idea that there were so many secrets behind it.
He immediately perked up and read the introduction of Mission and Choice from beginning to end.
“I didn’t expect this name to come from this?”
“Then… Does Boss Pei have any special intention by naming the game this way?”
“Could it be that Boss Pei wants to avenge the ‘humiliation of the international game’?”
Tss…!
Meng Chang took a deep breath and felt even more pressured.
It had to be said that the saying ‘to bring shame to the country’ was too easy to cause a topic. What’s more, it could easily trigger the patriotism of players. Once this topic was thrown out, the attention would definitely not be low.
This undoubtedly increased the difficulty of Meng Chang’s reverse publicity.
“From the theme, this is an RTS game, and it’s a sci-fi genre.”
“There shouldn’t be many people playing this type of game.”
“Therefore, if we want the publicity to not have the desired effect, we have to try our best to make it ‘inside the circle’.”
“As long as it doesn’t leave the circle, its popularity would be limited to the domestic standalone players. There would definitely be no way to recover a huge amount of investment from the RTS game. Naturally, publicity would fail.”
“Then… I have to work hard on the publicity material!”
Meng Chang quickly determined the general publicity strategy. He wanted to make it as boring as possible for passers-by and make core players uncomfortable.
If the situation allowed it, he could also play some tricks to create a false publicity effect.
Of course, the prerequisite was that they did not violate the rules of the agreement or the relevant laws and regulations. How to play the game was a technical skill.
“From the looks of it, Tengda has done a good job of keeping it a secret. The outside world basically doesn’t know that the game that Tengda is developing is the remake of Mission and Choice.”
“This is a huge benefit to me! This way, I can use the netizens’ inertial thinking to mislead them…”
“In that case, the original publicity material for Mission and Choice is not bad. What would happen if I used it directly?”
Meng Chang searched online and quickly found a lot of publicity material for Mission and Choice.
As a typical representative of false publicity, the publicity materials for Mission and Choice were also nailed to the pillar of shame like the game itself and repeatedly whipped.
At that time, the internet was not developed yet. The main publicity was in various magazines and physical posters. That provocative slogan and the Chinese soldiers in space suits left a deep impression on people.
“Your hometown, Blue Planet, has just suffered a destructive attack from the Zergs…”
“Destroy the swarm and save Blue Planet with your comrades!”
“A million yuan investment, with great hard work, create a grand scene, and model domestic products!”
Such slogans made the blood of the gamers at that point in time boil.
Of course, these slogans looked very stiff now. The image on the promotional poster was also very crude. The style of the past nine years could only be described as ‘tragic’.
Meng Chang fell into deep thought.
“If we were to promote it, we would definitely put the most exciting parts of the game and the movie on it. Then, we would try our best to promote the concept of ‘washing away the shame of the nation’.”
“That would incite gamers to support domestically-produced games and attract a lot of attention.
“However, there would mean no hope for my commission. I have to do the opposite.”
“Then, we shouldn’t use any new ‘Mission and Choice’ game or material in the movie. We shouldn’t use concepts like ‘remake’ or ‘wash away the shame of the game.’”
“We’ll just use the publicity materials for the old game so that gamers would not be able to tell that this is a remake of Mission and Choice! We’ll even make them think that this is the old game from more than ten years ago!”
“Er… no, there are still loopholes.”
“As long as everyone sees that this game was released by Tengda Games, they would understand that it must be a remake.”
“Can we purposely not publish it in the name of Tengda Games? Can we discuss with the official platform and hide the company that created this game?”
“It might be a little strange but we can use a ‘special marketing method’ to avoid it. It won’t violate the contract rules.”
“Or, we could create a compilation with many classic old games and create an event of ‘reviving classic domestically-produced games’ to confuse others.”
“I might be exposed sooner or later, but won’t I get my commission as long as I can last for a month?”
Meng Chang suddenly realized that his previous train of thought was too rigid. There was actually more than one way to get the commission.
Previously, Meng Chang had thought that he would work hard to promote this project so that no one would care about it and it would never make money.
However, he realized now that the difficulty level was too high. That was because Boss Pei’s projects often had their own popularity, especially the ‘Mission and Choice’ project. It was impossible to achieve.
Since that was the case, could he change his mindset?
He would create a publicity plan this month and no one would be interested in it; he would increase the intensity of the next month and still no one would be interested. In that case, wouldn’t two months of commission be successfully obtained?
As for the month that the project was officially released, the effect of misleading the public was no longer effective. The project had exploded. He would still get the commission from the first two months.
Meng Chang was impressed by his own wit and immediately began writing the publicity plan.
The publicity plan this time was mainly the publicity material for the old game in the 90s. It was still the same poster and the same slogan. Nothing changed.
There were no Tengda-related icons or logos on the promotional poster. That way, everyone would not know who the game’s creator was.
However, he had to add a line of words: “Repeat the classic and reminisce about the domestically-produced game from ten years ago!”
He would pack up all the domestically-produced standalone games from that era, make a compilation, and then secretly stuff ‘Mission and Choice’ into it.
However, before Tengda’s ‘Mission and Choice’ was released, it had been a scammy old game that was replaced by Tengda’s ‘Mission and Choice’.
After that, the official platform would use a large amount of resources to publicize the compilation. The publicity elsewhere would mainly be the original publicity material for Mission and Choice.
That would create an indistinguishable effect and make everyone think that they were promoting a collection of domestically-produced games. That way, they would not be able to delve deeper into the game.
That way, he could hide for at least a month, right?
Meng Chang did not have high expectations. He would get two months of commission first.
After all, he had made so many proposals before but had not gotten a single cent of commission. His mentality was about to collapse. Thus, he did not expect to get a full commission. He wanted to get at least tens of thousands first.
Of course, this idea was just a prototype. As for how to operate it, he had to think about it carefully and plan for a long time.
However, this general direction should not be a problem.
The more Meng Chang thought about it, the more he felt that his plan was not bad. He immediately began to plan for publicity.
