Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
A crease formed between Guo Qingchen’s eyes, and out of curiosity, he clicked on the link and entered the details page.
Guo Qingchen read the rules carefully.
The rule was that after watching an episode of Broken Continent, one could get the membership of Kefeng Videos for one day.
After watching four episodes this week, one could get four days of membership for free.
This activity could only help one get four days of membership at most. However, there were only 12 episodes of Broken Continent in total. All the audience could get four-day membership through watching Broken Continent, which was already a piece of good news.
Other series didn’t have such activities.
Most of the audience didn’t have memberships. Through this activity, at least the first four episodes of Broken Continent would be played a lot. Whether it was a good series was not important anymore. Even if it wasn’t good, one could choose to mute his or her cellphone and place it on the table until the episodes were over.
Guo Qingchen gritted his teeth. He felt that what Xu Dashi had just told him was just a perfunctory excuse.
Kefeng Films had really put in a lot of effort to promote Broken Continent!
Guo Qingchen now knew the reason why Kefeng Films promoted Broken Continent so much.
Guo Qingchen was not in the mood to watch other shows, and there was nothing worth watching. Therefore, he missed the fact that no matter what kind of show it was, whether it was a movie, a TV series, or a variety show, the pop-up ads in the lower-left corner had all been replaced with the ads for Broken Continent.
Guo Qingchen kept on checking the time and reminding the publicists to put up the top search items on Weibo at eight o’clock.
When it was 8 o’clock, the two series came online on time.
The crew members of Nine Heavens had already edited some clips from the first and second episodes and posted them on various platforms, If the audience saw the clips, they would be attracted to watch the series. In addition, they had hired some marketing accounts to promote Nine Heavens.
Gao Qiongyu and Li Hanfei were also very “busy” that night. They each bought themselves top search items of their names plus the character they played in the series.
On the other hand, there was no news about Broken Continent. And it did not appear on the top searches list, either.
Guo Qingchen raised his eyebrows and asked himself, “Could it be that the audience doesn’t like Broken Continent? And even though Kefeng has spent so much money on its promotions, this series is still not popular? So they thought that they might as well not waste money buying the top searches?”
Actually, it was Lu Man’s plan to slow down the promotion process of Broken Continent. After all, Kefeng had already given the best promotion resources to Broken Continent, and it had even launched an activity where the audience could get membership through watching each episode. This is an activity that had never existed before, and it is enough to attract a lot of viewers.
Therefore, there was no need to buy top searches so quickly, because that would distract the audience. All they needed to do was to wait for the audience’s feedback of the first episode. Then, they would use the feedback to create hot searches, which would be much more realistic than hiring a marketing account to promote it.
However, although there was no top search on Weibo about the Broken Continent, Kefeng had bought a top search for the free-membership activity, which would make more audience know about the activity and participate in it.
There were only four days of membership in total, which was almost a no-cost business for Kefeng.
Moreover, according to the data from Kefeng’s marketing department, 93.7% of the audience who had once paid for the membership of Kefeng Videos would continue to renew their annual membership. After all, they did not need to watch advertisements. They could watch popular movies, TV series, and variety shows in advance. They could watch new movies for free.
Nowadays, when those online TV series were broadcast on the platforms, they would hold activities in which the membership could watch several episodes in advance. So did variety shows. Most of the popular variety shows could be watched by the membership as soon as they were updated. Non-members could watch the latest episode only after it had been online for 24 hours.
There was also some content that only VIPs could enjoy. Non-members could never see it, no matter how long they waited.
Movies would also go online on the video platform after they were released. Except for some popular movies, which required the audience to spend another 3 or 6 bucks to watch the full version of the movie even they had the membership, most of the movies were available if one had the VIP membership. As for non-members, they still couldn’t watch it.
Therefore, in terms of these differences, it was very difficult for the audience who were used to enjoying the treatment of being members to return to the time when they were non-members.
Therefore, a very important job of the marketing department in Kefeng Films nowadays was to recruit new members.
More non-member users became members.
By watching Broken Continent, the audience could get four days of membership, and non-members could experience the convenience of becoming members.
It was not possible that all the non-members would become members, but at least a part of them would be willing to pay for the membership.
It seemed to be the promotion of Broken Continent, but in fact, it was also a good chance for Kefeng Films to attract new users, which was a win-win model.
However, even if it was a win-win model, Kefeng Films chose Broken Continent instead of Nine Heavens.
In order to let more audience know that they could get a free membership through watching Broken Continent, Kefeng Films bought a high-level top search. It also hired the marketing account to release the guide of the activity.
Of course, the process was very simple. After watching an episode of Broken Continent, one could get a membership for free.
But Kefeng was still worried that the audience didn’t check the guide carefully and couldn’t find the details page. Therefore, it asked the marketing account to release the guide of where to get the membership, trying to teach them, step by step.
Step One, click on the first episode of Broken Continent.
Step two, finish watching the first episode.
Step three, enter the “Personal Center”, and find the advertisement banner that said “Watch Broken Continent, and get free membership”.
Step four, click on the banner and enter the details page.
Step five, click on the “Get” button.
It was quite a fool-like guide, but it was practical. According to Lu Man, the top search, which was bought by Kefeng Films, was useful enough.
Lu Man said, “Editing clips on Weibo and hiring famous marketing accounts to post them on the Internet are no more useful. To be honest, the audience is well aware of the fact that marketing accounts are paid to promote the series. Even when it comes to the comments on the Internet, the audience will be able to tell if they are left on purpose, let alone something as obvious as the promotion of a new TV series.”
Then, she added, “If the marketing accounts post too much content related to the series, the audience will become tired and even rebellious. We’ve already done enough promotions earlier for Broken Continent. We have to give the audience some time to have a rest. At first, they might be curious, but after watching similar clips too much, they will be irritated. Wait and see. If Nine Heavens does too many promotions today, it will definitely be criticized.”
Before long, the top searches about Nine Heavens appeared on Weibo. Even though the comments under the marketing account were all censored by Gao Qiongyu and Li Hanfei’s fans, which meant if anyone said something bad, he or she would be criticized by them, 80 percent of the comments on Weibo Square were negative.
“Could you please stop posting short videos on the Internet, director of Nine Heavens? You’ve been doing this for a long time. This series has just come online and I haven’t even started to watch it. Now, I see your promotional videos again. It’s really annoying.”
“I guess the main reason is that you are afraid that your series is not good enough.”
“The series is completely different from the trailer. You liar.”
“Director of Nine Heavens, I’m talking to you.. If you keep doing this, you’re going to ruin all the good impressions that Fate had made.”
