A week later....
The price of Wang Jingwen's album had dropped from 1,000 yuan to 300 yuan. But even after the price drop, the album was still left unattended on the shelves. The sales volume still hadn't broken the 5-digit column. It was now meaningless to continue to cut the price, they had to admit they had taken a loss.
After receiving the investment from Ling Qitian, Cao Feifei personally planned and opened a round of advertising but this time it wasn't for the album but for the concert at Tianjing Theater next week.
In order to attract an audience, they alluded that Wang Jingwen would be singing all her classic songs at the concert, including the songs from her first album [Hearts Emotions], the duration of the concert would be two hours, allowing the audience to enjoy the auditory feast.
Of course, apart for the song "Broken-Hearted Woman", HuaXiang Entertainment had already regained all the rights to the other songs of Wang Jingwen's first album. Therefore, Wang Jingwen did not have the rights to sing those songs.
The reason why Cao Feifei created such propaganda was just to attract the fans to buy the tickets. After all, they didn't know that Wang Jingwen couldn't sing those songs. Plus with just a few words hidden in the consumer agreements on the ticket sites they got away basically with false advertisement. And HuaXiang Entertainment would have nothing to sue about.
In fact, Cao Feifei was forced to do so, in order to recover the company's losses, she had to lie. Anyway, when the audience found out that they had been deceived, the money would have already entered the pocket of the New Century Entertainment.
For some people, as long as they could earn some benefits, nothing else was important, even if it involved hurting others!
Coincidentally, Cao Feifei was one of these people.
After the disastrous defeat of Wang Jingwen's latest album sales, Cao Feifei also realised a truth from it, so she decisively gave up on the general market and aimed the propaganda of this concert at the wealthy market.
An album sold for only a thousand yuan, but those poor people still couldn't afford it and they even looked down on the concert. Therefore, the main propaganda of Cao Feifei this time was aimed at the upper-middle-class people in the society, that is, people with certain economic ability, the fare for the top end VIP seats had reached 20,000 yuan per seat, seats for the middle row were 10,000 yuan per piece, only in the last few rows were the fares cheaper, but it was still up to 5,000 yuan each.
Moreover, this time, Cao Feifei also invited many contemporary so-called heavyweight guests to help out, not just artists from New Century. They had all produced at least one smash hit, this lineup was fully worthy of the high ticket prices.
After two days of publicity, the tickets for the concert officially entered the sales stage.
Since the [Tianjing Theatre] could only accommodate 15,000 spectators, the tickets up for sale were only 10,000, but because the previous publicity had achieved good results, the tickets were being sold in quick succession. The 5,000 yuan seats and the 10,000 yuan seats were selling extremely well but the senior VIP seats in the front row had dismal sales.
In order to attract high end consumers, Cao Feifei had to increase publicity, and promised that all the audience who bought the front-end VIP seats could enjoy special treatment: A chance to enter a ticket draw which would happen in the middle of the concert. The winner would get a kiss from Wang Jingwen and get to request a keepsake from Wang Jingwen.
As soon as this news came out, those lonely and unscrupulous millionaires couldn't hold it anymore. They rushed to buy the high-priced VIP seats. In just one day, the VIP tickets were sold out smoothly, all 500 of them.
While Cao Feifei was busy scrambling to attract fans, Zhang Xiaohua was laughing his head off.
Where was the concert, this was clearly a fishing trap.
In Zhang Xiaohua's view, Cao Feifei's method was completely a waste of time and money. It was better to just let Wang Jingwen perform striptease on stage directly. Just imagine it, those 5,000 tickets would be sold out in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, the Internet was ablaze. Fans who couldn't afford the tickets issued angry shouts, and condemned the low-level actions of New Century, thinking that they were simply insulting Wang Jingwen's personality. Looking down on those poorer consumers, these high fares were just trampling on their dignity!
Many people expressed complete disappointment with Wang Jingwen and reluctantly began to withdraw from her ranks. As a result, Wang Jingwen's fan base plummeted. In just two days, her fans dropped from 28,000,000 to 20,000,000. And it was still falling....
Seeing that Zhang Xiaohua was facing the computer and laughing crazily, Yuan Datong said: "What are you so happy about? When are we gonna help Ming'er promote her album? Look at New Century, you don't see them being idle, Wang Jingwen's face is all over the street."
"So what? Without songs, even if her face covered the sky, it would still be futile." Zhang Xiaohua said leisurely.
"Is it in vain? You know, the fare of Wang Jingwen's concert has reached the highest price for concerts in history. It's only a been a few days, but I heard that they have sold more than 1,000 tickets already. If it ends up sold out, New Century will definitely make a big profit. Now, do you still think it's in vain?" Yuan Datong said unwillingly.
"True, New Century is currently vulnerable, we can't allow them to pick themselves back up."
Speaking of this, Zhang Xiaohua immediately summoned everyone: "I want you guys to keep posting on the Internet, about how, apart from "Broken-Hearted Women", Wang Jingwen has lost all rights to sing the songs from her first album at HuaXiang Entertainment. Finally, add another sentence, also ask the fans not to be deceived by New Century's word play. By the way, ask Zhou Yi and his people to help out as well, oh, also contact those online troll armies, tell them to spread the word. Whoever spreads the word around the most will earn 1,000 yuan."
"Roger that!"
Everyone immediately launched into action, they took out their mobile phones and released a statement online representing HuaXiang Entertainment.
After receiving a call from Emma, Zhou Yi immediately informed all his staff members. As a result, a huge blockade of comments was launched online. Any place where Wang Jingwen's concert was mentioned, they were there. They flooded the pages with the same message.
....
"Damn is this actually for real, I keep see this everywhere"
"I think it is, cause when I went to Wang Jingwen's meetups every time, she only ever sang "Broken-Hearted Woman", she must have lost the right to sing the other songs!"
"Seriously for f**** sake, I spent so much getting tickets for my girlfriend, what a piece of sh** company"
"A few days ago, I spent a thousand yuan to buy Wang Jingwen's latest album. I thought she had continued to make classics. I didn't expect that the album in the end would be so trash. No she has done this, she is just a scammer."
"Fortunately, I didn't buy the tickets for the concert, or I would be screwed. How can New Century be so shameless? It is the number one domestic entertainment company but the actually pull of such a cheap trick."
"This time I really want to thank HuaXiang Entertainment for its timely statement. Otherwise, I would have been screwed as well. Just a minute later I would have bought a ticket!"
"New Century Entertainment and Wang Jingwen are scammers..."
"Scammers +1"
"Scammers +2"
"Scammers +3"
"Scammers +100086"
"There is still HuaXiang, I'm hope they launch a new singer, soon I can't wait!"
"I remember reading an article of them singing a new singer a while ago, pretty sure she was called Ling Ming or something like that."
"Oh yeah I remember her, she is the one who sent shots at Wang Jingwen, she called her an ungrateful witch"
"Yes, I am looking forward to HuaXiang's releasing something soon."
"I remember when I used adore Wang Jingwen, now she's broken my heart. I will never love again sniff sniff!"
...
The declaration of HuaXiang Entertainment played a tremendous role, so much that the sales volume on the tickets for Wang Jingwen's concert dropped greatly, and people even began to demand refunds. As a result, New Century Entertainment was once again caught in a public relations crisis. Moreover, the reputation of Wang Jingwen plummeted.
Because the public criticism was too fierce, almost a one-sided condemnation of New Century, so in order to maintain the company's image, they had to play it soft, opening the refund channels and soon, more than 300 refunds were called in.
Although audience numbers weren't ideal, New Century announced that Wang Jingwen's concert would still be carried out.
However, thanks to HuaXiang, so far New Century Entertainment had only sold 700 tickets, it could described as losing the wife and the children.
Counting the 50 million investment for advertising, coupled with the high cost of making the music video for Wang Jingwen, New Century Entertainment had lost a total of 150 million yuan, which not only greatly reduced the morale in the company, but also combined with the public outrage to cause their stock prices to plummet. There was a drop in stock price of more than a 20% and it had been hugely fluctuating, there was always the danger of a crash looming over the heads the shareholders.
Zhang Xiaohua, holding the attitude of watching a show, booked a few tickets for Wang Jingwen's concert early, all of which were the cheapest seats in the back row. He planned to take Yuan Datong and co to see a good show tonight.
...
At 8 o'clock in the evening, Zhang Xiaohua and Yuan Datong entered Tianjing Theatre.
Looking around, the whole theatre was empty, only the middle rows of seats were slightly crowded with people, the so-called senior VIP seats in the front row were scattered and the people sitting there were all men, all hungry, almost wolf-like, as if waiting for their prey to appear.
The other seats were empty, and the atmosphere in the theatre was extremely deserted. Not even the shadow of a reporter could be seen.
Obviously, Wang Jingwen's fame had ceased to be an attraction.
"What a tragedy!"
Zhang Xiaohua sighed with relief, and then took a seat, raising his legs up on top of the seats in front, he was holding a bucket of popcorn in his arms, eating away with great gusto, his casual attitude was incompatible with the luxurious environment of the largest theatre in Huaxia.
Yuan Datong was also seated on the right side of him, snacks and drinks in hand, eating and drinking, quietly awaiting for Wang Jingwen to appear...