"Why don't we just buy votes?"
Li Yao joked as she stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth, startling the two people beside her.
Zhao Xu turned to her with a frightening smile, "Woman, you've stirred up some unpleasant memories."
"Don't tell me none of your picks made it to debut?" Li Yao exaggerated, teasing her.
"Shut up!"
"...How pitiful."
"Say that again and I'll kill you."
The only normal person, Yang Siyu, changed the subject and suggested to Jiang Juyou, "The show doesn't have any sponsors yet. Perhaps we could try to get some."
Jiang Juyou's eyes lit up, but she didn't know much about this area. Yang Siyu continued, "For exclusive title sponsorship, it usually starts at 100 million yuan. The sponsor for the last survival show... I remember there was news about it, saying they paid 400 million for exclusive rights."
"Ah..." Jiang Juyou gasped, realizing she had underestimated the entertainment industry's money-making ability.
The other two turned their attention back to the conversation. Li Yao chimed in, "But our show has already started. Exclusive title sponsorship might be difficult, but we could find other sponsors. It might not be possible within a month though."
"Right... To fully implement it might take over a month, but we could find sponsors for the final performance," Zhao Xu added.
Jiang Juyou took in everyone's words and pondered, "...Then the quickest way would be fan voting." She frowned, "But that's risky. It could easily get too heated and burn the show down."
The others exchanged glances, all understanding the implications.
Finally, Jiang Juyou leaned back and sighed, "Let's discuss it at Monday's morning meeting."
Just as they were about to rest, someone knocked on the door.
Jiang Juyou sat up straight and adjusted her clothes, "Come in."
A person from the marketing department entered, holding an iPad. Her first words were, "Boss, there's a sponsor who wants—"
At that moment, Jiang Juyou felt like she was basking in the glow of the God of Wealth.
-
As more people became invested in the show, the fan forum surpassed 60,000 members. Opening short video apps, one could see all kinds of marketing content, all clips from the show.
The trainees' lives began to be disturbed. Fans were always waiting at the school gates, some even tried to sneak into the school. More people inside the school were blatantly taking photos and uploading them online.
Viewers of the show would frequently see news from gossip accounts about trainees being harassed by sasaeng fans, angering them to the point of cursing at Random Entertainment's official account.
If earlier episodes were just adding fuel to the fire, hoping for it to burn brighter, then the fourth episode was like pouring gasoline on it.
The first public performance had just finished yesterday, and today the stage performances were already uploaded. There were no game segments or filler content. From the trainees to the editing speed, from the performance photo cards to the pop-up store announcement, this information flooded towards those still hesitating outside the show like a tidal wave.
"Title: Gossip Discussion/21 is so impressive! They recorded the stage yesterday and released it today!"
"The editors must be typing so fast their keyboards are about to catch fire! It's so quick! I was thinking, for those voting for Solo performances, if the stages were released over several episodes, wouldn't the later ones be at a disadvantage? But they released all the stages at once, and this episode is actually five hours long... I'm shocked."
"So impressive!!!"
Comments:
"This train conductor is scared to death. As soon as I opened the video, the bullet comments were all question marks. Looks like everyone was shocked by the length of this episode."
"How many people do they have editing the video? My goodness, I feel a headache coming on just thinking about the staff."
"Now the fans of different trainees can't use the order of appearance as an excuse."
"They've released everything now, what will they show later?"
"Five hours, it'll take me days to finish watching!!!"
"I've got my meal companion for this week, watching till the end of time."
The first thing to trend on social media was the length of this episode. The five-hour duration not only shocked the fans but also caught the attention of casual viewers.
Clicking into the trending topic, it was full of outsiders feeling sorry for the editors, and even industry insiders chiming in.
"You outsiders can wait to be shocked, let us insiders be shocked first. Editors, are your eyes and wrists okay? Are your internal organs alright? Is your brain still functioning?"
Such high popularity attracted many people to watch the show. Ye Xing, as the front-runner, was once again brought up by casual viewers, all saying Ye Xing was 100% guaranteed to debut.
Indeed, even with Pei Luming's die-hard fans being numerous, they couldn't match the incredibly strong casual viewer base of Ye Xing. No matter how much they tried to catch up, Ye Xing remained firmly in first place.
The top three seemed frozen in place: Ye Xing first, Pei Luming second, and Gao Xiayu third.
Previously, when Ye Xing and Pei Luming were neck and neck in the behind-the-scenes voting rankings, few people paid attention to who was third. But after the main rankings officially opened, Gao Xiayu suddenly shot up.
This was also related to his solo stage performance in the first public performance.
Among the many English and Chinese song choices, Gao Xiayu chose to sing a Japanese song, the already popular "Gurenge". Not only did he sing it, but he sang it in the original key, and even raised it by one key for the high notes in the latter part. The crisp high notes soared over the band accompaniment, giving listeners goosebumps.
Gao Xiayu's solo stage was praised across various platforms. After the final high note, there was a quick breath control ending, which Gao Xiayu executed perfectly. The director even zoomed in, locking the frame on his face, with red and white lights illuminating both sides of his face, creating a captivating atmosphere.
This viral solo stage, from Gao Xiayu's performance to the camera work, from the lighting design to the stage setup, wouldn't have become so popular if any element was missing.
From the first episode to the fourth, almost every episode had someone breaking out from the pack. Even casual viewers now knew which trainees were more popular.
The third thing to go viral was the photo cards from this performance.
Photo cards were only available to live audience members, and only trainees who performed solo stages had self-taken photo cards. Among all the beautiful self-taken photo cards this time, one person's card stood out for being particularly ugly.
Ye Xing's fans were almost triggered by the words "ugly card". Whenever they heard gossip accounts mention photo cards, they would instinctively close their eyes and swipe past the video. Only the comment control team would grit their teeth and post Ye Xing's official photos for casual viewers to see, insisting that their idol didn't look like that on the photo card.
Even when discussing within their own circles, this responsibility couldn't be attributed to Ye Xing.
"@Don'tSpoilYourBias bot: [12331] Don't spoil your bias, I'm speechless seeing you plan to contact the company to properly treat YX. Just admit YX has no aesthetic sense, desensitize yourselves, give up defending, stop spoiling. Have you ever thought that maybe YX thinks he took good photos? Why do fan leaders always lead the charge in cursing the company? Do you even believe yourself when you say they chose ugly cards to prevent YX from blowing up?"
Comments:
"I like your words, can you make your ID public? [smile]"
"How is this spoiling? I think it looks good!"
"YX's fancams are always released last, if it's not to prevent him from blowing up, then what is it? And how does asking the company to treat YX properly affect you? It's not necessarily about the photo cards."
"Finally someone said it, but I love the ugly card too."
"It's not really ugly, it's just that he always uses the same pose, always photographing his hairline very high. Some cards with his hair down actually look quite good."
"What's wrong with spoiling a bit? He's my bias, if I don't spoil him, should I spoil you?"
While one side was arguing, the other side was arguing even louder.
"Title: Gossip Discussion/21's pop-up store isn't going to resell photo cards, right?"
"The official blog just announced they're setting up pop-up stores in six places including Beijing and Shanghai. It seems to be a lucky draw for photo cards, and the amount spent on photo cards can be converted into an equal number of votes."
"It will run for four weeks, with a different card pool each week. The scariest part is that each trainee has four versions of photo cards each week. It would be extremely difficult to collect them all, considering there are sixty-three trainees."
"Moreover, there's news that previously released mini-cards will also be included, so if each person gets four versions, won't members who've had cards before lose one new card face?"
"My head hurts..."
Comments section:
"If they dare to resell, I'll unstan."
"Mini-card hell."
"Are these regular cards or tech cards? If it's tech cards, 50 per card is okay, but regular cards would be a bit expensive."
"Has Deadlock Entertainment ever released regular cards?"
"If they're regular cards, I'll blow up their company."
"They're starting to fleece fans so soon?"
"Try to understand, they're self-funding the show, even putting it on the alphabet site without ads. What's wrong with a little fleecing? If you don't want to be fleeced, just don't buy."
"Feels like something dirty has mixed into this thread."
"Not interested in mini-cards, saves me a lot of money."
"It's great that the money spent on mini-cards can be converted into voting opportunities, so you get both cards and votes."
"So, can someone help me with a proxy purchase?"
Almost immediately after the first public performance ended, Jiang Juyou had an idea. Opening a pop-up store with mini-card blind boxes would be the quickest method, but you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Besides this, she needed to find other ways.
But the pop-up store was indeed the fastest because orders could be placed through the system mall.
The ground floor of the surrounding buildings had random dance activities every month, with different decorations and layouts each time. All of these were completed through orders in that APP.
After upgrading to Level 9, she discovered a new rental function that allowed renting props from inside to be placed in non-restricted areas.
This was perfect timing. There were all kinds of card-drawing machines inside, including gashapon machines, card-grabbing machines, and direct card-dispensing machines. There were also various scene props, which only required payment based on the rental duration.
The venue was even easier to solve. Instead of contacting shopping malls, they could just use the Galaxy Venues in various cities.
On Monday, as soon as dawn broke, fans set out for the pop-up stores.
Jiang Juyou: Not asking for much, just hoping to make 2 million, please.
-
