Chapter 761

And Jump Up's main marketing strategy for "Those Years" also began.

Starting Monday, at every roadshow for "Those Years," a netizen who had shared their story online was invited to the venue to share more details of their story with everyone.

The first three-day weekend saw many "shared stories" online receive over ten thousand likes.

Jump Up's marketing team worked tirelessly to read these stories, identify those with potential, contact the netizens, communicate with them by phone, and once it was confirmed that the person's story was suitable, invite them to the roadshow venue.

Then, a truly magical scene occurred—

This film didn't promote its own plot; instead, it focused on promoting the "regretful youth romance stories" at each roadshow venue.

But an even more magical scene was—

Every story shared at the venue was widely circulated online in the form of clips.

Precisely because they were real, the target audience for these types of stories watched them and were moved to tears.

Then, crying and crying, they went and bought movie tickets.

"A marketing strategy worth ten million, you have to be impressed. When it comes to film topic marketing, if Jump Up calls itself second, no one can call themselves first."

The box office trend for "Those Years" on weekdays remained steadily above 20 million, allowing it to surpass 200 million in box office before the second weekend.

On the Friday of the second weekend, the box office for "Those Years" saw a reverse growth, returning to over 30 million.

Starting Friday, the song "Those Years" sung by Li Zhibai began playing in a brainwashing manner in all Lanshen convenience stores, Baixing stationery stores, and Sunny coffee shops.

"What's going on with Sunny coffee shops?" Lu Yan He asked Chen Siqi curiously.

Chen Siqi said: "This is a brand Li Zhibai endorses. We contacted all the endorsement brands of the main cast anyway. The others are still in talks; these three were the ones that agreed readily."

The first two were brands endorsed by Lu Yan He.

"It's just a pity that it's summer vacation now, otherwise I would have definitely made the broadcast stations of every middle school play this song," Chen Siqi said with great regret.

Lu Yan He: "..."

Chen Siqi's train of thought was always so unique, yet it went straight to the heart of the matter.

The driving effect of a good song on a youth romance film is something that never fails.

From "So Young" to "Fleet of Time", from "A Little Happiness" to "Parting Ways" and "Decency".

Lu Yan He asked Chen Siqi curiously, what other tricks did she have once the pull period for the song "Those Years" passed?

Chen Siqi said: "We have already contacted the other protagonists of those stories from the roadshow venues, inviting them to respond to those stories in front of our cameras. Those willing to appear on camera will do so, and those who aren't will be blurred, but the point is to let the footage from the roadshow venues form a dialogue with these response shots, and then edit these images together with the storyline of "Those Years" to make an MV."

Lu Yan He was greatly shocked.

He really wanted to ask, was Chen Siqi's talent really not pointed toward marketing?

"You're awesome."

This MV by Chen Siqi was definitely a heavy "nostalgia and reminiscence bomb."

How did "So Young" manage to take over 700 million in box office back then?

Wasn't it just this trick?! Finding a bunch of non-professionals to talk about what youth is in front of the camera, and then igniting the whole audience.

To this day, Lu Yan He still remembers the line, "Only good-looking people have youth; people like us only have college."

How should I put it? No one knows how many people a film can actually attract into the cinema. For a viewer, no one knows what kind of elements a film needs to have to attract them into the cinema.

But standing from the perspective of promotion, one can only do two things well: first, the coverage of the promotion must be as wide as possible, which means a larger base; second, the focus of the promotion must be as precise as possible, because that is the only way to hit the bullseye.

The former can be achieved by throwing money at volume, but the volume thrown out by money is far inferior to spontaneous fermentation.

The latter can use exciting clips from the film to make a point, but it will also produce the negative effect of "feeling like you've seen it after the thrill," which makes the audience lazy to actually go watch it—many people say, isn't that what a trailer is? Actually, no. The core of a trailer is to set a hook, throw out a little bait, and make the audience want to see the full picture. That is the logic of a trailer.

But the current way of film promotion directly releasing clips is similar to the logic of giving you a sample—it's delicious, right? Come on in. But viewers who have had too many samples will discover, wait, this shop's samples are always better than the main meal, so why the hell would I eat the main meal? I'll just eat the samples.

Chen Siqi's promotion strategy perfectly avoided these negative aspects and expanded on those positive ones that had a positive impact.

Lu Yan He said: Incredible, your marketing team is truly going to be incredible in the future.

Chen Siqi: Still have to learn from you. On Saturday, "Oh My Sea" is going to be released, and the box office pre-sales are already over four million... A "three-no" film, after your insertion into "Those Years," a significant proportion of the audience who watched "Those Years" want to watch "Oh My Sea." I'm actually looking forward to the box office of this film.

Lu Yan He: I'm looking forward to it too.

Back then, Lu Yan He had a "stroke of genius" and added two easter eggs at the end of "Those Years."

One easter egg was that after Ke Teng and the others finished attending the wedding, they passed by a cinema showing "Oh My Sea," saw the release poster for "Oh My Sea," and decided to go into the cinema together to watch the film and relive their adolescent youth.

The second easter egg was that after they finished watching the film and came out of the cinema, the others asked Ke Teng, if one day their story was made into a film, what would it be like? Ke Teng pointed at the name Wu Chi on the poster and said, then I'll write a novel, send it to him, and see if he's willing to make it into a film.

—In "Those Years," Ke Teng's later profession was that of a novelist.

Now, "Oh My Sea" is about to be released.

Linghe did not hold a domestic premiere, nor did it do any extra promotion; it just relied on these two easter eggs from "Those Years" to release tomorrow.

This low-budget film, which had the same director as "Those Years" but no famous actors, received 12% of the screen allocation on its opening day on Saturday, and box office pre-sales broke 4 million.

From this data, one can directly declare that Lu Yan He's strategy at the time was successful.

On Saturday, the box office for "Those Years" rose again, reaching 41 million, and the opening day box office for "Oh My Sea" was 8.6 million.

On Sunday, the box office for "Those Years" dropped to 32 million, and the second-day box office for "Oh My Sea" was 7.4 million.

"Those Years" entered its second weekday, and the box office had already reached 300 million.

Judging from the current box office trend, it has not yet reached the inflection point, which means the ceiling for the box office cannot be determined yet, and it means the promotion by Linghe and Jump Up cannot stop yet—

And at this time, the Monday box office for "Oh My Sea" magically reached 6.1 million, the downward trend killing all other films. With this, the box office for "Oh My Sea" broke 20 million.

When Huang Zhongjing came to visit the set of "Burning Fire 2", Lu Yan He felt that the look he gave him was indeed a bit jealous.

Although Huang Zhongjing hid it very well.

Deep down, Lu Yan He was also very smug, of course, he didn't show it at all on his face.

Although the box office for "Burning Fire" was high enough, to be honest, the production cost was also high, and the risk was also great.

Last year, the films that really made money for Long Yan could be counted on one hand, and the money earned from the box office in the end was not as much as the profit from one "Love Letter" by Linghe.

This year, Lu Yan He came again.

Except for "Those Years," which had a relatively high cost, the costs of "Home Alone" and "Oh My Sea" did not exceed 10 million RMB. And the result?

Let alone the big hit "Home Alone," just the domestic box office of "Oh My Sea" could bring tens of millions in revenue to Linghe.

How could Huang Zhongjing not envy, how could he not be jealous?

Why was Lu Yan He always able to achieve big results with small investments?

Many times, a film with a box office of 200-300 million only brings a few tens of millions in revenue to the company in the end.

Lu Yan He, on the other hand, with one "Oh My Sea," given the current situation, could earn tens of millions domestically, plus the overseas distribution rights had already earned nearly 4 million US dollars so far. Counting television broadcasts, video websites, video-on-demand, etc., a film with a production cost of 2 million was looking at earning tens of millions.

Who wouldn't be jealous seeing this?

Lu Yan He just smiled and said nothing.

Next, Linghe would still carry the "big results with small investments" route to the end.

Even if they were to transform in the future and start doing big productions, the path of small productions could not be abandoned.

Making films, controlling risk is always the primary principle.

When the third week of "Those Years" ended and the box office still hadn't reached an inflection point, the industry suddenly realized the most formidable aspect of this film—

It relied entirely on the rhythmic and planned marketing strategy of the Jump Up team to lengthen its window period.

Not a single day's box office exceeded 50 million, but now the total box office had crossed the 400 million mark, and it was looking to march toward the goal of 600 million total box office.

The most critical thing was that as long as there was no inflection point in the box office, the predicted figure for this total box office would not stop rising for a single day.

When the MV Chen Siqi mentioned was released, the box office for the film "Those Years" in the fourth week actually managed to withstand the downward trend, almost no different from the third week.

When the box office of "Those Years" broke 500 million, the box office of "Oh My Sea" also broke 35 million.

At this time, although the box office potential of "Those Years" had not yet hit bottom, Linghe had to shift its work force to the promotion of "Chinese Paladin".

This drama was broadcast on July 18th on Yuehu TV, Aurora Video, and Ice Plain Video.

Yuehu TV enjoyed a 24-hour window period.

Because of the 24-hour window period, the purchase price Yuehu TV paid for the broadcast rights of this drama was double that of dramas of the same level.

Li Zhibai had just been running roadshows in the identity of Ke Teng, and the next moment he started doing drama promotion in the identity of Li Xiaoyao.

This drama was also simultaneously bought by HP for overseas streaming rights.

Xianxia dramas, although they don't have much of a market in Europe and America, are still a traditional big draw for viewership in Asia.

Because of this, Zhong Benshuo came to grumble at Lu Yan He for a long time again.

Lu Yan He had also been filming in the "Burning Fire 2" crew for nearly two months, and it would wrap up in another half a month.

He had to miss the promotion of "Chinese Paladin" because of this.

Fortunately, Yan Liang had already wrapped up from the "Jiang Banquet" crew and joined Li Zhibai, taking on the heavy responsibility of drama promotion.

And the luck of "Chinese Paladin"... how should I put it.

The film "Those Years" not only allowed Li Zhibai to firmly establish his position as a young film actor, but also allowed Yan Lingyu, who had been silent for several years, to appear in the eyes of the audience again. The image of Shen Jiayi, the pure female top student, was deeply imprinted in the hearts of the audience.

The number of their CP fans grew day by day with the fermentation of the film's regretful ending.

Then, at this time, "Chinese Paladin," starring Li Zhibai and Yan Lingyu again, arrived.

"Those Years" not only made "Oh My Sea" popular, but also brought a terrifying base of viewers to "Chinese Paladin."

These were all audience groups outside the core audience that the promotion of "Chinese Paladin" was facing.

On the night of July 19th, "Chinese Paladin" started broadcasting first on Yuehu TV.

Aurora Video and Ice Plain Video were not to be outdone. Although they had to wait until this time tomorrow to go online with the first episode, they directly did a "companion viewing livestream," pulling Li Zhibai, Yan Liang, and a group of main creators to livestream and watch the drama.

Lu Yan He went online to link up with them for ten minutes after finishing his scenes.

Many people in the bullet screen area were spamming, expressing protest: why in such an internet era, do we still have to do this TV station broadcast thing?

It's too inconvenient!

Some people also said they couldn't understand Lu Yan He's old-fashioned thinking of insisting on broadcasting on TV stations.

Lu Yan He saw so many people spamming to accuse him, and he laughed generously: "This is not old-fashioned thinking. One more place to broadcast, one more place to make money. When you have the ability to make money in three places in the future, you can generously give up one place."

Lu Yan He's generous attitude made the bullet screen area spam wildly for a while—

—Sorry, I was loud.

—So it was to make money, fine, I'll back down.

—How much money did Yuehu TV give you to make you willing to let those of us who can't watch TV need to anxiously wait another night.

Lu Yan He couldn't stop laughing, and on a whim, said: "That person who said they can't watch TV, why can't you watch TV?"

That person replied in the bullet screen area: In this day and age, who still installs a TV set in their home.

Lu Yan He said: I'll have my staff contact you later, I'll give you a TV set, but you have to promise me that from now on, you have to watch my dramas on the TV set. Do you want it?

That person: Yes!

The bullet screen area exploded instantly.

In fact, the discussion about "Chinese Paladin" on the internet was boisterous, but the real backbone of viewership—middle school students—were sitting honestly in front of the TV, watching this drama.

For these students who were usually strictly controlled by their parents regarding mobile phones and internet access, watching TV suddenly became a recreational activity that parents could actually accept.

These students who never watched TV, under the overwhelming promotion, all knew that such a drama was about to be broadcast.

In class group chats, everyone was discussing this drama, and those who hadn't watched it couldn't help but turn on their home TVs to watch it.

Watching TV—

How rare.

This group of students did not have an advantage in the population structure, but in these times when the number of people watching TV is decreasing day by day, they could be called a "colossus."

The viewership rating of the first episode of "Chinese Paladin" directly pushed Yuehu TV, a local station, to the 1.2% position.

How should one evaluate this number?

Before this, except for "Friends" and "My Own Swordsman," the highest viewership rating for Yuehu TV's prime time this year was 0.72%.

With this, the three dramas with the highest viewership ratings on Yuehu TV this year were all contracted by Lu Yan He.

To be precise, the three TV dramas with the highest viewership ratings on local stations were all contracted by Lu Yan He.

"Always Very Quiet," "June Rain"...

These songs suddenly became popular in the online communities commonly used by students.

And then—

Middle school students suddenly discovered that Li Xiaoyao and Zhao Linger from "Chinese Paladin" also starred in another campus-themed film?

"Mom, I want to watch a movie with my classmates, give me a hundred yuan."

"What kind of crappy movie costs a hundred yuan?"

"I'm watching a movie with classmates, of course I can't just watch the movie, I need to drink beverages and buy popcorn!"

"Male classmates or female classmates?"

"If I were dating, do you think I would only ask you for a hundred yuan? What is a hundred yuan enough for?"

"..."

This summer season, "Those Years" was not the film with the highest box office, and it wasn't even in the top three.

"Chess Pieces Also Gamble," starring Jiang Mingzheng, had been released for two weeks, and the box office had already broken 1 billion.

The crime comedy film "Opening the Door is a Red Light," starring Yuan Haiyang, took 1.2 billion at the box office.

Even another romance comedy film with a similar theme, "Love is Not Satisfactory," took 900 million at the box office.

However, "You Are the Apple of My Eye" became the film with the strongest long-tail effect.

No comedy elements, pure campus, pure youth, pure romance. Relying on a strong star lineup for the first weekend, relying on the Jump Up team's promotion and marketing for the first month, and starting from the end of July, receiving feedback from "Chinese Paladin," this film ran into August and was even able to maintain a 10% screen allocation, and its box office reached 640 million.

Its vitality was too tenacious.

Moreover, although it was not as good as these films in terms of box office, when it comes to the boost for the actors—

Li Zhibai and Yan Lingyu had been extremely popular over the past month.

This film and these two characters were too attractive to fans, and they gave these two actors too much of a character filter.

Almost every viewer who watched this film would be moved by these two actors.

Film characters who can have this kind of filter halo can be counted on one hand.

Li Yuefeng and Xiao Yun also benefited greatly.

If unknown actors had played these roles, they might have been directly suppressed by the powerful protagonist halo, but the two of them were already popular stars themselves. Playing the second male and second female leads in such a film with explosive attention, they themselves had highlights, their respective teams would of course market them, and Jump Up would also market them. Their volume and topics were also not to be underestimated.

By the day Lu Yan He wrapped up "Burning Fire 2," the box office of "Those Years" had officially broken 700 million.

However, the inflection point of the box office had appeared, and the room for growth was limited.

But a box office of 700 million, compared to the cost of "Those Years," was also a huge profit.

Before Li Zhibai joined the crew of "Flying Over the Grass," "Those Years" was released in various Asian countries one after another. Within a week, Li Zhibai ran five promotions in South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Li Zhibai, who had just become slightly famous internationally because of "Buried," suddenly transformed to act in a campus romance film—

Although the span was a bit large.

But these Asian countries were places that loved campus romance themes very much.

Plus the North American region that Green Valley was responsible for.

"Those Years" had a good chance of getting an overseas box office of around 10 million US dollars.

As long as the performance in the Asian region met expectations.

No one expected that "Those Years" would have a small hit in both South Korea and Japan, taking about 2 million US dollars in box office in the first week of release. In the United States, although it only opened in 200 cinemas, it only took 230,000 US dollars in box office. It was the first time a film written by Lu Yan He performed "horribly" in North America.

Fortunately, Green Valley didn't pin its hopes on "Those Years" getting a good box office anyway. Lu Yan He himself didn't either. Otherwise, Lu Yan He wouldn't have been willing to let Green Valley open "Those Years" in 200 cinemas at this time.

Because of this box office performance in North America, Chen Yin deliberated and felt that there was no need to force "Those Years" to be released in European cinemas, so he sold the distribution rights for Europe to a European film distributor for 1.5 million US dollars for 10 years.

Earning 1.5 million US dollars at once, although it might be a slight loss in the long run, it had the advantage of saving a lot of energy and completing the transaction at once.

When Lu Yan He came to the company to have a meeting with Chen Yin, Chen Yin smiled and said: "Mr. Lu, I increasingly feel that many of your ideas are truly far-sighted."

Lu Yan He's head grew big instantly.

"Why are you suddenly buttering me up?"

Chen Yin smiled and said: "It's not me buttering you up; it's that this time when I was promoting "Those Years" overseas, I fully realized that when a star has a representative work like "Buried" internationally, how much effect a star has on promoting a film that is not so eye-catching. This time, being able to sell it in Europe for 1.5 million US dollars for 10 years was largely due to Li Zhibai."

Lu Yan He: "This is also the role of a film star."

A star certainly cannot determine the life or death of a film, but a star is the business card of a film—

When the film itself does not have a second business card.

Especially those non-theatrical buyers, if they buy a film and there are some stars they know in the film, even if it is slightly rotten, people are willing to buy it at a lower price for the sake of this actor.

Chen Yin said: "Now foreign film distributors know more and more Chinese actors. In recent years, our performance on international streaming media has been quite good, many actors have come out, and a snowball effect has formed. One brings two, two bring four, and more and more actors are participating in overseas projects."

"This is a good thing," Lu Yan He said. "When domestic actors no longer have only domestic film and television projects as an option, it can also force domestic film and television projects to further upgrade."

Chen Yin nodded, "Yes, yesterday I also saw a piece of data. The number of projects that started filming in the first half of this year increased by 32% compared to the same period last year."

A 32% increase in the number of projects starting filming shows that capital is now full of confidence in the film and television market and is willing to invest in more film and television dramas.

Platforms are also full of confidence in the future market.

"This year, our company's copyright operation revenue has also hit a new high," Xu said. "I especially want to point out that "Oh My Sea" has so far earned 4.5 million US dollars through the sale of overseas distribution rights. Film and television companies in Japan, South Korea, and Thailand all want to remake it and are in communication. The copyright revenue of this film is much higher than we expected. The overseas distribution of the film "Those Years" itself is not as hot as "Oh My Sea," mainly because the sales price of the latter is much higher than "Oh My Sea" because of Li Zhibai's starring role, but film distributors have insufficient confidence in such a common campus youth romance film."

Lu Yan He nodded, expressing understanding.

"However, because "Those Years" was a hit in China, it sparked huge social attention and topic discussion, making many foreign production companies very interested in the content of the film itself. There are many more companies coming to consult about remakes than "Oh My Sea"."

Lu Yan He had guessed that "Those Years" would be welcomed by other companies and that they would want to remake it. After all, the original version of this film already had several overseas remake versions.

Xu Tianming continued: "Of course, in fact, in terms of copyright operation, the most profitable and the one with the broadest sustainable profit space in the future for Linghe is still in games and animation. The two animations "Squid Game" and "My Own Swordsman" that we cooperated with Zhui Guang Animation have both completed the production of the first part and are about to be broadcast. Similarly, the real-life scenic spot of "My Own Swordsman" in Jiangzhi can now have a share of over 20 million a year. This income is expected to decrease after the last season of "My Own Swordsman" finishes broadcasting early next year."

"However, the real-life game city of "Squid Game" is still very popular so far," Xu said. "The online live-action role-playing game of "Squid Game" that we developed in cooperation with Wanwei will be launched to the market at the end of this year."

Games, these are the real money-making beasts.

Lu Yan He nodded.

"Now the hit of "Chinese Paladin" has also made another top game company take a fancy to this story and want to adapt this drama into a game," Xu said.

Lu Yan He was stunned when he heard this.

"Chinese Paladin" was originally a single-player game.

Because the game was very popular, it was adapted into a TV drama.

Didn't expect that, after going around in circles, this story is going to be adapted into a game again?

Lu Yan He asked: "Is this game going to be adapted according to the plot of the TV drama?"

"No, it's just using the worldview of "Chinese Paladin." They want to develop it into a PC game."

"PC game?" Lu Yan He was stunned.

The current game market is dominated by mobile games.

Why would they think of developing it into a PC game?

Xu said: "To be precise, they want to combine VR technology to develop a virtual reality game."

Lu Yan He showed an expression of disbelief.

"Do they already have such technology?"

"Yes," Xu said. "In fact, I also looked at their planning proposal and the production budget they intend to invest, so I was very tempted. They are not the kind of game company that wants to make quick money. The production plan is very sophisticated and detailed."

"This requires investing a lot of capital in one go, right? The initial R&D funds are not simple," Lu Yan He said.

"They are a top game production company, Rainbow House," Xu said. "If their funds are not abundant, then no company can say their funds are abundant. Their cash flow beats all film and television companies."

Lu Yan He: "..."

Also true.

"They currently have twelve games under their banner, with an annual turnover of over 3 billion," Xu said. "They also want to develop the market for virtual reality games. In the past, they were all small-scale explorations. Now they want to make a flagship experimental product, so they focused their attention on our "Chinese Paladin"."

Lu Yan He nodded and said: "Then what conditions did they offer?"

"100 million in licensing fees, buying the exclusive online game development and operation rights for "Chinese Paladin" for thirty years. They can conduct multiple developments, and we can enjoy a 20% share of the revenue."

"Is this condition appropriate?"

"It is the best condition we can get now," Xu said.

Lu Yan He nodded: "Then let's try it."

"Hey, by the way, how is the broadcast performance of "Chinese Paladin" now?" He looked at Chen Yin.

Before, he had been filming "Burning Fire 2." In order not to be distracted, except for when it first started broadcasting, Lu Yan He consciously paid attention to the results and data of "Chinese Paladin," but later he didn't look at it anymore.

He had been concentrating all his energy on filming "Burning Fire 2."

This film was also his key project.

Although many people didn't take it seriously.

"Sword of Demon Hunting" is 170,000 words (End of chapter)