Chapter 669 Gold Award
Zheng Guoyuan immediately told him his thoughts in general. After listening to him, Song Yuanchao was surprised and looked Zheng Guoyuan up and down for a long time.
"Mr. Song, I'm not a young girl. Why are you looking at me like that?" Zheng Guoyuan felt uncomfortable being stared at by a man like this.
"Old Zheng, Old Zheng, I didn't expect that a guy like you with thick eyebrows and big eyes would use this trick?" Song Yuanchao couldn't help but say.
"Haha, no matter what method it is, as long as it works, that's fine. Mr. Song, what do you think of my method?"
Zheng Guoyuan touched his head and laughed, then asked another question.
"Old Zheng, how did you come up with this idea?" Seeing that Zheng Guoyuan's cigarette was almost finished, Song Yuanchao handed him another one.
He took the cigarette and lit it up with the unburned cigarette butt. Zheng Guoyuan threw the remaining cigarette butt into the ashtray and smoked the new cigarette while saying, "In fact, I had this idea a long time ago. I thought about it when I was at the Quanlin Factory."
"Why didn't it work?"
"No chance!" Zheng Guoyuan spread his hands helplessly: "You know the scale of Quanlin Factory, it's just a small collective factory. Although there have been great changes in the past two years, the foundation is too weak. My original plan was to develop steadily for two years, and then learn from Si Te to engage in flexible packaging or directly start the canning industry. To be honest, I have made the entire plan, but who would have thought that the plan would not be as fast as the changes, and now even Quanlin Factory..."
At this point, Zheng Guoyuan shook his head and sighed. Although he is no longer the director of Quanlin Factory, he still has deep feelings for this factory where he has worked for many years.
As Zheng Guoyuan said, Quanlin Factory is just a small collective factory, ranking in the third tier among Jinling beverage companies in terms of scale, output and fame.
However, this small factory has developed rapidly under the efforts of Zheng Guoyuan and the spring breeze of reform and opening up. In less than three years, the factory has stood out. Such achievements are inseparable from Zheng Guoyuan.
Zheng Guoyuan had already planned for the development of Quanlin Factory, but due to the lack of resources and funding of Quanlin Factory, something went wrong before the plan was realized, thus it died in the womb.
What Zheng Guoyuan said to Song Yuanchao were all from his heart. This was also his original plan. If he could be given more time, he would have enough confidence to make Quanlin Factory a famous local enterprise in Jinling. Even if it was not as good as Sit Company, it would be able to squeeze into the first echelon and compete with Sit in the local area and surrounding areas.
Unfortunately, everything was gone with the wind. What happened later caught Zheng Guoyuan off guard. Not only did he lose his position as factory director, he eventually had no choice but to leave and join Si Te Company.
Zheng Guoyuan had originally thought about how to market the factory after it was established. However, given the size and lack of funds of the Quanlin Factory, some marketing tactics were not easy for Zheng Guoyuan to implement. Even advertising had to be calculated carefully and the money had to be spent wisely.
Quanlin Factory has a poor foundation and does not have the background and strong financial resources of Si Te Company. Zheng Guoyuan can only use other means to achieve his goal. Advertising is definitely necessary, but how to advertise and how to attract consumers is a bit particular.
That’s why Zheng Guoyuan came up with the idea of focusing on product reputation. Currently, many famous large manufacturers will add a sentence “This product has won XX honor” in their advertisements , and then highlight that the product has won the city’s, province’s, or even ministry’s honors.
This is exactly what Zheng Guoyuan wants. However, given the situation of the Quanlin Factory, it would be very difficult to even be evaluated as a municipal excellence, let alone a provincial or ministerial excellence.
Since the bid evaluation was impossible, was this a dead end? Of course not! Zheng Guoyuan racked his brains to think of a solution, and finally came up with a solution through the story of the 1915 Panama World Expo, which was to fabricate a foreign award to gild his factory and products.
After the reform and opening up, the country began to open up, and the Chinese people's views on Western countries changed 180 degrees, especially advanced capitalist societies like Europe and the United States. As their minds changed, they also loved the products recognized and praised by foreigners. Zheng Guoyuan's method took advantage of this psychology of the Chinese people. If nothing changed, when Zheng Guoyuan had built the Quanlin Factory to a certain level, he would use this method to make the Quanlin Factory famous.
Unfortunately, this idea is no longer possible. But when Zheng Guoyuan discovered that Jianlibao had transformed itself into the so-called "Oriental Magic Water" with the help of the Olympic Games, he immediately felt a sense of crisis.
Considering the current competition and huge threat from Jianlibao, Si Te Company must respond to stabilize the market and compete with Jianlibao. After much thought, Zheng Guoyuan felt that the best way was the trick he had figured out at the beginning.
If Jianlibao can become the "Oriental Magic Water" through the Olympics, then Sit's products can also expand their influence through "international" evaluations and awards. Moreover, Sit is a joint venture with American capital, so as long as it has the halo, it will be more convincing.
Song Yuanchao never thought that Zheng Guoyuan would come up with such an idea. When he heard it, he felt really amused.
But if you think about it carefully, Zheng Guoyuan's method is simple but very effective. You should know that there are countless so-called product awards in later generations, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when various associations and institutions were established in society.
These associations and organizations do nothing else but one thing every day.
Every day, I would take a phone book and look through the company list, then call or fax them, telling them that their product had won an award, and that they only needed to pay a XXX yuan assessment fee to get the certificate and trophy mailed to them...
This scam started to deceive many people. Some companies were ecstatic after receiving the news and remitted money without saying anything, thus exchanging the money for a beautifully printed certificate or trophy (medal). Then they promoted this thing and the market effect was surprisingly good.
Of course, this scam was very effective at the beginning, after all, at that time people had more trust in the so-called "associations" and "institutions", and their credibility was strong. But over time, as more and more awards, trophies and medals were issued, these things became commonplace. When "honor" could be exchanged for money, the honor changed qualitatively, and no one believed in it anymore.
But this situation has not happened yet. The so-called city-level, provincial-level, and ministerial-level awards shown in advertisements by some companies on TV and radio are real and not fake at all.
In this case, if Sit's products suddenly won some honors such as the National Food Association or the Pan-Pacific Beverage Expo, or even the global industry gold award, coupled with a certain amount of media promotion and publicity, then its influence would be enough.
The more Song Yuanchao thought about it, the more he felt that the method proposed by Zheng Guoyuan was really good. Besides, this method was also very feasible.
Like in later generations, it is very common to give yourself an award and give yourself a resounding name. Which company doesn’t do this?
Go to the honor rooms of some companies and you will find that 90% of the trophies and medals in the beautiful glass cabinets are issued by themselves, the remaining 9% are of unknown origin, and less than 1% are of real value. Some companies are even more ridiculous, all the trophies and medals are fake goods, bought casually from Yiwu, any style you want, any grand and luxurious you want.
Of course, such a situation has not happened yet. Zheng Guoyuan can be said to have implemented an innovation. He probably did not expect that his idea of promoting the market would become the ancestor of a certain industry. More than ten years later, when all kinds of honors flooded in and became a joke, Zheng Guoyuan thought it was really ridiculous when he recalled the suggestions he gave to Song Yuanchao.
After considering it, Song Yuanchao readily agreed to Zheng Guoyuan's suggestion. Moreover, since they were going to do it, they couldn't just launch one beverage, but might as well launch all of Sit's products.
As for what award to win, that’s not difficult either.
There are simply countless such organizations abroad. In the United States, Europe and other Western countries, many so-called private associations mostly survive by awarding prizes. This kind of thing is new in China, but it is not uncommon abroad.
Take the Panama World Exposition mentioned by Zheng Guoyuan for example. When China participated in this exposition, it actually won more than 100 gold and silver medals of various types. The number, scope, and number of awards are simply unimaginable.
On the contrary, the story of winning the gold medal by smashing wine bottles, which has been passed down in later generations, actually does not exist at all, because according to the award list at that time, the so-called gold medal-winning liquor was not on the list at all. To put it bluntly, this story is just a marketing method, and it actually makes most people believe it.
Ah Q once said, "A monk can touch me, but I can't?"
Since others can do it, why can't Song Yuanchao do it? And using this method to inspire national self-confidence and expand the influence of products is also a good thing!
Song Yuanchao immediately decided to do as Zheng Guoyuan suggested, and immediately contacted some non-governmental associations in the United States and Europe through the external channels of the Si Te Company to inquire about the approximate cost of making an award certificate (trophy, medal).
After getting the "honor", they found a local reporter, paid some money to publish a news report about tofu in the newspaper, and then found domestic media friends to promote it. Song Yuanchao still didn't believe it. Isn't such influence less than that of Jianlibao?
Watching Zheng Guoyuan leave excitedly, Song Yuanchao couldn't help but feel that it was a pity to have such a talented person in his company.
If Zheng Guoyuan continues to stay in Quanlin Factory and waits for Quanlin Factory to grow gradually, perhaps in a few years Quanlin Factory will become a strong rival of Si Te.
