Finally, you've arrived!!!
The industrial park workers, who have eaten countless cornbread, sweet potato noodles, potato cakes, and wild mushroom sauce from Langshan, are now sitting by their warm fires, lying in their cozy beds, and clutching their phones in various places, determined to grab whatever they can this time!
At 8 p.m., Jiang Xiaoman lazily opened his live stream. Tonight, he planned to sell a New Year's gift pack of nuts and snacks from a national brand, as well as a new small appliance from another brand.
Don't assume that home appliances don't sell well during the Chinese New Year. On the contrary, for most rural areas, many families who are usually reluctant to buy home appliances will wait until before the New Year when relatives who have gone out to work return with their savings from the past year to buy some commonly used appliances.
This includes, but is not limited to, broken televisions, refrigerators, mobile phones, as well as household appliances such as rice cookers, induction cookers, and electric kettles.
Those from wealthier families might even buy their family members an electric oven, air fryer, electric hot pot, or something similar.
Therefore, after major factories close for holidays each year, consumption in rural areas will surge. For many brands that target lower-tier markets, the period around the Lunar New Year is the most profitable time of the year.
All of the above market research was found by Jiang Xiaoman in the materials provided by the brand. The marketing and planning departments were well prepared, and even helped to write sales-boosting scripts. However, Xiaoman, who was determined to give up, did not adopt any of them.
He casually picked up a single-serving electric hot pot, grinning and jokingly teasing his fans at the camera—
"I have a single-serving electric hot pot in my house down the mountain. You should see me using it often."
"But surely no one would actually eat hot pot alone during the Lunar New Year?"
"Although the brand says the end of the year is the peak season for home appliance sales, I don't think anyone would want to buy a single-serving electric hot pot during the Chinese New Year when families are reunited..."
Before he finished speaking, the two hundred mini electric hot pots he had just put on the shelves were gone in a flash!
"What the hell? Surely no one's really eating hot pot alone during Chinese New Year?" Fans who didn't manage to get a table complained.
This single-person electric hot pot is quite cheap. The live streaming platform held a New Year's shopping festival before the Spring Festival. The electric hot pot, which usually sells for 99 yuan in stores, is only 65 yuan today after the discount and coupon. Many people want to grab one. Even if you don't use it at home during the Spring Festival, it's still a good idea to take it back to school/dorm/rental apartment after the holiday.
Why not use a single-person hot pot at home during Chinese New Year?
Don't be ridiculous! During the Lunar New Year, you dare to go downstairs in the middle of the night to find something to eat?
If I don't want my mom to yell at me, I'd better buy a mini hot pot and secretly stock up on instant noodles and sausages and hide them in my room!
When you're up late playing on your phone and your stomach is growling with hunger, at least you can sneak out a quick bite of instant noodles or something. Otherwise, if you sneak out to find something to eat and get caught by your mom in the middle of the night, you'd better be ready for a scolding!
Of course, there are also some people who have to work during the Spring Festival or pretend to be on duty to avoid going home for blind dates. They really need a single-serving hot pot to keep them going... After all, ordering takeout during the Spring Festival not only means fewer options but also extra costs!
How can the income of working people withstand such extravagance?
I'd rather eat instant noodles in my rented room than go home for those unpalatable blind date meals!
Jiang Xiaoman was originally leaning lazily in her chair with an electric brazier under her feet, feeling drowsy. But when she saw that the inventory was completely empty, she was wide awake.
Two hundred mini hot pots were not enough to go around. Many fans who didn't manage to get one were clamoring for him to restock. Even those who did manage to get one weren't quiet. They joined in the clamor, saying that since they bought an electric hot pot, he should also buy some instant noodles, sausages, self-heating rice, etc. They couldn't possibly eat instant noodles for seven days during the Lunar New Year, could they?
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
Don't you have any food at home during the Lunar New Year?
Hilarious! Of course there's food; the fridge is packed full!
However, in the eyes of mothers, good children should eat three meals a day on time and go to bed before 9 p.m., while those who stay up late and eat late-night snacks are high-risk groups who may die suddenly at any time.
Therefore, eating late-night snacks equals sudden death!
There's a kind of healthy lifestyle where your mom doesn't allow you to eat late-night snacks.
After reading the fans' complaints, Jiang Xiaoman fell silent.
Is it really this miserable for young people to go home for the Chinese New Year these days?
Fortunately, his father never cared whether he ate a midnight snack or not. Sometimes when he was busy and forgot to prepare one, his father would cook him some sweet potato porridge before bed, or bury a few red sweet potatoes from the sandy soil in the brazier.
However, since the fans have mentioned instant food, Jiang Xiaoman just remembered that when she and Jiang Yu went to W City to attend the commendation meeting last time, they met a representative from a long-established domestic instant noodle manufacturer in H Province.
This instant noodle brand is considered one of the oldest in China, but in recent years it has been squeezed out by some large foreign brands and is almost on the verge of collapse.
Even so, whenever a major disaster strikes, this company is always at the forefront. When Jiang Xiaoman and her group were transporting various fresh fruits and vegetables to W City by waterway, this company simply dispatched ten large trucks, fully loaded with instant noodles, and plunged headlong into W City without hesitation.
It is said that the employees responsible for transportation and escorting the vehicles did not rest after entering the city. They immediately changed into protective suits and became volunteers, working until the lockdown was lifted, which moved the citizens of W City to tears.
Jiang Xiaoman greatly admired this national enterprise with patriotism, and added the person in charge of the enterprise as a friend. However, because the enterprise was relatively poor, it did not have enough budget to hire a popular influencer like Jiang Xiaoman to promote its products, so it never took the initiative to contact him.
But if the mountain won't come to me, I'll go to the mountain!
Jiang Xiaoman immediately found the person in charge's phone number and asked if they could ship normally during the Chinese New Year period. If so, they could try cooperating a few times.
"Um, may I ask, Brother Xiaoman, what's your current promotional fee...?"
Good heavens! Every single punctuation mark in this sentence screams poverty!
Jiang Xiaoman quickly explained that it was because the fans needed it. They had attended the awards ceremony together before and were practically acquaintances, so why would they need a promotion fee?
As long as you continue to fight on the front lines of disaster relief, my live stream will always be open to your brand of instant noodles for free!
Having another sales channel is certainly a good thing, especially since many of Jiang Xiaoman's fans are people who love life, and their target customer group overlaps quite a bit with their company's. The person in charge went to apply and quickly reached a preliminary cooperation agreement with Jiang Xiaoman.
This brand also has its own online store and live streaming room, and the product links are already available. Jiang Xiaoman can just put them up directly.
but--
"Logistics are slower than usual now; it may take 3 to 5 days to send our samples over," the person in charge said apologetically.
"No need! Bring your instant noodles, why would you need samples? Just wait, I'll print them out directly."
The person in charge was taken aback. Are all the internet celebrities and influencers these days so amazing? They even have 3D printing equipment?
They soon learned that Jiang Xiaoman's so-called printing simply meant printing out their main sales page, attaching the yellow shopping cart icon, and starting sales directly in the live stream.
Person in charge: "..."
Are all streamers these days playing this wildly?
Also, are you sure you can sell something without even having a product, just by having a piece of colored printed paper?
The honest and straightforward person in charge was unaware that there is a type of marketing in this world called storytelling.
When the segment on instant noodles came on, Jiang Xiaoman immediately started acting like a spoiled brat, pulling out a color-printed product page for instant noodles and starting to act shamelessly in front of the camera—
"Next up is the instant noodles that everyone strongly requested last time. I'm sorry, I don't have any samples at home because my dad, like your parents, doesn't allow me to eat instant noodles. When I was little, he even scared me by saying that eating them would make me stupid!"
What's going on? Is Brother Xiaoman praising them or smearing them?
The company's marketing manager broke out in a cold sweat when he heard this.
Fortunately, Jiang Xiaoman cracked a joke with her fans, which livened up the atmosphere in the live stream. Then, she vividly shared with her fans the story of how she used to outwit her dad when she was a child in order to get "junk food".
"Everyone knows that Langshan is poor. I remember when I was a child, any snack that cost more than 50 cents was considered a luxury at the small shop outside our school."
"To put it simply, in Langshan, practically no convenience store would stock instant noodles that cost more than one yuan, because they wouldn't sell them. So, I've always been a loyal customer of this *Xiang* instant noodles since I was a child. Oh, and there's also Little Bear crispy noodles, but later the price went up, and I couldn't afford them anymore."
The barrage of comments froze for a moment, then instantly exploded with "hahahahaha".
Many fans whose hometowns are in rural areas left comments saying that this is exactly what their childhood was like.
After painstakingly saving up pocket money for a week, I would step into the corner store with this "huge sum" and spend a long time asking about prices, comparing them carefully one by one, trying to buy as many snacks as possible with the limited amount of money I had!
As a "luxury" among snacks, instant noodles are not something that just anyone can afford.
Especially for students with poor self-control who spend all their pocket money as soon as they get it, let alone a 50-cent pack of instant noodles, they would hesitate for a long time even for a 2-cent candy ball.
However, they couldn't afford it before, but now, with their income level, they can easily afford not only a pack of instant noodles, but even a whole case, okay?
Jiang Xiaoman used her own memories of poverty in her childhood to deeply resonate with her fans!
The result was that, incredibly, using these few color-printed product pages, without even having the actual product, he managed to get *Xiang Instant Noodles' classic pork bone soup noodles into the top 10 of its category overnight…
Company head: "..."
He doesn't understand!
Despite putting a lot of effort into product placement, revising scripts, providing detailed product descriptions, and showcasing various food safety testing documents during their live streams, sales remain dismal.
What? Jiang Xiaoman just pulled out a piece of colored printed paper and completely crushed their "expensive" live-streaming room?
Chapter 202
What the business owner didn't know was that there's a kind of fan mentality in this world called "Even the streamer can't buy it, but I can."
Jiang Xiaoman was being watched by Jiang Youliang and forbidden from eating junk food, so she could only drool over the printed pictures of instant noodles.
Fans, however, could order a whole case without restraint during the live stream, hide it in their rooms, and eat it whenever they wanted! One pack wasn't enough, they could even eat two...hehe!
By the way, I used the electric hot pot that I bought from Xiaoman's live stream!
Just thinking about it is so exciting, isn't it?
Poor little Man could only watch helplessly as they ate his childhood favorite, the elephant bone noodles, while he silently picked up the nourishing sweet potato porridge his father had prepared. *Pfft*
Just as Jiang Xiaoman and Jiang Yu were busy live-streaming to achieve their annual KPIs, the film crew that had previously asked Lang Ying to make a cameo appearance arrived.
Jiang Xiaoman was shocked at the time.
Are all celebrities in the entertainment industry this hardworking?
It's almost Chinese New Year, why are you still filming?
Even the donkeys in the production team aren't treated like this!
"Pshaw! What's so special about that? The last film crew I worked on filmed until the morning of New Year's Eve, and we didn't get a break until after lunch." The young lady in charge of liaising with the village waved her hand dismissively.
She came to borrow the venue from Jiang Xiaoman.
This production team is different from the anthology story that Director Liang made before. They are filming a story about college students returning to their hometowns to start businesses. The production cost of this kind of poverty alleviation drama is not high, and with the support of various satellite TV stations, there is no worry about selling it. Filming it is a sure thing to make money. The only difference is whether it makes a small profit or a big profit.
Even so, the director still wanted to save costs as much as possible.
After the indoor scenes were filmed, the director wanted to find a good and inexpensive place to shoot outdoor scenes. He happened to hear that Director Liang's crew had previously filmed in Langshan. He heard that they stayed with local villagers, and the rent was only 300 yuan per person per month. The food was also very cheap, with a very good meal costing only 10 yuan per person. Moreover, the venue rental was only 20,000 yuan for half a month.
This is practically a steal!
Originally, they just wanted to film a scene, but when they heard it was so cheap, the director immediately canceled the previously booked location, gathered the team, and headed straight for Langshan!
When I arrived, I found that the cheap rooms that used to cost 300 yuan a month were no longer available. o(╥﹏╥)o
There's no way around it, the New Year is almost here, and all the villagers who work outside have come back. They don't even have enough houses to live in, so where would they find spare rooms to rent out?
Villager Jiang Youtian was sweating profusely with anxiety. Knowing that Jiang Xiaoman was quick-witted, he immediately called him for help.
Jiang Xiaoman inquired carefully about the number of people in the crew and the male-to-female ratio, and decided to lend them the unused warehouse next door, as well as the warehouse of the beekeeping cooperative.
The staff can sleep in the dormitory temporarily, but the bigwigs and lead actors probably wouldn't want to live in the warehouse.