Ma Yibiao gave Luo Jimin a deep look that lasted for more than ten seconds, then a smile appeared on his face. He said nothing more and led another companion away.
The planning and marketing staff of Minhong, who were exhibiting at the event, all stood outside the booth to prevent visitors from getting close. As soon as the guests left, Ding Ruonv was the first to rush in and spat at Ma Yibiao's back, "What a piece of trash! Unscrupulous businessman!"
"Did you record it?" Lin Yao asked Qiu Zuiyue in a low voice.
Qiu Zuiyue glanced at Lin Yao, said nothing, and only nodded slightly. He felt that the Minhong family must be feeling quite distressed at this moment, and he shouldn't speak to disturb them; it was better to be a good listener.
Luo Jimin stood there motionless, frowning as he pondered something. Seeing her husband's distress, Lin Hongmei realized she had been too naive, thinking that her family's products would attract a flood of distributors and agents.
With a sigh, Lin Hongmei said dejectedly, "It's true that all crows are black; how come everyone has become so profit-driven these days?"
After a long silence, Luo Jimin suddenly raised his head, his expression resolute, "Never mind them, we'll sell them ourselves."
“Yao’er, didn’t you say you’d already set up 22 hospitals and clinics? Hurry up and get them transferred over. We’ll start selling medicine from these hospitals and clinics we own, and then develop distributors in those provinces. We won’t go for the big distributors; we’ll build our own channels. Small distributors and clinics can all become our distributors.” Luo Jimin said resentfully, “Damn it, if we’re going to do it, we’ll do it big. Anyway, I expected to run into these troubles, it just came a little early. Yesterday, Old Chen was talking about his battles with these people. Hongmei, come with me to visit Old Chen later and learn from his experience.”
“Okay.” Lin Hongmei brushed her hair behind her ear and asked her question with some concern, “I think they will really crack down on them. You know, even a powerful dragon can suppress a local snake. Just those nine certificates for developing distributors and agents will be put in place.”
"Who cares? We're going to get to this point anyway, so it's better to do it this way from the beginning. At most, it'll be a bit troublesome at the start." Luo Jimin was becoming more and more magnanimous. "Yao'er, didn't you say you had some kind of system? Get it out as soon as possible. We'll sell this children's cold medicine as our first medicine, positioning it as a 'no-grade' medicine, and setting only one price."
"No problem, I'll urge them to get it out as soon as possible." Lin Yao nodded, thinking that since this kind of cold medicine, which is only supplied to infants and young children, was not intended to be graded, it was planned to be sold openly, because there is no distinction between good and bad children, and it is not appropriate to set customer grades.
“Uncle Luo,” Qiu Zuiyue suddenly interjected, “if you decide to openly fight against pharmaceutical distributors across the country, I have an idea.”
"Hmm, Xiao Qiu, tell me. Uncle knew you had the quickest mind." Luo Jimin nodded approvingly, his expression softening as he looked at Qiu Zuiyue.
“That’s right.” Qiu Zuiyue straightened up, her attitude very focused. “I’ve looked at the brochure for this ‘Children’s Cold Remedy’. The efficacy described is quite remarkable, so I have some thoughts about its news and media aspects.”
"I suggest that the problems and difficulties that Minhong Pharmaceutical is currently facing be made public. For example, the medicine that was originally priced at five yuan per box has been forcibly raised to eighty yuan per box by these distributors. With the significant efficacy and mechanism of action of this medicine, I think parents all over the country would be more willing to choose Minhong's cold medicine to treat their children instead of buying medicines that are advertised more and recommended by doctors."
"Don't even mention that this medicine only costs five yuan a box, and one box basically solves the problem. Just the Minhong trademark alone makes people trust it," Qiu Zuiyue said eloquently. "Now everyone knows that doctors in big hospitals basically take kickbacks when prescribing medicine. A neighbor of mine prescribed seventy or eighty yuan worth of medicine for his two-year-old's cold and fever, and it was a cephalosporin antibiotic. In the end, it still didn't get better and developed into pneumonia. He was hospitalized for a week, and it cost more than a thousand yuan. Not to mention, the child suffered even more. I think if this kind of medicine were available, even if you offered online ordering and mail delivery services, every parent would buy a few boxes to keep at home. The price is one thing, but ensuring that the child doesn't suffer is the most important factor."
"How much advertising money do we need to invest?" Lin Caishen's first thought was about money.
“I think we can start with online promotion. It doesn’t cost much. We can just spend a small amount of money to hire some professional online promoters to do the promotion, and it will naturally become popular. We have experience with teamwork in disaster relief. We didn’t pay them last time, but we should pay them this time,” Qiu Zuiyue answered Lin Hongmei’s question. “We’ll see how it goes later and then decide whether to use television and print media for promotion.”
“Then it’s settled.” Luo Jimin immediately made the decision. “We’ll also need to trouble Xiao Qiu to mentor the people in the planning department. They have no experience, but you’re the expert in this area.”
Feeling a little embarrassed by the elevated status, Qiu Zuiyue smiled, nodded, and said nothing more.
Minhong Pharmaceutical's "Children's Cold Granules" are different from previous cold medicines. This medicine is specifically for children under ten years old, and is advertised as being for children under seven years old. It does not simply use antibiotics and traditional Chinese medicine ingredients to help the body fight cold viruses. Instead, it utilizes the physical characteristics of infants and young children who have not yet begun to develop to stimulate their own immunity, thereby achieving the effect of treating colds.
This treatment method is not as effective as some antibiotics at the beginning. Children taking the medicine will have a slight fever, but it will not make them feel weak or lethargic like a normal low-grade fever. The effects are not visible on the surface. The low-grade fever symptoms can only be seen when the body temperature is tested. The low-grade fever disappears after a day, and the cold can be basically controlled. It can be completely cured after three days.
Fever is actually a regulatory mechanism of the body's own immune system, caused by the thermoregulatory center in the hypothalamus of the brain raising body temperature. When the body encounters pathogens, it will take many protective measures to fight them, and fever is one of them.
When the human body has a fever, the activity of certain tissues and cells is greatly enhanced, such as white blood cells and lymphocytes. Of course, when a fever causes a severe rise in body temperature, it has a significant impact on the nervous system and the activity of certain enzymes, which can affect human health and even lead to brain damage in children with extremely high fevers.
The only side effect of "Minhong Children's Cold Granules," which comes in a box containing only three small packets, is that it causes a low-grade fever in children for about a day, but it does not affect their spirit or physical strength. This is a revolutionary treatment method. When the granules were submitted to the National Medical Products Administration for testing and approval, experts mostly focused on verifying the antiviral and anti-inflammatory components. The effectiveness of this component alone is already ten times that of other children's cold granules currently on the market, which greatly surprised the experts and scholars.
Lin Yao understood and considered it natural for distributors to form alliances to attack and defend each other. The pharmaceutical industry has always been highly profitable. A drug with a factory price of only a few cents or a dollar can be sold to patients for double, or even ten or dozens of times the price. This is why successful pharmaceutical representatives can earn tens or even hundreds of thousands of yuan a month. Of course, the kickbacks received by doctors in large hospitals are not included in these pharmaceutical representatives' income.
Lin Yao suddenly remembered the issue his mother, Lin Hongmei, had mentioned. He walked over to Ge Yong, pulled him away from the exhibition, and wanted to have a serious talk with him. The security team's potential had not been fully realized, and their help was exactly what they needed at that moment.
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Chapter 183 High-Profile Response to the Blockade
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At 6 p.m. that evening, a new wave of hype swept across the internet, reigniting the "people's red fever" that had just begun to subside and taking it to an even higher level.
Led by Qiu Zuiyue, a news article produced by several journalists appeared on Minhong's official homepage, outlining the problems and obstacles encountered by the Western Pharmaceutical Trade Fair.
Of course, such official statements would not contain any content about being blatantly coerced. Instead, they selectively reiterated the facts: Minhong Pharmaceutical's new product, "Children's Cold Granules," failed to attract distributors. No distributor or agent in Chengdu accepted Minhong Pharmaceutical's terms for attracting distributors. As a result, Minhong Pharmaceutical was forced to sell its own medicines, becoming a retailer rather than a manufacturer.
The article emphasizes the plight of Minhong Pharmaceutical, whose participation in the Western China Pharmaceutical Trade Fair turned into a live retail event. Minhong Pharmaceutical brought a large quantity of "children's cold medicine" in trucks for on-site sales, attracting countless Chengdu residents to snap it up.
Fortunately, Minhong Pharmaceutical deployed a large number of security personnel to maintain order, which prevented a stampede. The photos accompanying the press release vividly illustrated the intense scene at the time: a sea of heads, with no place to even step. If it weren't for the pharmaceutical company's security personnel managing to set up two entrances and exits, the Minhong booth, located in the far corner of the second-floor exhibition hall, would have become a place where one could only enter but not leave, and the customers who had purchased medicines would have been unable to get out at all.
Despite this, all the businesses located on the second-floor exhibition area were severely affected. Starting from the booths on the east side of the second floor, all the aisles were packed with people, deterring distributors from both inside and outside the province. Naturally, these pharmaceutical companies and businesses were unable to conduct their recruitment efforts. Even more seriously, the corridors connecting the first and second floors were blocked by queuing citizens, and the escalators had long been out of service. Not only were they not enough to handle the crowds, but there was simply no place to stand on the second floor for those being automatically transported up. If the escalators were to be turned on, the only result would be that customers on the second floor would be so overcrowded that they would fall from the more than one-meter-high railings to the first floor.
After receiving complaints from all the vendors on the second floor and the large pharmaceutical company on the first floor, which was affected, the organizing committee immediately made arrangements. They moved Minhong Pharmaceutical's booth to the entrance of the exhibition hall, but it was quickly surrounded by crowds, making it difficult for people to enter and exit the exhibition hall. Later, Minhong Pharmaceutical's booth was placed in the open-air parking lot in front of the convention center, which solved the fundamental problem and allowed the exhibition to return to order.
That concludes Minhong's official news release; there's no further explanation or clarification, only concern about not being able to find distributors across the country for the produced medicines. Having good products is one thing, but having the channels to get them to patients who need them is another.
The accompanying article details the mechanism of action and general efficacy of "Minhong Children's Cold Granules," as well as the market retail price of five yuan per box. The national approval document is also published as an attachment, allowing the public to truly understand Minhong's intentions.
What people find most intriguing is that the product description specifically states that people over seven years old should not take it, as it will not be effective. However, it doesn't explicitly state whether adults will experience side effects. The website also specifically warns adults who habitually use infant products not to choose similar products manufactured by **Hong**, pointing out that this habit is unscientific.
Official information must be rigorous and cannot include any obviously targeted remarks, but unofficial news is much more casual.
With the help of a large group of experienced online hype operators, related news was quickly unearthed, and various news articles and posts went viral online. These included photos and videos of the densely packed crowds at the exhibition site, videos of the exhibition organizing committee staff and leaders coordinating the rearrangement of booths, and videos of the booming sales scene in the open-air plaza.
Of course, the coerced video secretly filmed by Qiu Zuiyue cannot be released, because it can only be used as evidence to support certain news articles, but cannot be used as a basis to criticize all distributors. At most, it will only make Ma Yibiao suffer, which is not what Min Hong wants to see.
The on-site sales, which lasted about half a day, attracted around 100,000 customers. In the end, Minhong Pharmaceutical had to limit each person to purchasing only four boxes of medicine. However, this resulted in an astonishing achievement of a single-day sales volume exceeding 2.5 million yuan. It has to be said that Minhong's brand has a very high value in the eyes of the people.
It's normal for children's cold medicine with an 18-month shelf life to be snapped up. This kind of medicine, which doesn't harm children's health but instead treats illness by boosting their own immunity, is exactly what people need most. Everyone has children, and even if you don't have children of the appropriate age, it's a practical gift for relatives and friends. Medicine that solves the problem for five yuan a box is always the most sought-after by ordinary people.
The Sichuan Provincial Economic Commission, the main organizer of the exhibition, was questioned by higher-level officials. Those directly responsible for arranging the booths and their staff were criticized and disciplined. A pharmaceutical factory that had just performed a selfless and patriotic act was placed in the worst possible booth. Forget whether the officials would find it problematic; the public outcry alone would be enough to drown them. This was also one of the reasons why Luo Jimin decisively decided to proceed with the on-site sales—to express direct resistance and anger towards those who sought to abuse their power for personal gain.
Not to mention the private rants and accusations against Minhong Pharmaceutical for its unfair practices, the people who were disciplined also felt that Minhong could have started sales in Chengdu at any time and shouldn't have chosen to do so at the trade show. The large distributors from various regions who had formed a united front also began to waver. Although Minhong's low-profit agency sales policy would infringe on their existing interests, they also felt that giving up this agency opportunity would result in future losses for themselves as well.
Just by looking at the booming sales of Minhong Pharmaceutical on that day, one can determine the prestige of this company among the public. Once the distribution rights in one's province or city are obtained by a competitor, there is no need to consider distributing similar drugs from other pharmaceutical companies in the future, because they are completely uncompetitive in terms of both price and efficacy.
Within the alliance, several enlightened major distributors privately contacted Minhong Pharmaceutical Factory that very night to discuss agency matters with Luo Jimin and Lin Hongmei. Although only major distributors from three provinces signed agency agreements, the other distributors who took the initiative to contact them left themselves a way out, so as not to strain their relationship with the increasingly powerful Minhong Pharmaceutical.
This emerging pharmaceutical company, with its extraordinary technological capabilities, cannot be judged by past rules and experience. Who knows what miraculous drugs they will launch in the future?