Shi Zhu was very confident about entering the blind box industry because he believed he was far superior to Huang He.
"Huang He is just a guy with a bit of luck and a penchant for putting on a show, but this guy doesn't understand marketing at all, so he's destined to be inferior to me!" Shi Zhu had often commented on Huang He to friends during gatherings.
He even patted his chest and declared that although Huang He's business was larger than his, he was not jealous of Huang He. After all, if he hadn't insisted on building the Giant Building back then, leading to the collapse of the entire Giant Company, his capital would undoubtedly be much larger than Huang He's after such a long period of development.
Moreover, Shi Zhu also said that Huang He didn't make money at all; his development to this point was entirely reliant on loans. His company still owed 1 billion US dollars in foreign debt, which was much more than his company's fixed assets.
Therefore, regardless of how much noise Huang He was making now and how impressive his momentum was, as soon as any problem arose in the future, it would collapse instantly. The saying "the higher you stand, the harder you fall" explained this principle.
After all, Shi Zhu himself had fallen like this back then, but Shi Zhu had returned now, thanks to his unmatched marketing skills in all of China. However, Huang He would definitely not be able to return.
Shi Zhu's self-assessment was not wrong. In fact, even Huang He admitted that in terms of marketing ability, very few people in China could surpass Shi Zhu.
After all, Han Card, followed by Brain Platinum, and later ZT—these all proved Shi Zhu's marketing prowess.
Of course, this title of "Number One in China" was limited to before 2010. After 2010, this title had to be given to Du Guoying, as he was the one who developed Beibeijia, Howkstar, e-Man e-Ben, 8848 Titanium Gold Mobile Phone, and Little Tea. His actual marketing ability was even stronger than Shi Zhu's.
It was just that Shi Zhu and Brain Platinum were too famous back then. Only after they declined did true marketing masters emerge.
So why did Shi Zhu believe Huang He didn't understand marketing at all?
It was because Huang He didn't even advertise on television. Almost no Chinese TV station showed advertisements for their Jiangnan Group's blind boxes, making Huang He an absolute marketing idiot who didn't understand marketing at all. Compared to their boss Shi Zhu, there was a world of difference.
Furthermore, in Shi Zhu's view at the time, blind boxes were the most suitable business for marketing. Since buyers had no idea what was inside a blind box, concepts like quality and good prices were completely irrelevant to blind boxes.
Therefore, he only needed to hype up the blind box itself. This was precisely his old line of work!
More importantly, marketing was not just about advertising; it was more about ground promotion, which was even more Shi Zhu's forte.
Why did Brain Platinum become popular across the country back then? The brainwashing advertisements on TV were indeed a significant contributor, but Shi Zhu's ground promotion teams also played a crucial role.
At that time, Shi Zhu had a ground promotion team of tens of thousands of people across the country. These people did nothing but promote Brain Platinum in pharmacies, supermarkets, and even by visiting residential homes.
The tactics used by many health supplement vendors today to trick the elderly were remnants of what Shi Zhu's teams had done back then. Later, Shi Zhu ventured into online games and created ZT, the first free-to-play online game in China and the world, and he still relied on his powerful ground promotion teams.
In a short period, they plastered ZT game advertisements in all internet cafes and placed them in the most prominent positions on every computer. For online games, which relied almost entirely on online marketing at the time, this was a game-changing experience.
With the accumulation of these various abilities, Shi Zhu was very confident in himself. He believed that as soon as he entered the blind box industry, the entire industry would surely belong to him, and even Jiangnan would be pushed aside by him.
After all, weren't many of the so-called giants and god-like health supplements in the health supplement industry made to tremble within less than a year by his Brain Platinum?
"So, the most crucial question now is, what should we put inside our blind boxes?" Shi Zhu raised this critical question at the meeting.
In fact, given Shi Zhu's personality, when he decided to do something, he absolutely didn't need to hold meetings with anyone or get opinions from anyone.
However, there was one thing Shi Zhu couldn't figure out: what to put in the blind boxes required consultation from his team.
"Just like Jiangnan Group's blind boxes, why don't we put in whatever Jiangnan's blind boxes have?" a team member suggested, and this suggestion was endorsed by many. After all, with Jiangnan Group's success as a precedent, why not just copy them?
But Shi Zhu shook his head and immediately retorted, "No, we cannot race the enemy on a track where the enemy excels!"
"Although I look down on Huang He's marketing ability, his company's operational capability is very strong. The products in Jiangnan Group's blind boxes have already been optimized to the extreme by Jiangnan Group. If we rashly enter now and compete with them on their track, it's definitely not going to work!"
"Only by putting things in our blind boxes that Jiangnan Group doesn't sell can we have a chance to emerge and capture the market," Shi Zhu stated very clearly.
Another reason he said this was because he disdained the blind box products that Jiangnan Group was currently primarily selling. The cost was too high, and the profit was too low. In Shi Zhu's hands, they wouldn't make money. After all, Shi Zhu had a massive ground promotion team to support. Such meager profits were insufficient for him.
"I think the best-selling blind box product in Jiangnan Group is currently the WarCraft 3 game merchandise blind box, and this type of blind box also has the highest profit. The cost of a plastic figurine is less than twenty cents, which is a huge profit!" a team member said.
"But the WarCraft 3 blind boxes mainly sell redemption codes!" someone retorted.
"We can also operate a game and sell in-game skins through blind boxes, wouldn't that work?" another team member suggested.
"Yes, that's a good idea, and the game itself can also make money!"
"But can we get a game of the same quality as WarCraft 3? That's the best game in the world, which is why it has such a massive fan base. If we can't get such a game to operate, and only get an ordinary game, we might not even attract players and just lose a large sum of game agency fees!"
The group debated again on whether to operate a game, until Shi Zhu vetoed it. He had no understanding of games and didn't want to venture into this industry rashly.
Therefore, historically, Shi Zhu created the first free-to-play game, ZT, but that was because after selling Brain Platinum, Shi Zhu entered a period of about three years of inactivity.
During this period, Shi Zhu's main work was to invest his vast cash reserves, and he spent the rest of his time living a leisurely life of financial freedom at home.
Then Shi Zhu got hooked on games, specifically the famous online game "Legend of Mir." It was said that he spent nearly 40 million yuan playing the game, buying all sorts of top-tier equipment.
Until one day, Shi Zhu was ganged up on by a group of players in the game. Even with 40 million yuan worth of top-tier equipment, he was overwhelmed and killed by a large number of players.
This made Shi Zhu very unwilling. So he called the customer service of "Legend of Mir" and asked if there was any way for him to become stronger, to be able to take down everyone alone, even if it meant spending more money.
As a result, the customer service of "Legend of Mir" rudely refused Shi Zhu, which made Shi Zhu furious. He didn't log into the game for three consecutive days.
However, during these three days, Shi Zhu also figured something out, understanding the pain points of many players: why couldn't they become stronger by spending money?
Coupled with Shi Zhu's discovery that almost all of his 40 million yuan had been transacted to players, buying all sorts of top-tier equipment from them, he wondered why the game company, Shanda, only earned a meager monthly card fee from him. Why couldn't the game company earn this 40 million?
Thus, Shi Zhu had an epiphany. He proactively contacted Shengda's boss, Chen Qiao, and requested to visit Shengda.
Chen Qiao, who greatly admired Shi Zhu as a senior in the industry, even considered bringing Shi Zhu on board. Thus, he personally took Shi Zhu on a tour of the company and enthusiastically introduced his work team.
As a result, a game R&D team that Chen Qiao had just assembled was directly poached by Shi Zhu, with not a single person left, all of them taken to Giant Group.
The process was simple. Shi Zhu asked the team leader how much Chen Qiao paid them per month, which was about 2,000 yuan on average.
"I'll pay you 4,000 yuan a month, plus a share of the game operation profits," and the entire team was immediately poached by Shi Zhu. In just half a year, ZT, a game that rewrote the history of online games in China, was born.
However, this was in 2005. In 2002, Shi Zhu had just sold Brain Platinum and had not yet fallen into the "Legend of Mir" trap, so he had no idea what online games were and therefore rationally did not jump into this pit.
However, this conversation was not without gains for Shi Zhu. He keenly noticed a key point.
"Did you just say that Jiangnan Group sold a plastic figurine that cost less than twenty cents for ten yuan?"
"Yes."
"So, even if the blind box contained plastic figurines, it could be sold for ten yuan, or even twenty yuan!"
"It's decided, our blind boxes will contain plastic figurines!" Shi Zhu slammed the table forcefully, instantly making his decision.