Chapter 1379 The Second Round of Promotion Plan is Released

Monday, December 24th.

Pei Qian arrived at the company as usual, in a good mood.

Because two more episodes of *The Successor* had aired over the weekend, but on the Aili Island website and other rating sites, the ratings for *The Successor* were continuing to decline!

Even on Tengda's own TPDB website, the ratings had dropped sharply.

Because of the existence of the original novel's fans, the situation was slightly better than on other websites, but not by much.

Currently, *The Successor*'s rating on the Aili Island website has dropped to 6.3, which is nearly 1 point lower than when it was first released.

For dramas on the Aili Island website, a score of 6 is already considered below the passing mark.

Because the ratings on these video websites are inherently higher, many excellent anime series often score as high as 9.8 or 9.7. A score of 7, in the eyes of many, is already considered "quite mediocre, watchable but not essential."

Now that it's around 6, it's definitely considered a bad show, and that rating alone will discourage countless people.

And *The Successor*'s fourth and fifth episodes clearly had begun to get to the heart of the matter, and the plot should have started to become exciting.

Looking at the comments, it's clear that Qian's smear piece was working!

Although the content of the fourth and fifth episodes was more exciting than the first three, and Phil's grand plan was gradually unfolding, the key issue was that Qian's smear piece attacked the core of *The Successor*'s story, and to some extent, made predictions about it.

People who had read this piece already had expectations for what would happen in *The Successor*, so when they saw the fourth and fifth episodes, they didn't feel excited, but rather bored, and even developed a rebellious attitude.

The influence of this smear piece was not limited to a single website; it had become a material that everyone would inevitably use when discussing *The Successor*, in other words, a weapon and ammunition for criticizing *The Successor*.

When people argued online about whether *The Successor* was good or not, someone would inevitably post the content of this piece.

If this trend continued, even if the plot of *The Successor* improved, the scenes became grander, and the pace of the story became faster, it would be meaningless to those who had already dropped it.

They weren't watching the later episodes, so how could they bother to come back and change their ratings.

In short, the situation was excellent!

In addition, the various teams, including the FV team, and the GOG project team staff who went to Europe to prepare for the World Championship would also be returning to China within the week.

After the World Championship, Pei Qian had allowed everyone to play in Europe for a week.

Logically speaking, since the World Championship had been a great success, these people should have gone on a hardship trip.

But as the saying goes, each thing should be treated separately. Letting them play in Europe for a week and spending more money was one thing, and sending them to Bao Xu's hardship camp to reward their "achievements" after they returned was another. The two were unrelated.

However, Pei Qian was unprecedentedly worried about the prospects of the GOG project team.

They were both hosting World Championships. IOI's championship was snatched by the FV team, and the national server's popularity plummeted. It could be said that they suffered heavy losses. This contrast made GOG seem to have made a big profit.

For the national server players, two consecutive championships for domestic teams was of course a great cause for celebration, and the pre-match activities exclusively for the national server players also garnered extremely high popularity.

For foreign players, although the European teams still didn't make it to the finals this time, they had made considerable progress compared to last year, giving people hope. Moreover, this World Championship was on European home turf, and Tengda, as the organizer, had given them enough face.

The newly launched viewing features comprehensively improved the viewing experience and discussion.

The servers in various regions also launched a series of activities in conjunction with the World Championship. GOG's influence around the world was further enhanced, and IOI's market share was squeezed even more.

In short, they won, they won big.

But what should they do next?

Pei Qian had painstakingly poached Eric and Zhao Xuming precisely because he hoped that they would work hard and curb GOG's rapid expansion.

But after they came, the expansion became even more vigorous. In the past month or two, the increase in GOG's market share and revenue was greater than in the previous half-year combined.

What to do?

Eric, oh Eric, I really misjudged you.

Pei Qian was very helpless. Some people, you can know their faces but not their hearts. Eric, who seemed so reliable, was actually a pit.

But there was one good news, which was that Zhao Xuming, who had been poached along with Eric, was still reliable.

The offline viewing event for the national server was arranged by Zhang Yuan, and the update of the viewing features was done by Tuwei Live.

Even the plan to buy the competition copyright for the live streaming platform was ruined because he had given some pointers.

Roughly speaking, President Zhao didn't do anything!

This kind of performance was outstanding.

Therefore, Pei Qian felt that he must further strengthen the internal struggle between Zhao Xuming and Eric, so that Zhao Xuming would gradually gain the initiative and suppress the bewildered Eric.

Pei Qian had already given Zhao Xuming a hint before, letting him know that he was on the same level as Eric, and that he should not listen to Eric in everything, but must have his own ideas.

Now it seemed that this was not enough.

Pei Qian decided that when Zhao Xuming and Eric returned, he must praise Zhao Xuming greatly to build his confidence, and at the same time give him an implication.

When Zhao Xuming found out that he had been loafing around and had been praised by President Pei, he would definitely continue to loaf around in the future, and even drag Eric down with him.

In this way, Pei Qian would achieve his goal and be satisfied.

Just as Pei Qian was thinking, there was a knock on the door.

Looking up, it was Meng Chang.

"President Pei, this is the second round of promotion plan for *The Successor*. Please take a look."

Meng Chang handed over the plan with both hands.

Pei Qian couldn't help but smile.

Yo, Meng Chang is really getting better and better.

Seeing that the rating of *The Successor* was falling sharply and the popularity was not rising, he was taking advantage of this opportunity to increase the promotion budget in order to strive for a higher commission?

Not bad, not bad, this style of "pursuing the defeated enemy with might" is very much like my style back then.

Quickly glancing at the plan, the smile on Pei Qian's face deepened.

This plan is reliable!

The plan was still similar to the previous one, continuing to allocate advertising and promotion resources through the original channels, but one thing had changed, which was to like and forward some film reviews that analyzed the connotation of *The Successor* through the official account.

*The Successor* had made such a big splash when it was first released, and so many people watched it, so there must be no shortage of film critics.

There were film critics like Qian who criticized it as worthless, and naturally there would be film critics who liked *The Successor*.

Among them, there might also be some fans of the original novel of *The Successor*.

But currently, these film critics who liked *The Successor*, their film reviews did not cause such a huge response as Qian's film review.

The reason was also very simple, criticism was easier to be accepted than preaching.

Why do so many people watch bad movie吐槽 (tucao, a style of comedy involving roasting and mocking) programs, but fewer people pay attention to the serious analysis of movies?

It was because criticizing bad movies with reasons and evidence gave people a sense of mental pleasure, a sense of comfort, and even a sense of superiority.

And these film reviews that gave positive evaluations of *The Successor* were all painstakingly explaining how good the connotation of the drama was, which would give people a feeling of preaching, and would produce a rebellious attitude, and would not be easily accepted.

In addition, the first three episodes of *The Successor* originally gave people a very bad viewing experience. When the two emotions were superimposed, it gave Qian's film review a huge space to play.

And in Meng Chang's plan, the official would endorse these film reviews by liking them.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this move.

Because this method obviously did not help to increase popularity at all, but would be scolded even more miserably.

How could an official personally interpret the connotation of their own work?

Especially for a drama, wouldn't it be too demeaning to interpret it personally?

Moreover, this would make the audience's rebellious psychology even more serious: What, are you officially liking this content to imply that *The Successor* is indeed this connotation? Are you implying that we are all stupid and can't understand your connotation? But we understand it, we just don't accept it!

It was conceivable that this move would inevitably further anger those viewers who gave low scores, and some of them might become more energetic and spend more effort on various forums and websites to blacken *The Successor*.

This was a good thing!

Pei Qian couldn't help but give Meng Chang a silent thumbs-up for this move. It seemed that Meng Chang had put a lot of thought into getting a commission this month.

Meng Chang originally wanted to explain a few words, but when he saw President Pei smiling and even nodding from time to time, he knew that President Pei must have understood the plan.

In that case, explaining it would be superfluous.

The idea of Meng Chang's plan was also very simple, which was two purposes: first, to maintain popularity; second, to provoke controversy!

Because he had put all his treasures on three weeks later.

Last week, the first round of elections had been held in Ukraine, and Da Vasily's votes ranked second among all candidates, lower than the current president, but the gap between the two was not large.

Since no candidate's vote share exceeded 50%, the top two candidates had to conduct a second round of voting, which would determine the outcome.

This result also surprised many people on the foreign network, because they did not expect that Da Vasily could get so many votes. Various predictions on the foreign network also began to change, and the odds changed from more than five points to about 1.8.

Meng Chang was very glad that he acted quickly.

But the mainstream media on the foreign network still believed that Da Vasily could not be elected.

Many people may have retaliatory voting intentions in the first round of voting, but in the second round of voting, they will definitely regain their clarity and reason.

But this result made Meng Chang further confirm the correctness of President Pei's vision, and he was even more firm in his follow-up promotion plan!