Chapter 129 - Cost-Effective Promotion
The program 'Zhou Zhou Show' meant a lot to Zhou Zhou. This was his first hosting program upon returning to the satellite TV channel five years after leaving.
If it succeeded and the program wasn't axed, he could continue staying at the satellite TV channel.
Conversely, he might truly never have a chance to stand out in his life, sitting in the Metropolitan Channel doing his 'Zhou Zhou Comes to Visit' until he grew old.
Reaching his age, having such an opportunity was exceedingly difficult.
It was precisely because of this thought that he went all out.
Normally, he was constantly holding the script and pondering over it, thinking about it even when eating, and even dreaming about the program.
Therefore, when recording the first episode, he had such an outstanding performance.
Today, when recording 'Zhou Zhou Comes to Visit', the director reminded him a few times that his style had changed a bit, asking him to be a bit gentler.
But Zhou Zhou didn't change. After discussing it with the director, he still recorded according to his style in 'Zhou Zhou Show', focusing on highlighting his personal style.
If he wanted to change, he should change more thoroughly and establish his persona.
The director couldn't say whether it was good or bad, but after discussing it with Zhou Zhou, he decided to do it according to his idea. If the feedback for the next episode wasn't good, they would just switch it back.
After all, it was an old program, and the audience consisted of these same people. A problem in an occasional episode wouldn't have a huge impact.
After recording the program, Zhou Zhou went to wash his face, ran towards the 'Zhou Zhou Show' program crew, and went to find Chen Ran to ponder over the second episode.
With the first episode's review coming down, they also had to start recording the second episode.
Seeing Zhou Zhou's appearance, Chen Ran naturally knew what he was thinking. Let alone Zhou Zhou, even he himself poured all his energy into it, modifying the script over and over again, determined to unify the style.
This was his first program upon arriving at the satellite TV channel. Even if it was just a small program not favored by the station, he still needed to do his best.
The review came down, and the program's schedule was finalized.
It had just passed Thursday now, and the final episode of the antique history program had just finished broadcasting, so it was scheduled to broadcast next Thursday.
During the meeting, Director Zhao Peisheng talked about the promotion of 'Zhou Zhou Show', promising to provide quite a few channel resources. After applying with his superiors, they could insert some commercials during specific time slots.
Although the program content was not bad, the time slot was indeed poor. Fighting for this much was with the thought that being able to snatch even a little bit of market share from 'Magic Cute Babies' would be good.
Chen Ran and Director Wu Tao were actually quite satisfied. After all, before Director Zhao applied, the promotion was tantamount to nothing. Basically, it was just playing a commercial at the end of the previous time slot's program, and that was it.
Now there was also commercial promotion during specific time slots. Even if it was only for the few days before the broadcast started, it was considered quite good.
After the meeting adjourned, Chen Ran found Director Wu Tao and asked, "Director Wu, you've been at the satellite TV channel for so many years, you must be familiar with people from other programs, right?"
Director Wu Tao nodded hesitantly and asked, "You don't want me to contact other programs and ask them to help with promotion, do you? That's impossible. The station has strict regulations. If we could do that, wouldn't it be chaos?"
Chen Ran couldn't help but laugh: "Although I just came to the satellite TV channel, I can't be called a newcomer either. I know all of this."
Director Wu Tao asked, "Then what do you mean?"
"Besides the station, there's also internet promotion," Chen Ran said.
Director Wu Tao shook his head and said, "I also know about internet promotion, but with our little budget, throwing it in wouldn't even make a splash."
"That's why we need you, Director Wu, to run around and use your connections," Chen Ran said. "Besides conventional channels, there's also our station's tradition: doing some cost-effective promotion."
With him putting it this way, Director Wu Tao caught on.
Zhaonan Satellite TV had one point that was criticized by people: it was leeching off others' popularity to generate hype, just forcefully hyping things up.
Where was the battlefield?
Weibo!
Leeching off others was definitely impossible, but they could appropriately generate some topic buzz.
"Besides the clips cut out for the station's previews, Director Wu, cut some more out. Just aim for the parts about housing prices and medicine prices where the wording is the most intense. After cutting them, put them on Weibo. Please trouble yourself to make some contacts and ask the official Weibo accounts of those few programs to help retweet them." Chen Ran explained in detail to Director Wu Tao.
Promotion, well, with a budget it's definitely easy to operate, but without a budget, there are also ways.
Not spending a single cent and relying entirely on Director Wu Tao's connections—this was indeed cost-effective enough.
Director Wu Tao thought about it; this was nevertheless a good method. "I'll give it a try!"
Both of them were people with relatively strong execution skills.
Director Wu immediately set about editing the promotional clip, then registered an official Weibo account. After passing the verification, he put the promotion up.
A new account definitely wouldn't have any level of attention.
This required Director Wu Tao to cast aside his pride and ask people for help.
Don't look at how he was producing such a small program now; he was truly considered a veteran in the satellite TV channel and had contacts with personnel from several massively popular program crews.
It was definitely impossible to ask them to put in major effort to help promote it, but just retweeting it on Weibo was merely lifting a finger, so they definitely wouldn't refuse.
Therefore, over these few days, the official Weibo accounts of several popular programs on Zhaonan Satellite TV successively retweeted this post.
These programs had quite a lot of fans. Usually, they would post some behind-the-scenes recording footage of the guests, and then call out to people across the internet to hype up the heat.
Everyone retweeting and promoting a program together indeed attracted the fans' attention.
The fans even thought this was a program heavily promoted by Zhaonan Satellite TV, but when they clicked in, they were dazed for a moment.
It was just one stage and one person, speaking excitedly about housing prices with a face full of emotion.
The promotional clip was very tightly paced, capturing exactly the moment Zhou Zhou spoke most excitedly.
Golden quotes shot out of his mouth one after another, making it very easy to attract people's attention.
At the end, it was Zhou Zhou standing, standing on the stage with his arms slightly spread:
"This is the 'Zhou Zhou Show', I am Zhou Zhou. Thursday night at ten o'clock, Zhaonan Satellite TV, don't miss it!"
"This counts as a program?"
"Looking at the preview, it's quite interesting!"
"Looking at this preview, it doesn't seem like a major program either. Why would it be promoted like this?"
"I feel the host is a bit too pretentious. His viewpoints are far too biased, I cannot agree..."
"I actually feel he's very right. At the very least, medicine prices are too high; I agree with this point!"
"Pharmaceutical factories require R&D funds to research and develop medicines. If medicine prices are low and pharmaceutical companies don't make money or even incur losses, which enterprise would still be willing to invest in R&D?"
"That's what they say, but there are still some pharmaceutical factories using expired patents, yet selling them at the same price as imported medicines. It's too black-hearted. The prices of the original factories' medicines are even lower than their knock-offs. This is simply bloodsucking!"
The effect of this kind of promotion was indeed not bad.
The topics chosen by the talk show inherently were all current trending topics, which frequently sparked widespread discussion on Weibo.
Now that the promotion for the 'Zhou Zhou Show' came out, there were similarly people discussing it underneath.
Chen Ran and Director Wu were also staring at Weibo, relatively satisfied with the current results.
Because the program's audience overlapped with many people on Weibo, being able to spark discussion on Weibo meant the program's attention level was passable.
With the promotional effect not being bad, there would naturally be people waiting to watch the TV broadcast; their goal had been achieved.
The topic heat on Weibo wasn't bad, but there wasn't much reaction inside the TV station.
And under such momentum, time arrived at Thursday, and the program quietly began broadcasting.