Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 622 The Opportunity Du Kangquan Has Been Dreaming Of Has Arrived
Xu Shenxue noticed the rise of short dramas and figured out how to promote and package this film and television format, and then take it overseas for awareness marketing.

This is also because short dramas have become popular on a small scale in China, and even a small number of people abroad have seen them.

When Xu Shenxue approached Huang Jianian, Huang Jianian was completely bewildered!

This can't be blamed on him; Huang Jianian, the president of Yihai Technology, is the CEO of a top internet company.

I'm usually very busy, and I mainly focus on big projects and company strategy. I don't really pay much attention to areas that are still relatively peripheral, have limited influence, and haven't shown great potential for future technological development.

It's normal that he didn't notice the short drama, a marginal new model within a marginal business, for the time being!

Huang Jianian, or rather most of the senior executives at Yihai Technology Group, are currently most concerned about the company's domestic listing this fall.

This will be a wealth feast worth trillions of yuan, and countless people are looking forward to it.

The listing of Yihai Technology is now basically finalized. The next step is to proceed with the preparations step by step and then list in September.

Therefore, much of Yihai Technology's recent work revolves around preparing for its IPO... This IPO is not only of great interest to a large number of investors, but also to a large number of employees at Yihai Technology, from senior management like Huang Jianian to key technical personnel.

Because they all hold more or less stock options in Yihai Technology Group, they have been waiting for the company to go public and achieve financial freedom.

If Yihai Technology Group successfully goes public, it will create more than 100 billionaires and thousands of multi-millionaires!

When it comes to going public, everything else is trivial... Of course, these so-called trivial matters are actually quite important.

For example, Yihai Technology's virtual game business is currently pushing for the second major version update of the large-scale virtual game project "Fanren"... Since its launch, the virtual game "Fanren" immediately topped the sales charts in China and the Asia-Pacific region, and also quickly topped the charts in Europe and the Americas!
In the face of top-tier virtual game technology, cultural barriers are insignificant. Even if foreigners cannot understand many traditional fantasy concepts in Mortal World, it doesn't matter. What matters is the good graphics, high quality, and exhilarating combat!
Furthermore, Yihai Technology's game business is globally oriented, with extensive experience in operating games overseas, and it performs very well in translating content and ensuring cultural compatibility in overseas versions.

Fanren Virtual Games, relying on top-notch technology and excellent quality, quickly ascended to the throne of the world's number one virtual game. At the same time, with the continuous sales of virtual equipment by Zhiyun Group, virtual experience centers have sprung up all over the world, and a large number of wealthy people have successively purchased virtual game equipment.

The global stock of virtual gaming devices is increasing at a very rapid rate.

Then there's the unique high value of virtual game users... People who can afford virtual devices don't care about spending tens of thousands of yuan on virtual games.

Even long-term users of virtual experience centers don't care about spending tens of millions or even hundreds of thousands of yuan... After all, playing in a virtual experience center for an hour costs tens or even hundreds of yuan.

The ease with which users can make in-game purchases in virtual games has attracted game companies worldwide to invest heavily in the virtual game industry.

Even internet giants like Yihai Technology are no exception!

The current revenue of mortal virtual games has reached 20 to 30 billion yuan a year, and it is still growing rapidly.

Therefore, Yihai Technology Group attaches great importance to the second major version update of the Fanren Virtual Game.

Besides its virtual gaming business, Yihai Technology Group is also making steady progress in other businesses, such as continuing to seize global short video market share and further expanding its user base. ByteDance Video now has over 2 billion monthly active users worldwide, and its long-term strategic goal is to further expand its global monthly active users to 3 billion, becoming the king of global social media.

Then, the international e-commerce business is also continuing to advance, further expanding dedicated sites in more countries. For example, the plans to launch sites in South Korea and Japan this year are key plans for the overseas expansion of Yihai Technology Group's e-commerce business.

Compared to social media, e-commerce, and gaming businesses, many other businesses are considered peripheral... including the cultural and entertainment division.

With its business encompassing novel creation and operation, video website operation, film and television content production and operation, and further extending to animation, comics, and IP-related products, Yihai Technology's entertainment division is a behemoth for small and medium-sized enterprises, attracting top-tier capital...

However, it is undeniable that the entertainment business is a peripheral business within Yihai Technology. It is the kind of business that you can't make much money if you do it well, and you can't lose much money if you do it poorly.

The senior management of Yihai Technology Group simply used the entertainment business as a supplementary tool for attracting traffic and monetizing its various core products, such as social media and e-commerce businesses.

For a behemoth like Yihai Technology Group, these businesses are insignificant!
This is a huge difference between top multinational internet companies and small and medium-sized enterprises, and even individuals... In the eyes of many people, those top global internet celebrities with tens of millions of followers who can earn hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars are already considered very successful and have a huge influence.

But for Yihai Technology Group... no, even for ByteDance Technology, the core subsidiary that operates ByteDance Video, this is just a series of data, one more or one less makes no difference.

Now, some small entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry have come up with a new model called short dramas... This is something that some of the management of ByteDance, a subsidiary of Yihai Technology Group, are naturally aware of... After all, these short dramas are released and promoted on their ByteDance video platform, and then directed to each company's private app for paid viewing.

Du Kangquan, the head of the entertainment content project department at ByteDance Video, after seeing the new track of short dramas, also thought about creating a dedicated short drama channel to attract various short drama content creators to publish content, then charge viewers to watch it, and then collect a share of the revenue from the channel.

However, this plan is still in the planning stage and is limited to the domestic market.

Then, on that day, Du Kangquan suddenly received a notice asking him to go to the group headquarters the next day for a meeting about the short drama.

His superior's superior, the CEO of ByteDance Technology, contacted him and asked him to prepare all the materials related to short dramas so that he could go to the group's headquarters for a meeting the next day. Moreover, the group's CEO, Huang Jianian, would be participating in this meeting.

This surprised Du Kangquan greatly... A meeting at the group headquarters? And summoned by the group CEO? Wasn't this too far away from him?

As the head of the film and entertainment department of ByteDance Video in China, Du Kangquan usually has a lot of influence outside. A large number of film and television company bosses, celebrities in the entertainment industry, and some top internet celebrities... No matter how famous or wealthy they are outside, they all have to respectfully call him President Du in front of him!
I just hope he'll be lenient when it comes to traffic allocation... Well, it's not that Du Kangquan favors them and gives them more traffic, it's just that I want Du Kangquan not to deliberately suppress them.

It's difficult for Du Kangquan to help a drama series or a star become a hit. After all, in the era of big data, whether someone becomes popular or not also depends on fate. Some low-quality content will never take off no matter how much traffic it receives.

Ruining a show or a star is too easy for him...

In the domestic entertainment industry, someone like Du Kangquan would be a representative of top-tier capital... Those celebrities who claim to be capital themselves, and even some film and television production companies, are not much different from ordinary people in front of such a representative of top-tier capital.

To outsiders, Du Kangquan is a top figure in the industry, but within Yihai Technology Group, he is actually only an M8 level person with the title of Group Director. Above Du Kangquan, there are four other levels: M9, M10, M11, and M12.

For an internet company that emphasizes a so-called flat management structure, he may seem to be only four levels away from the president of Yihai Technology Group... but in reality, the gap between him and the group's senior management is huge.

He's still quite a distance from the decision-making level at ByteDance, a subsidiary of the company, since he's only in charge of the domestic business of that subsidiary.

Above the management of ByteDance Technology, there are also business group presidents... and above the business groups, there are a number of senior vice presidents of the group in charge of various businesses!

Top executives such as the CEO, CFO, legal officer, and CTO are the decision-making body of Yihai Technology Group…

If placed within the entire Xu Group, someone of Huang Jianian's caliber would be considered a core executive.

Of course, the Xu family conglomerate is too extravagant, but let's not even talk about that. The senior management of Yihai Technology Group itself is already too far removed from ordinary people.

Let alone ordinary people, Du Kangquan... in the domestic entertainment industry, everyone has to respectfully call him President Du, a big shot!

In front of the senior management of Yihai Technology Group, he was nothing more than a bag carrier... no, he didn't even have the chance to carry bags!
Du Kangquan joined Yihai Technology Group in 13. Over the years, apart from occasions like employee meetings and annual meetings, he has never seen Huang Jianian in a formal setting.

He usually has access to senior management, but that usually consists of some vice presidents of ByteDance's subsidiary, ByteDance Technology... He only sees the CEO of ByteDance Technology a few times a year.

As for Huang Jianian, the helmsman of Yihai Technology, he is one of the most prominent figures in the global internet industry. When he appears in the news, he is usually listed alongside the CEOs of top internet companies such as Google and Facebook!
Huang Jianian is also hailed by outsiders as Xu Shenxue's right-hand man in the Internet field.

To put it simply, Du Kangquan has to find out about Huang Jianian from the news if he wants to see her...

However, this powerful figure whom he had to look up to actually wanted to see him!

Regardless of the reason, he knew that the greatest opportunity of his life had arrived!

Upon receiving the notification, he immediately entered super-work-overtime mode, leading his team to collect and analyze a large amount of material related to this new short drama format.

Working overtime until midnight that night, Du Kangquan had already obtained the most comprehensive data report on short dramas in the industry.

However, in Du Kangquan's opinion, this short drama is nothing special... The market size seems to be in the billions, but this market size is nothing at all.

Many top influencers on TikTok earn far more in a year just by selling products.

Even if the current rapid growth continues, a market size of several tens of billions of yuan in the coming year would be remarkable. This would be enough to sustain the development of an entire industry, cultivate more than ten leading short drama production companies, and support tens or even hundreds of thousands of short drama professionals. This is also the model that prompted Du Kangquan to pay attention to and prepare for creating a short drama industry after seeing this new format!
A business model with a future market size of tens of billions and the ability to generate billions in revenue for the company annually is nothing to a behemoth like Yihai Technology Group. However, for a mid-level manager like him, being able to develop such a project is enough to propel him to the next level.

Even so, he still couldn't figure out why the group's top management would pay attention to this short drama... After all, according to his prediction, the total market size in the future would only be a few hundred billion, and that several hundred billion was the profit of the entire industry. The profit of each process was actually far less than that.

Their company relies on its traffic advantage, either by buying traffic or directly taking a share of it, and then they make a few billion in profits...

Such a small-scale business could not possibly attract the attention of the group's senior management!

The top executives of those large corporations are focused on major projects with profits of tens or hundreds of billions, as well as top-tier projects like artificial intelligence, virtual games, and international e-commerce, which have the potential to reach trillions in the future.

It's not normal for them to be focusing on projects worth billions in the future!

Because this was abnormal, Du Kangquan repeatedly analyzed a lot of data about the short drama, but he still couldn't figure it out... This can't be blamed on him, after all, most people wouldn't watch a short drama and then associate it with cultural export or cognitive marketing!
Even if Du Kangquan is far more capable than the average person, and is considered an industry leader and top business elite in the eyes of ordinary people, he wouldn't spend his time researching these kinds of things...

So, with these questions in mind, the next day Du Kangquan followed his boss to the Yihai Building, where the group's headquarters were located, not far away!

Yihai Technology Group has a large number of employees, but they are scattered, with some important subsidiaries renting office buildings outside.

Unlike Zhiyun Group, they didn't build a huge headquarters park and then gather together to work nearby.

It's not that we don't want to, but we don't have the prestige of Zhuyun Group!

Only a behemoth like Zhiyun Group could afford such a large plot of land in the heart of the city's CBD to build a massive headquarters... Other companies, even if they have the money, couldn't buy such a large piece of land!
For other companies, even top-tier internet companies like Yihai Technology, acquiring a plot of land to build a headquarters building is already the limit... anything more is very difficult.

The main thing is that this place is a bit eerie, with top-tier companies clustered together!

In this area, besides the headquarters of Zhiyun Group, there are also the headquarters of some of Zhiyun Group's holding subsidiaries, such as Huaxing Technology, which makes screens, and its headquarters building is located in this area.

Then, in this small area, there are also a lot of Xu Shenxue's companies, such as Yihai Technology Group, Weiku Electronics Group, Hailan Automobile Headquarters, Weiku Industrial Headquarters Building, Xiaojiang Technology Headquarters, etc. ... and a bunch of other top companies' headquarters.

Some other top companies, and even multinational giants, also set up branches here.

Even some of Zhiyun Group's competitors have chosen to set up branches or even R&D centers here. For example, Qualcomm has established a semiconductor R&D center here...

It's not that we came here specifically to compete; it's simply because there's a large group of top companies here, with Zhiyun Group at its core. Top talents from all over the country and even the world are flocking here, making it easier to recruit top talents when setting up an R&D center here.

A large number of top companies have clustered here, which has led to a shortage of commercial land in the vicinity. Companies without a strong reputation cannot get land to build their headquarters buildings!

It's already quite impressive that Yihai Technology Group was able to acquire a decent plot of land here and build its own headquarters building... Many top-tier companies can only rent office space here.

Du Kangquan was just the person in charge of film and television dramas in the domestic division of TikTok. He didn't even work in the headquarters building, but in an office building several kilometers away.

The area where Zhiyun's headquarters is located is a scarce commercial land market, and office space is also in short supply. At the same time, Yihai Technology Group has a large number of employees in Shenzhen, numbering in the tens of thousands.

Therefore, many of Yihai Technology's subsidiaries do not have offices here, but rather in office buildings in the nearby area.

On weekdays, Du Kangquan also frequently comes to the company headquarters to hold meetings with colleagues from other departments due to business matters.

But this was the first time he had ever met with senior management from the company headquarters, especially a CEO like Huang Jianian…

He was a little nervous on the way here, but his years of professional experience had paid off. By the time he arrived at the company headquarters and entered the elevator, he had already calmed down and returned to his usual self.

After going up to the CEO's office floor, he followed his boss into a conference room, where he discovered that there were other people in the room.

I glanced around and saw the president of the entertainment division and two vice presidents, as well as several presidents from TikTok.
He could recognize anyone among a group of people with the title of president... but he wasn't familiar with them; they might not even know him.

The only one I was somewhat familiar with was a middle-aged man who was in charge of film and television production in the entertainment division. He was at the same level as me, a group director at M8, and his business was closely related to mine, so we had a lot of contact.

The other party's status in the domestic entertainment industry is not much worse than Du Kangquan's. When he goes out, he is flattered by a large group of people. He can easily get a bunch of female celebrities to scramble to get into his bed with just a wave of his hand.

But today, the other party, just like himself, didn't dare to say a word in front of a group of big shots.

The people surrounding the conference room included those from the entertainment division, those from Yihai Video, those from ByteDance Video, and those from the mobile browser business.

However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that these individuals' business scopes are more or less related to the film and television industry!

Could it be that this group of people came here just for the short drama?
Filled with doubt, Du Kangquan dared not ask and could only wait quietly.

A few minutes later, he saw the conference room door open again, and then he saw several people come in from outside the conference room. The one in the lead was Huang Jianian, the CEO of Yihai Technology Group and Xu Shenxue's spokesperson in the Internet field.

After Huang Jianian entered the meeting room, he spoke for a few minutes, but it was all rather uninspired, consisting of generalities about cultural development.

Next, the discussion turned to strategic collaborations between the company and Zhiyun Group, such as overseas film and television production, with a particular focus on this year's "Zhiyun Brand Building Project"... This Zhiyun Brand Building Project is actually what outsiders refer to as Zhiyun's annual advertising blockbuster.

Generally, one TV series and one movie are filmed each year and distributed globally through TikTok, a core global channel... This is a collaborative project between Zhiyun Group and Yihai Technology.

This project is also one that many domestic celebrities and actors are eager to participate in. In order to be able to participate in this project, many celebrities are even willing to forgo their pay!
This is an opportunity to enter the global market!

Even if they didn't have to pay, most celebrities wouldn't have this opportunity!
Zhiyun's annual advertising blockbuster is hailed as a top-tier resource in the domestic entertainment industry... something that most celebrities find very difficult to obtain.

Du Kangquan keenly noticed that Huang Jianian frequently mentioned the term "cultural export" when discussing these Zhiyun brand building projects and other cultural works going overseas.

As they talked, they also mentioned some emerging models of cultural dissemination, emphasizing the importance of cultural output.

For example, short dramas!

After listening to a long explanation, Du Kangquan finally understood why he was able to attend such a high-level meeting today.

The group's senior management intends to use short dramas as a new form of cultural output, and then assist sister companies such as Zhiyun and Hailan in building their brands!
Yihai Technology's assistance to Zhiyun Group in cultural export is something few outsiders know, and even many mid-to-senior level managers within the company who are not involved in business operations wouldn't know... After all, no one would openly discuss such matters; they are all conducted indirectly.

As a mid-level manager in the company's entertainment-related department, Du Kangquan was not stupid, even though no one had explicitly told him. He could guess what was going on.

Sometimes, Du Kangquan would even speculate that the entire cultural and entertainment division of the company existed solely for the purpose of cultural export... making money was just a side benefit.

Otherwise, it's incomprehensible that the company loses so much money every year on exporting films and TV series overseas... They work so hard to shoot and produce content, and in the process, they have to cater to the tastes of foreign audiences. In the end, many of these projects are given to foreign audiences for free.

From a business perspective, at least from the perspective of the entertainment industry itself, this is a business that loses money!

But Yihai Technology did it, and not only did it, but it did it on a pretty large scale.

There is no other explanation than viewing these projects as cultural export projects!

A typical example is the annual advertising video commissioned by Zhiyun Group.

These commercials all feature modern urban backgrounds and are always glamorous!
From this perspective, these projects are not just product advertisements, but also tourism promotional videos... they are playing the game of cultural export.

Now, it seems the higher-ups want to do the same thing in the short drama field!
He's not good at producing short dramas, but he's a pro at managing them...

No, to be precise, he is the only manager in the huge Yihai Technology Group who is familiar with the operation of short dramas!

Both intuition and reason told him that the opportunity he had been dreaming of and waiting for for many years had finally arrived!

(End of this chapter)