Huayu: Starting from Fahrenheit

Chapter 378 Marketing
The following day at noon, Wu Zhuo attended the charity event held by Michael Jackson in New York as promised.

Michael Jackson truly deserves to be the world's number one superstar.

This charity event was attended by a large number of A-list and B-list celebrities from the European and American entertainment industries.

Singers are the most numerous among them.

Madonna, Linkin Park, the Backstreet Boys, and rap superstars like Eminem and Kanye West.

Among the large number of black and white people, Wu Zhuo, an Asian, stood out exceptionally.

Walking among the crowd, Wu Zhuo always felt some strange looks.

Of course, as the most popular singer in the world right now, even though Wu Zhuo is Asian.

But fire is king.

When these top European and American celebrities meet Wu Zhuo, they all choose to give him a smile.

Many of them would even take the initiative to go up and chat with Wu Zhuo for a few minutes.

The charity event officially began at noon.

This charity event is essentially a charitable donation activity.

The guests present all donated a sum of money, more or less.

These funds will ultimately be pooled together by Michael Jackson's charitable foundation to support leukemia patients worldwide.

Of course, according to Wu Zhuo's estimate, it is said to be global, but whether it will ultimately be global remains to be seen.

In any case, Wu Zhuo had never heard of any foreign charitable foundations helping any people in China.

Therefore, Wu Zhuo did not initially intend to donate too much.

No matter how much you donate, it won't help those in need in China.

He should donate back in China instead of donating a large sum here.

Seeing this, some people might think that Wu Zhuo has no compassion.

In some people's view, as long as it's about helping people, it doesn't matter where they are helping.

But Wu Zhuo is not that kind of person.

He is a very selfish person.

He believes that music has no nationality, but singers do.

He is Chinese, and his music can be disseminated globally, but his personal actions must, and inevitably will, be primarily focused on China.

He can't even help all the poor and sick children in China, so asking him to help Africa or other regions is just asking the impossible.

So when Wu Zhuo came, he planned to donate just a few tens of thousands of US dollars.

However, the plan could not keep up with the changes.

When Wu Zhuo arrived at the scene, he realized that all the celebrities present were incredibly wealthy.

Most people donated no less than $100,000.

He didn't know if all these people were really that rich, or if someone was just putting on a show.

But there's nothing he can do. Everyone else is donating so much. Wu Zhuo, whose albums have sold tens of millions of copies and earned tens of millions of US dollars, really has no face to donate only tens of thousands of US dollars.

In addition, someone from Sony kept saying, "Abel, your status is different now. The amount of your donation will greatly affect your standing in the eyes of fans and the media."

Therefore, your donation amount absolutely cannot be less than that of most top-tier singers.

Now that things have come to this point, what can Wu Zhuo do?

In the end, he could only reluctantly donate $300,000.

It really breaks my heart.

Three hundred thousand US dollars is close to two million yuan.

Although it was charity, he shouldn't have felt sorry for her.

But what can you do when these overseas charities don't seem to yield results?
There's really no way to see the outcome.

This money was the kind that Wu Zhuo would never know how it was used after it was donated.

He wouldn't even know if the money ended up in someone rich's pocket...

Wu Zhuo donated US$300,000, which was not the highest among the celebrities present.

Michael Jackson, as the initiator, was the first to donate, contributing three million US dollars, ten times the amount he had donated. Madonna also donated one and a half million US dollars.

His 300,000 yuan was nothing out of the ordinary.

However, although Wu Zhuo only donated US$300,000, his ranking in this donation campaign was not low.

Because in subsequent charity auctions, Sony Music and several brands he endorses in Europe and America jointly purchased several items in his name, with a total value of approximately $800,000.

In total, Wu Zhuo's donations reached an astonishing US$1.1 million.

This placed him third in donations among the celebrities present.

As the charity event was drawing to a close, Michael Jackson personally came over to thank Wu Zhuo as a token of his gratitude.

There wasn't much of a scene of mutual appreciation.

Ultimately, this was the first time Wu Zhuo had ever met Michael Jackson.

The two sides had never dealt with each other before.

The two simply exchanged a few compliments, took a few photos together, and then said goodbye.

However, to be fair, these photos are quite valuable.

That afternoon, Sony took the photos and used them to promote Wu Zhuo extensively.

[The first meeting of pop kings from the East and West]

Michael Jackson and Abel hit it off immediately upon their first meeting, and they discussed music for three hours.

Michael Jackson stated that Abel is the most promising singer of the new generation.

Michael Jackson and Abel had a very pleasant conversation and agreed to invite each other to their next concert.

Needless to say, just as Xiao An said, Sony has made its move.

They started marketing and building Wu Zhuo's image as the King of Oriental Pop.

To this end, Sony even invited many professional musicians with considerable reputations in Europe and America to conduct a comprehensive analysis of Wu Zhuo's previous songs.

They portrayed his songs as incredibly sophisticated and artistic.

Yes, this is actually similar to film and television commentary in later generations.

The film is broken down and explained in every way, so that even taking a dump in the movie becomes an art form.

After reading several of these experts' analysis and commentary, Wu Zhuo was honestly quite confused.

Take, for example, the song "Baby".

This song is just a purely commercial pop song.

Surprisingly, after being analyzed by professionals hired by Sony, it was transformed into a beautiful song he wrote for his first love, expressing his unparalleled longing for her, full of artistic flair.

"Marketing is truly an art."

Before boarding the plane back to China, Wu Zhuo flipped through a large number of entertainment newspapers at the airport.

When "Baby" first became a hit, many music critics in Europe and America called it a bad song and a cheesy pop song.

But looking at it today, those so-called pop songs are complete slander.

This is clearly a good song, a heartfelt work that embodies Abel's dedication and emotions.

Anyway, thanks to Sony's marketing, the song "Baby" has actually become a critically acclaimed hit.

And all of this relies solely on marketing.

Hire a professional to clean up the mess.

And this method is indeed effective.

When a work is praised by most self-proclaimed professionals.

Even those fans who don't understand the music make sense when they hear what they're saying.

You'll subconsciously feel that what he said is right.

When a large number of people think this way, the work will naturally become a good work.

Well, to put it bluntly, it was all achieved through whitewashing.

(End of this chapter)