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Chapter 184 0181 [Super Low-Price Endorsement] (Bonus Chapter for Alliance Leader Qi Wang - Monthly)
“Super Girl contestants are temporarily unable to sign endorsement deals due to contract disputes,” Xie Yang said, pulling out a legal newspaper. “The first report was on CCTV’s ‘China Legal Report,’ and it has now appeared in several other newspapers.”

Chen Guiliang picked up the newspaper and saw that Zhang Liangying was involved in a contract dispute.

It's likely that there's a mole within EE-Media who sold the information to reporters.

From the regional competitions onward, the Super Girl contestants were required to sign contracts with EE-Media with varying terms. Only Zhang Liangying kept delaying her signing.

When it came to the round of 6 to 5, she simply couldn't drag it out any longer.

Meanwhile, Hunan TV and EE-Media were also anxious, fearing that Zhang Liangying would stick to her guns and choose to withdraw from the competition.

Both sides compromised and signed a loose contract.

There are various rumors circulating now; some say she's signed with EE-Media, others say with Warner Music. A whole host of record companies are also sending people to gather information, trying to snatch up this hot commodity.

Xie Yang said, "We plan to sign the third-place finisher. There are still two matches left, and we don't know who the third-place finisher will be."

"Is Tianyu Entertainment currently only accepting commercial orders under the collective name of the Super Girls, and not allowing any individual Super Girl to accept orders?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Xie Yang asked in surprise, "How did you know?"

“Because performance, endorsement, and advertising contracts all require the artist’s signature or authorization,” Chen Guiliang said. “Zhang Liangying doesn’t even sign regular contracts, so how could she possibly agree to sign an endorsement contract?”

Xie Yang also realized: "The talent show isn't over yet, so we can only blindly sign the players who are ranked first. If any player doesn't agree, we can't discuss this kind of cooperation."

“Not bad, quick reaction,” Chen Guiliang laughed. “Before the Super Girl finale aired, we sent people to Tianyu Media to keep watch and signed Zhang Liangying to a three-year endorsement contract for 150 million yuan.”

"Electronic Entertainment and Zhang Liangying would never agree to this, would they?" Xie Yang thought Chen Guiliang was talking nonsense.

Chen Guiliang said, "Just send someone over. At worst, you'll lose some travel expenses."

Xie Yang left in a daze.

……

The last two episodes of "Super Girl" aired during the freshmen military training at Peking University.

The ratings exploded!
Some media outlets were surprised to discover that while the champion and runner-up received numerous endorsement deals, the third-place winner, Zhang Liangying, didn't get any. She was only able to participate in group activities for the Super Girl contestants.

Luo Yi, who was sent by Xie Yang to discuss the endorsement deal, has been left hanging by Tianyu Media for more than a week.

He was planning to return to Beijing when Tianyu Entertainment suddenly came knocking on his door.

"Mr. Luo, your company's offer is still too low," said the Tianyu representative.

Luo Yi also felt it was too low, and didn't even think it could be negotiated down, so he said in a desperate move, "This is all we'll offer. 150 million for the endorsement fee, for a period of three years. 30 for one day of shooting an advertisement."

"Really, we can't add any more?"

"No."

"Okay, let's sign the contract."

"what?"

Luo Yi felt like there was something wrong with his ears.

……

When the news reached the company, Xie Yang was completely baffled and couldn't understand it at all.

He quickly went out and walked towards the elevator, all the way to the 10th floor.

Game Science has finally moved. Due to a shortage of single-floor office space, some offices are now on the 10th floor and some on the 11th floor.

Unlike ByteDance, Youke has been profitable every month since it started charging for "Three Kingdoms Kill".

Even the mini-games on Renren and Kaixin are not exclusively distributed by Youke, and companies have to pay Youke a share of the revenue every quarter.

Youke's workforce continues to expand.

In particular, the side-scrolling game project, which is comparable to "DNF", doesn't even have a name yet, but it already has an 18-person project team.

Chen Guiliang was inspecting his new territory, with employees constantly coming and going, carrying things from the old office upstairs.

"The endorsement deal is done," Xie Yang said. "The contract is being faxed back and will be confirmed by the company's legal department."

Chen Guiliang teased him deliberately: "Have you figured it out yet?"

Xie Yang shook his head: "Why would Tianyu Media agree to this? How could they possibly sign a Super Girl third-place winner for three years as an endorsement deal for only 150 million?"

Chen Guiliang called him to the stairwell: "If you owned a TV station and controlled an entertainment agency, and your talent show became a huge hit, the top contestants would definitely see their value skyrocket. Would you sign all the contestants before the competition ended?"

"Of course we'll sign. If we don't, we'll just be letting others reap the benefits," Xie Yang said.

Chen Guiliang then asked, "What if someone absolutely refuses to sign?"

Xie Yang, considering the perspectives of the TV station and the agency, said, "If we don't sign her, we'll have her withdraw from the competition!"

Chen Guiliang said, "You can't sign all the contestants during the preliminary rounds. You have to wait until the competition has progressed to a certain stage before signing those who perform well. But what if a certain contestant is somewhat famous and keeps pretending not to know and refuses to sign? If she makes a scene, it will definitely have a negative impact on the competition."

Xie Yang said, "So Zhang Liangying's contract is the result of a compromise between the two parties, and it is very likely that it will become invalid one day."

“Yes.” Chen Guiliang nodded.

"Then why only accept endorsements from us?"

"Because our people stayed there the whole time, we were able to sign the contract quickly. And our contract only required Zhang Liangying to shoot an advertisement for one day. Other businesses aren't so easy to talk to; they definitely include other activities with them."

Xie Yang finally understood: Tianyu Media and Zhang Liangying had completely fallen out! This advertising endorsement with ByteDance was the only contract Tianyu Media signed for Zhang Liangying.

To put it bluntly, it's like making use of waste.

ByteDance's requirements were not high; apart from shooting an advertisement for a day, there were no other activity requirements, so Zhang Liangying reluctantly accepted it.

"You can predict the future, right?" Xie Yang was somewhat shocked.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Didn't I say that even if the contract doesn't go through, we'll only lose a little bit of employee travel expenses?"

As a reborn person, Chen Guiliang didn't know much about Zhang Liangying, but he had heard gossip about her and her husband Feng Ke.

……

Tianyu Media.

Feng Ke was carefully examining the friendship agreement.

The agreement contains the following:
For the next year, Zhang Liangying will be nominally an artist under EE-Media and must participate in all Super Girl activities. Zhang Liangying can sign commercial deals herself without sharing any revenue with EE-Media. EE-Media can introduce commercial deals to Zhang Liangying, but can only collect a brokerage fee.

Zhang Liangying can only sign a management contract with another company after the one-year agreement expires. However, record contracts are not bound by the agreement, and Zhang Liangying is free to sign record contracts at any time. "There are no problems with the agreement," Feng Ke said.

This amicable agreement was negotiated in a hostile manner, achieved through a do-or-die approach. If she didn't sign, she wouldn't participate in Super Girl activities, including the most important Super Girl concert.

Zhang Liangying immediately picked up a pen and quickly signed her name.

"Wait, let's sign this endorsement contract first."

Zhang Liangying signed the agreement together.

ByteDance struck gold this time, signing a three-year endorsement deal worth 150 million yuan.

Furthermore, because Zhang Liangying is clinging tightly to her management contract, she won't be able to secure any advertising endorsements for the next three years. The Kaixin.com advertisement and endorsement will be her only advertising endorsement for the next three years.

Truly exclusive.

As Zhang Liangying walked out of the reception room, she met Luo Yi and handed him a signed contract.

"Miss Zhang, can we talk?" Luo Yi had just received a new assignment.

"Let's go."

The two parties found a coffee shop, and Zhang Liangying was wearing a hat to cover her face.

Luo Yi promised, "This endorsement contract is by no means an act of kicking someone when they're down. We will provide additional compensation."

Zhang Liangying remained silent.

Feng Ke asked, "What compensation?"

Luo Yi said, "When shooting the advertisement, we will ask Mr. Mao Geping to create a unique image for Ms. Zhang. The image design fee, makeup fee, hairstyling fee, and clothing rental fee will amount to 15 yuan!"

"So expensive?" Zhang Liangying asked in surprise.

Luo Yi laughed and said, "I guarantee that Miss Zhang will be completely transformed, with an image that rivals that of international female stars."

At this time, Zhang Liangying's appearance was very ordinary, and her skin was rather dark, which did not match the advertising image that Chen Guiliang envisioned.

Luo Yi added, "Mr. Feng should understand that from a Super Girl contestant to a real star, image and temperament are very important. I hope that Ms. Zhang will watch more movies before filming and learn how to make herself more elegant."

"Understood," Feng Ke replied on behalf of the recipient.

……

School has already started, but it's still a long way off for shooting commercials because Zhang Liangying is too busy with Super Girl activities.

The WAP version of Kaixin.com has begun testing, primarily featuring microblogging functionality.

There are very few users.

No amount of promotion works on the Kaixin website.

The only option is to contact celebrities who have joined Kaixin.com and have ByteDance pay for them to subscribe to Weibo monthly packages.

However, many celebrities don't cooperate because the prerequisite is activating GPRS service. This requires manual operation and sending a text message to 10086.

Even if ByteDance were to fund their activities, these celebrities still found it too much trouble.

Sigh, I have to persuade them one by one.

It's too difficult to forcefully change user habits!

Chen Guiliang walked out of Director Zhu's office in a fairly good mood. He had only failed two subjects in the final exams last semester, so he didn't have to change departments or repeat a year.

The phone rang; it was Li Xunhuan calling.

"Mr. Lu, are you urging me to finish the manuscript again? I've been writing all along," Chen Guiliang said.

Li Xunhuan said, "Don't imagine me as some kind of shrew. I'm just informing you as a friend that Sina is about to launch its blog service and is currently inviting celebrities everywhere. Several of my friends have been invited by them, and they even pay you to join Sina Weibo!"

“Thank you for the reminder,” Chen Guiliang said. “I will definitely finish writing both volumes by the end of the year.”

“I don’t think you have the time,” Li Xunhuan said. “Sina Blog is a huge player, spending money everywhere to hire celebrities. I’m afraid it will kill other blogs. Your Kaixin.com will also be affected.”

"The impact is not significant, as Kaixin.com is primarily a social networking platform."

"If celebrities exclusively join Sina Blog and give up other places where they can write blogs, Sina will pay them more money."

"Grass!"

Sina is so unethical.

When Chen Guiliang promotes his products, he invites celebrities; he has never pursued any exclusive partnerships.

Sina, relying on its wealth, is actually doing this.

Celebrities may not care about that little bit of money, but pure internet celebrities have to leave, since it's difficult for them to monetize their influence these days.

That evening, Chen Guiliang received two more phone calls.

One is Chengcun, and the other is Sutong.

Both of these writers were invited to Kaixin.com by Chen Guiliang, and now Sina wants to poach them.

"How much did Sina offer?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Cheng Cun said, "I don't know about others, but they only offered me tens of thousands of yuan. I refused the exclusive offer. Damn it, I have so many fans on Kaixin.com, how could I give them all up?"

In other words, Cheng Cun agreed to write blogs on both Kaixin001 and Sina.com at the same time.

This is probably the choice of many people.

It's not like Sina throws money at celebrities and they obediently listen to reason.

Kaixin001's most powerful weapon in retaining celebrities is surprisingly its "followers from strangers" feature. It allows celebrities to see their follower count directly, making it hard for them to let go.

Currently, only Kaixin001 has a follower feature!

Chen Guiliang remained calm, but the other bloggers were terrified. With Sina's arrival, they were all doomed.

The next morning, Chen Guiliang skipped class and came to the company: "Get ready, release the news that Zhang Liangying is the spokesperson."

Zhang Liangying herself isn't a big star, but the Super Girl finals just ended, and rumors about her contract disputes are rampant. Countless media outlets and fans are paying attention to this, and signing her as an endorser for Kaixin.com will definitely garner a lot of attention.

(End of this chapter)