How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 216 Weight
Comedy is important.

Its value goes beyond mere entertainment; it is a utopia where most people can alleviate anxiety and temporarily escape high pressure.

Although it can't solve any problems, it can help many people get through a painful period, since most things can be resolved with time.

It is an indispensable spiritual need for human beings.

However, the premise is not to elevate the comedy to too high a level or too much value.

The primary criterion for comedy is to be funny, and only then does it come down to its value; otherwise, physical comedy wouldn't be the most relatable genre among all comedy types.

Around 2014, Chinese comedy actually experienced a mini-peak, whether in film and television or in forms like crosstalk and sketches. This was because the creators at that time were still the old school, prioritizing humor above all else, with a relatively pure purpose.

Even the sarcasm is tinged with goodwill.

However, all forms of comedy afterward began to move towards a 'value-first' direction. The style of forcibly elevating and forcibly criticizing may gain the audience's approval in a short period of time, but it is easy to raise the audience's threshold and eventually make them bored.

Wang Yao plans to create more funny shows before comedy becomes commercialized, so that there won't be nothing to watch for entertainment later.

Wang Yao spent five days working at the Shanghai company, finally reviewing the reorganized Tianhuo Media and finalizing the development plan for the second half of the year. He then signed a cooperation agreement with the "Ai Gong" production team and Shang Jing for the "Longmen Express" project.

Finally, we reviewed the "socialite" industry chain, [Yingluo Club], jointly created by Ma Ruo, Zhou Yougen, and the treasurer.

Ma Ruo currently has nearly three million active followers across the internet, and her private groups consist of 30 large groups of 500 people each. This is mainly because Ma Ruo frequently holds offline events, including daily private screenings for fans to watch movies. This event is sponsored by Kanpianer.com.

Because of the tangible benefits, Ma Ruo's fans are very loyal and active. After connecting with the treasurer on second-tier luxury data, Ma Ruo's social media style was also adjusted. Originally, she only shared her daily life, but now she adds some exposure of luxury goods.

These exposures will precisely trigger discussions among certain types of fans, and these fans will then be marked and sent private messages by Zhou Yougen's team.

The process begins with "verification of funds," which involves recommending some secondhand luxury goods from the treasury. After a successful transaction, the next step is "recruiting new members," which involves offering commissions to develop a downline. The third step is "screening," which involves gathering these people together through an offline salon format to see if there is any possibility of recruiting them into the "Yingluo Club."

The project has been running for almost a month. Despite the exorbitant annual fee of 9.9 yuan, it has still attracted more than a dozen new members, all aged between 20 and 28, and mostly women from families that have fallen on hard times.

Because he needed luxury packaging to maintain his persona, he secretly joined the Yingluo Club. Following the SOP process set by Wang Yao, Zhou Yougen simplified the original model of creating the 'King Killer' and created a new packaging model.

Ma Ruo would invite these members to the Peninsula Hotel regularly for afternoon tea, mainly for taking photos and exchanging the latest 'information', with Zhou Yougen's team providing customized analysis and fishing strategies.

As a result, a number of new "socialites and beauties" have suddenly emerged in the second-generation circles of Shanghai recently. These people have tens of thousands of followers on various social media platforms, and their daily updates are full of glamorous luxury shopping, beauty spas, Peninsula afternoon tea, and book clubs. They are basically all overseas heiresses from different countries.

Then they moved their materials to Mulan Street/Ms (international version) and released another round of luxury goods sales information. The model is very simple: they sell their 'idle' luxury goods to fans at 'welfare prices'. In addition to luxury goods, they also occasionally offer discount coupons for major high-end hotels.

Currently, the target audience for second-tier luxury goods is mostly on foreign social media platforms, primarily consisting of international students.

It's clearly secondhand, but with the help of a socialite persona, it's turned into a fan perk.

This is just the first layer of screening. The next layer involves renting a meeting room at the United Nations to attend a 'meeting' and cultivate an international celebrity persona. However, these projects are certainly not cheap.

In less than a month, the project generated a turnover of five million.

Zhou Yougen knew that following Wang Yao could make money, but she never expected it to be so lucrative. In the past, the highest she could earn by training a "King Killer" was a few million in "gratitude fees," but it would take 3 to 5 years of dedicated training to see results.

Now, following Wang Yao's assembly line model, they're actually making a lot of money, which makes her sigh, "These rich people in Shanghai are really naive."

Conservative estimates suggest that the monthly commission income from luxury goods alone could reach millions.

Besides generating profits, the Yingluo Club is also a multi-channel source of information, and its members are highly skilled and motivated.

Zhou Yougen arranged some social parties for them, which could basically reach the third generation circle of Jiangnan Road. Although the information of these third generations was not useful for the time being, it would come in handy one day.

"Not bad, how come the Milk Tea Sister is in there too?" Wang Yao browsed through the data integrated by Zhou Yougen and found a familiar face.

It turns out to be the "Milk Tea Sister" who just became popular last year.

“I acquired a marketing company, and coincidentally, the owner of this company is one of Ms. Zhang’s marketing strategists. He also participated in the marketing campaign for Yang Mi and Liu Shishi’s CP last year. He’s quite a talent,” Zhou Yougen said with a smile.

Wang Yao raised an eyebrow slightly. The CP (couple pairing) culture in China's fan circles is just beginning to emerge. It is influenced by the idol industry in Korea, which uses the marketing method of pairing two artists with a romantic relationship to increase the topic and exposure, and at the same time, it has given rise to a species called CP fans.

Currently, the Chinese entertainment industry's CP (couple pairing) is based on Tieba (Baidu's online forum). Influenced by BL (Boys' Love) novels, it initially focused on male-male/female-female pairings, and expanded from a friendly, borderline relationship. The most famous example is the CP fans of Xuejian/Longkui from "Chinese Paladin 3". Later, it extended to Yang Mi and Liu Shishi. Their kissing photos during their trip to Egypt made them one of the oldest CPs in China.

The CP (couple pairing) project between the two was planned by a CP fan, and even the company name was their names. The project was very successful, and the CP benefits between the two lasted for more than ten years. It was still quite popular.

The planner's name is Hua Han. His model later became the most mainstream marketing model in the entertainment industry after capital intervention in 15. He also helped the early rise to fame of "Milk Tea Sister". The marriage proposal and the repeated rejections of Zhang Yimou were all his doing.

Unfortunately, after becoming famous, the milk tea family took over and pursued a high-society socialite image instead of entering the entertainment industry, causing Huahan to miss an opportunity.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yougen recruited him directly.

“Not bad, he’s definitely a talent. If the company has any suitable CP packaging projects in the future, we can give them to him. Next week I’m going to Korea, and Yang Ying and Nazha are going to Hong Kong for filming. You can also take the people from Yingluo Club with you to help Zheng Ziwen promote the hotel and the Zheng family’s K11 shopping mall, and shoot more footage.” Wang Yao nodded after looking at Hua Han’s resume.

"President Wang has gotten involved with the Zheng family?" Zhou Yougen raised an eyebrow.

Although there are many wealthy and foolish people in Shanghai's social circles, they still can't compare to the Hong Kong elites. If someone could replicate the image of Leung Lok-sze, the Yingluo Club's reputation might rise to a new level.

At that time, let alone an annual meeting costing 9.9, even if it costs 99.9, people will still be scrambling to attend.

"Let's focus on the circles of Korea and Japan instead. Hong Kong is too difficult to deal with. I have cooperation with both the Huo and Zheng families, so there's no need to lose sight of the bigger picture for a small gain." Wang Yao shook his head and refused Zhou Yougen's offer.

Yingluo Club's future top-tier socialite circle aims to penetrate the circles of Korea and Japan. Hong Kong is too close and shares a common cultural origin, making it easy to expose its true intentions. This industry still needs to follow the "foreign monk" route.

“I understand, but Mr. Wang, you can let me bring some people to attend more banquets like this,” Zhou Yougen said with a smile.

“There will be opportunities. Not to mention Hong Kong, it wouldn’t be a problem for Deng Wendi to take you to a banquet in Washington in the future,” Wang Yao promised.

"That's great." Zhou Yougen beamed, feeling that Wang Yao was very satisfied with Yang Ying: "President Wang, Guo Biting's qualifications are actually quite good too, why don't you take a look?"

“No rush. Her e-commerce endorsements are going very well right now, so there’s no need to rush into a career change,” Wang Yao shook his head.

After Qu Shou, Ma Ruo, and Zhao Yihuan switched to the entertainment industry, a large number of Tianhuo's models were poached by Alibaba. The other top models were led by Kim Tae-ri and Han So-hee from the Korean branch. In the end, Guo Biting became the top domestic resource leader. Moreover, the company did not have many resources suitable for her, so they suppressed her for the time being and waited for new models to emerge later.

"Understood." Zhou Yougen nodded and did not proceed further.

It's no use for her to work hard on this kind of thing; she still needs to whisper sweet nothings in her husband's ear.

After reporting his work to Wang Yao, Zhou Yougen invited Yang Ying to afternoon tea and helped her analyze the situation.

“Nazha is being groomed by President Wang, and now with Dilraba joining the fray, who can handle the two of them working together? Baby, do you need an ally right now?” Zhou Yougen said with a smile.

"Huh? Why did you bring this up again, Kimi?" Yang Ying blushed. "My relationship with President Wang is very simple, and he doesn't seem to have any intention of taking it any further." "Men are all the same; once they've taken their pants, they forget about you. So you need to seize the opportunity. Besides, President Wang may seem a bit cold-hearted, but he's actually quite sentimental. As long as you keep giving unconditionally and without limits, there might be a chance to take things further." Zhou Yougen shook his head with a smile.

"Sister Kimi, President Wang has been good enough to me, and I don't have much ambition." Yang Ying shook her head with a wry smile.

"You're prone to feeling inferior, always wanting to suffer without competing or fighting for anything? That's not ambition; it's fighting for a fair chance. Look at Mr. Wang's side: Zhang Meng controls a clothing company, Nazha has Mr. Wang's attention, and that girl Gao Li is practically spoiled."
"You seem to have gotten a great resource like 'Sister Hua,' but it's probably not tailor-made for you. Don't treat everything a man throws your way as a treasure; learn to discern." Zhou Yougen earnestly advised.
"Look at Liang Luoshi, she's a prime example. At least she got pregnant, and although she didn't get a formal title in the end, at least her life is secure. Mr. Wang, at his age and with such achievements, I can't even imagine what the future holds."
You won't be able to easily escape his protection in the future, and you'll have to beg for food under someone else's thumb. You need to have some skills, right?

Wang Yao didn't deliberately hide the fact that his relationship with them was even closer, and other interested people could naturally see and guess what was going on. Whether it was true or not, they could always glean something from rumors.

"Sister Kimi, you can live a good life on your own." Yang Ying felt a little uncomfortable upon hearing this.

Even though she had long since come to terms with her position, at her age, wouldn't she also long for a normal relationship?
She had finally convinced herself to let go of her extravagant hopes and focus on a stable career, but Zhou Yougen came to tempt her to take shortcuts again.

“Unless you can prove your value is irreplaceable, it’s just a matter of new people replacing the old. You should be able to see how many young and beautiful girls apply for the company every day. Beauty isn’t a permanent asset.” Zhou Yougen shook his head.
“I’ve observed that Mr. Wang is quite interested in the Taiwanese market. Currently, Guo Biting is the only one in the company who comes from Taiwan and has potential. If you can mentor her, it might increase your own standing.”

After watching Zhou Yougen leave, Yang Ying sat there in a daze.

Quantity?

July 7.8th, a major event that shocked the entire internet happened today.

That is, after half a month, the Alibaba 'payment transfer' incident has finally come to a conclusion.

Alibaba has refuted the rumors, stating that the payment transfer was approved by major shareholders such as Yahoo and Sun Zhengyi, and that the misunderstanding arose only due to a previous communication oversight.

Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up and everything is back on track, both YaHu and Sun Zheng's side have publicly stated again that it was indeed a misunderstanding and that they will support Alibaba's payment business and cross-border e-commerce business development.

The entire internet was in an uproar, and it could even be said that the world was in an uproar.

How could such a serious issue be glossed over? Anyone with a brain knows there must be some kind of under-the-table agreement involved, but no one can guess what it is, and for a time, there was a lot of discussion.

But Alibaba's stock price did indeed rebound in response.

Moreover, other e-commerce platforms that had been openly making noise before have all tacitly remained silent.

Wang Yao was also curious about what had happened, so he turned to Liu Qiangdong to ask.

"Don't ask. I don't know what's going on either. They just gathered us together and told us not to say anything out of line," Liu Qiangdong said subtly.

"So, was the transfer to the bottom successful?" Wang Yao asked doubtfully.

"How could I possibly know such a secret? But judging from Mr. Ma's demeanor, he seems to have gotten what he wanted." Liu Qiangdong smiled.

"You just went to a meeting?" Wang Yao asked, frowning.

"It wasn't really criticism or education; it was just telling us that we should unite and not kick our competitors when they're down," Liu Qiangdong sighed.

"Alright, it's fine now." Wang Yao smiled, it was pretty much as he had guessed.

It's unclear what price Mr. Ma will pay, and whether it will affect the growth rate of Taobao.

"President Wang, don't hang up yet. Your second-tier luxury category is quite successful. It's already approaching ten million in sales in just over half a month since it went online. Is there any way to expand it?" Liu Qiangdong asked hurriedly.

“This industry is only so big, and I’ve already moved all of the treasurer’s sales to JD.com to help you inflate your sales figures,” Wang Yao laughed.

The treasurer currently uses JD.com for all online channels. Firstly, this increases consumer trust. With the online payment system still developing, it's difficult to gain the trust of consumers for transactions involving five-figure sums on a new online platform.

After all, JD.com is one of the three major e-commerce platforms in China, and all of them offer door-to-door delivery with face-to-face inspection and quality assurance upon signing. Consumers mostly use POS machines, making it convenient to protect their rights and potentially boost sales.

Secondly, the treasurer doesn't need a large turnover; for now, he only needs to focus on building the basic operations and maintenance of several flagship stores.

“You’re one of JD.com’s major shareholders now. You don’t want to lose the bet and let Tiger take away 5% of the shares for nothing, do you?” Liu Qiangdong chuckled.

"Tsk, are shareholders being treated like cattle?" Wang Yao scoffed. "When will the supplier system be launched?"

JD.com still operates entirely on a self-operated system, but in order to boost revenue in the second half of the year, it must open up its third-party supplier system; otherwise, it will be unable to compete with its peers if it cannot enrich its product range.

"We'll be in closed beta this week, but it will still mainly focus on books," Liu Qiangdong said.

"I can only think of one way, which is to move Taobao's sales to JD.com using a supplier model, but this will leave behind a lot of low-quality shops," Wang Yao said.

"What do you mean?" Liu Qiangdong asked, puzzled.

Wang Yao explained to him the 'dropshipping' model on e-commerce platforms where sales figures can be artificially inflated.

Open a store on JD.com, but don't have your own products. Use web scraping software to copy all the popular products from Taobao to the JD.com store, and then use the platform's push tools to promote them. After a consumer places an order on JD.com, the order is manually redirected to the Taobao store to place another order. In the end, the consumer sees that they bought the goods on JD.com, but they were actually shipped from Taobao.

"Order manipulation?" Liu Qiangdong was taken aback. This could indeed generate a lot of sales revenue.

"I discovered this while testing cross-border e-commerce. There's now a team of 100 people who specialize in opening stores on Amazon and manually handling orders. There's no need to worry about inventory pressure. The only costs are labor and traffic generation fees, as well as the risk of being reported and having your store shut down."
"But if you choose a reliable store, that's fine. This is the only method I can think of to help you boost revenue for now, but you'll have to pay for the traffic acquisition costs yourself," Wang Yao said with a smile.

The dropshipping model is quite suitable for domestic e-commerce now because there is no refund policy, so it is almost a guaranteed profit.

Wang Yao recently discovered that the ROI of the paid search ads for the stores he manages is getting lower and lower. He doesn't know if it's because the ads are being inflated or if it's a problem with the overall platform traffic declining.

Since it's all about selling goods anyway, if JD.com is willing to cover the costs of distribution, it shouldn't be a problem for them to provide manpower to handle the distribution.

Wang Yao used this dropshipping model as a 'testing ground' for Taobao Boss students, training them in keyword and main image matching skills, so the labor cost was very low.

Since Taobao's business started, the agency operation business has grown very rapidly. Now Wang Yao has more than 200 stores, including self-operated and agency-operated stores, with monthly sales of tens of millions of yuan.

After some hesitation, Liu Qiangdong, thinking that even a small gain was still a gain, agreed to cooperate with Wang Yao.

Besides this major news that shocked the internet industry.

Wang Yao turned his attention to another matter that was not of much concern to outsiders, but was of great importance to the internet and even the entire information industry.

The three-network interconnection has been officially launched.

The unification of technical interfaces for telecommunications networks, broadcasting networks, and the Internet will determine China's development over the next century and is a significant marker of entering the digital age.

This directly spurred the rapid development of emerging industries such as intelligent interaction, cloud gaming, smart homes, and the Internet of Things. Without this interconnection of the three networks, even the live streaming industry would have developed several years later.

(End of this chapter)