How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 231 Come when you come, go when you go; this is not a place for souls to linger.

Compared to T-ara's minor issues.

Wang Yao has just received another truly troublesome project: BaWang shampoo, a well-known Hong Kong daily chemical brand, is embroiled in a 'harmful ingredients' scandal, with its market value of over 50 billion yuan plummeting by more than 10% overnight.

As Ba Wang's spokesperson and hidden major shareholder, Cheng Long called Wang Yao for help immediately before the incident.

After all, when it comes to public relations skills, Wang Yao is currently the top choice in the industry.

Upon hearing this, Wang Yao immediately instructed Ba Wang not to respond, but to first apply for SFDA intervention to verify whether the ingredients met safety standards. Further actions would depend on the situation.

Whether or not to cooperate depends on the results of the component testing.

Then he turned to Liu Haifeng and told him to short Ba Wang directly, using a leverage of 10 billion to short 10%.

Liu Haifeng naturally received this news as well, and believed that Ba Wang was likely to be bearish all the way down this time, while Wang Yao was being somewhat conservative.

Wang Yao stated that there would be a reversal later, and that he would accumulate shares at the lowest point and wait for a rebound to go long.

Cheng Long just sent the test results of Ba Wang to Wang Yao. It does contain some risky components, but they are far below international standards and will not harm human health, because such components cannot be completely removed with current technology.

Even though the ingredients meet safety standards, the public is unwilling to accept any product that is 'risky' because no one cares about the dosage; everyone only cares about whether it is 'present' or not.

After all, there is the so-called cumulative effect in toxicology, and everyone's physical tolerance is indeed different. Therefore, most people's attitude towards ingredients is 'I recommend it if you use it, but I don't use it if I don't'.

However, in reality, it is impossible to completely avoid dioxane and related ingredients in daily care products. They can only be controlled within safety standards through technological means.

Most everyday hair care products contain ingredients such as sodium lauryl ether sulfate (AES) and cocamidopropyl betaine (CAB), including but not limited to shampoos, toothpaste, shower gels, and skin care products.

The recent exposure of BaWang is most likely a targeted attack, as BaWang just launched last year as a domestic daily chemical brand with natural Chinese herbal extracts and achieved a market value of 50 billion yuan.

Traditional Chinese medicine ingredients are precisely the lucrative target for Japanese companies.

Wang Yao believes it is highly likely to be a premeditated attempt to stifle marketing.

"Brother, what are President Cheng's thoughts?" Wang Yao asked Cheng Long on the phone, wanting to know what Boss Ba Wang thought.

"Of course it's to stop the damage and refute the rumors. You also think it was premeditated?" Cheng Long's tone turned slightly somber after listening to Wang Yao's line of thought.

Although his shareholding in BaWang is not large, it is, after all, the company he was the first to endorse and cooperate with. If a major problem were to occur, it would affect his endorsement image and value.

It's not just about stock endorsements; it's more about personal brand value.

Not only him, but also Ba Wang and several other spokespeople such as Wang Fei may be affected by this incident.

“It might not be targeting you, but rather the natural herbal ingredients industry.” Wang Yao pondered for a moment: “To be honest, this matter will come at a high cost, requiring your and Boss Cheng’s full cooperation.”

The founder of BaWang shares the same surname as Cheng Long, and they are said to be from the same clan, but this cannot be traced back, as Cheng Long has too many identities and ancestral homes. However, the two do have a good relationship.

"You have a solution?" Cheng Long was delighted upon hearing this.

“Boss Cheng wants to forgo the gains and losses in the stock market and put all the money into public relations and marketing. He’ll wait for the situation to improve before trying to boost the stock price,” Wang Yao said.

"This..." Cheng Long was taken aback.

Although BaWang's market value of over 5 billion has already fallen to nearly 4 billion, if we completely ignore this negative news and let it continue, it is very likely to hit rock bottom, and at that time it may directly evaporate billions.

It would be hard for any normal person to accept; it's like decades of hard work turning into a pipe dream.

"If you save people but lose land, you can save both; if you save land but lose people, you can lose both. As long as the company and its products are sound, and revenue increases, the stock price will eventually recover. But if you use cash to boost the stock price, you're just giving money to short sellers."

"To be honest, this trend and this topic are unlikely to reverse in the short term, not even for me. This is a protracted battle, so we must have enough cash to support public opinion marketing, at least 3 to 5 million in reserves," Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

"So many." Jackie Chan was taken aback.

The last time we did PR for "Big Soldier" it only cost tens of millions, and that was with a performance-based commission. Now they're asking us to prepare 3 to 5 million in cash, which is really a bit exaggerated.

“The stock price decline is unstoppable, but to prevent a hostile takeover, we can apply for a trading suspension. If Mr. Chen is still worried, he can use his own company to start buying up BaWang shares at low prices, and then we can guarantee that we won’t be subject to a takeover offer,” Wang Yao suggested again.

"So what's our strategy?" Cheng Long asked again.

"Let's see if President Cheng is willing to accept my conditions first." Wang Yao smiled. "The first cooperation method: 1 million in public relations fees. I can't guarantee what the results will be; I can only say that I will do my best."

The second option is a performance-based bet: a base bet of 2 million yuan, in which I receive 2 million yuan in public relations fees over a three-month period. If the stock price returns to above 2 yuan after trading resumes following the suspension, then I will demand 10% of BaWang's shares.
"If it's below 2 yuan, all 1 million yuan of public relations expenses will be converted into BaWang's products, which I will handle myself. It's equivalent to offsetting labor costs with goods," Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

"This..." Cheng Long was startled again.

In just a few months, Wang Yao's exorbitant demands turned into the ravenous demands of a dragon.

No matter what, BaWang is a company with fixed assets of over 2 billion. If it can really overcome this difficulty, it will definitely recover to its peak market value of several billion in the future. Wang Yao's bet is equivalent to locking in at least 20 million in profit in advance.

Although the public relations expenses are usually used to offset the cost of goods if you lose a bet, you shouldn't lose too much.

However, this does show that Wang Yao is quite confident in handling this matter, unlike other public relations companies that symbolically ask for a few hundred million or tens of millions to get by.

Moreover, this is absolutely a life-or-death battle for Ba Wang. If Wang Yao helps Ba Wang overcome this difficulty, although he will give up 10% of the shares, it will be equivalent to gaining a major shareholder with absolute public relations capabilities.

"I'll go and discuss it with him." Cheng Long thought that Boss Cheng might accept it.

Regardless of whether Ba Wang agrees or not, Wang Yao will not stand idly by. He directly issues an emergency task to Rudd, Jin Quan and others: to send all foreign-funded personal care products on the market for random testing, and then prepare 10,000 pieces of material as popular science on 'harmful ingredients in daily chemical products' and 'safety values', and distribute them globally.

Tianhuo Media currently has online branches in more than a dozen countries around the world. If budget allows, it can mobilize up to 1 related 'real accounts' and 10 to 20 unregistered matrix accounts.

To achieve group control and distribution, Wang Yao also specially commissioned Xingyou to develop a group control software. One person can use the software to control 50 to 200 accounts to post simultaneously, which is many times more efficient than the current manual posting in China.

That night, the first batch of jokes and materials about 'safety value popularization' quietly appeared on major social media platforms.

Subsequently, Dr. Peony, a medical media influencer matrix under Tianhuo, publicly explained the ingredients of hair care products for the first time on the MS platform, which sparked a lot of discussion and attention from female netizens.

In addition to models and internet celebrities, Tianhuo has also signed contracts with influencers from various fields who are interested in self-media. Currently, it is not being incubated as an individual IP, but rather a group of people providing materials and sharing them, which are concentrated on a matrix of several influencers.

These professional influencer networks have a significant influence on Mulan Street and Ms., and are usually used as a testament to the safety and trustworthiness of their product endorsements.

These types of accounts don't recommend specific products. Instead, they use reviews or product sourcing to analyze the core needs of a product category, offering followers a multiple-choice question rather than a single-choice question like influencer marketing.

Negative news about Ba Wang has not yet reached the mainland; it is currently only circulating in Hong Kong. Wang Yao is taking proactive measures to provide some defensive information and lay the groundwork to prevent netizens from blindly following the crowd.

The best way to prevent public opinion from getting under your control is to become the leader of the flock.

On the morning of July 7.19th, Sina Weibo and other platforms first discovered that a new trending post titled "Talking about toxicity without considering dosage is irresponsible" had appeared on the MS platform.

Backed by the core idea that "dosage determines toxicity," which originated from the Latin phrase "Dosis facit venenum" (dosage determines toxicity) proposed by Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, in 1538, this book provides a popular science explanation of the relationship between the two from a professional perspective.

Moreover, the post cleverly used previous hot topics such as milk powder and milk as examples to increase the scope of discussion and dissemination.

Although Ms platform has not seen a significant increase in user numbers recently, since its redesign, user engagement and stickiness have far surpassed other similar social media platforms, even reaching a level far exceeding that of video platforms.

The cost is a decrease in the usage rate and user loss of previously popular music software.

Besides the accompanying music, the main reason is that Ms's content is all carefully selected and created high-quality content, unlike other social media platforms that rely on reposting trending topics or hyping up topics.

Ms.Show's control over trending topics is 4:6, with 30% being major trending topics and 60% being trending topics selected and created by the platform itself. This directly distinguishes it from other platforms in terms of content quality and discussion.

Currently, in China's social media landscape, forums rely on natural user discussions to filter popular topics, while Weibo simply aggregates popular content from various forums and entertainment gossip.

Only Ms and Mulan Street have content directions led by certain platforms, and because the topics and angles are very unusual, this kind of content is often directly moved to the forum for discussion.

So over time, most of the content originated from Ms and Mulan Street, because other social media platforms haven't yet realized the importance of spending money on 'content generation'.

After all, internet users are currently at their most expressive, creating countless topics and memes every day. They don't need to worry about content sources; they just need to select the most popular ones, copy them directly, and insert advertisements.

Therefore, the phrase "discussing toxicity without considering dosage is irresponsible" naturally became the most discussed topic among all platforms and netizens in the morning. However, 60% of the related content came from Tianhuo Media's marketing account matrix.

News about Ba Wang suddenly appeared on the trending search lists of major platforms after the Hong Kong stock market closed in the afternoon.

After its listing last year, BaWang directly broke the monopoly of foreign capital in China and became the only domestic brand to enter the top five in the personal care market. Moreover, it holds more than 50% of the market share in the field of pure natural herbal personal care, directly isolating itself from Japanese pharmaceutical cosmetics.

Moreover, with endorsements from figures like Jackie Chan and Faye Wong, the brand has a huge influence across all ages and genders, with a conservative estimate of over 3 million users. The sudden release of such a major news story directly relates to the security of hundreds of millions of users, naturally having a significant impact.

These news items were released suddenly half an hour before the Hong Kong stock market closed. In the following half hour, the share price of Barry King Holdings plummeted by more than 20%, and its price dropped from the 4 to the 3.

The stock price fell by more than 40% in two days, wiping out 20 billion yuan in market value.

The public was in an uproar after the market closed.

Wang Yao also received the contract faxed by Ba Wang.

"Brother, is it going to work?" Cheng Long asked with a hint of trepidation.

The near-precipitous drop in his career and the negative news left him somewhat distracted while filming today. He had hoped that the authoritative test report released today would quell the public outcry, but it turned out to be completely useless.

Boss Cheng originally wanted to see how things went before deciding to cooperate with Wang Yao.

In the last half hour before the market closed today, his last hope was shattered.

Two billion in two days!

"Who knows? Let's do our best and leave the rest to fate." Wang Yao scoffed. No one could predict this level of public opinion, after all, they didn't even know how many enemies there were.

After the contract was signed, Wang Yao officially obtained the social media access to the BaWang official account.

They've registered accounts on all social media platforms and even video platforms.

Publish the first piece of content.

"Come when you come, go when you leave; this is not a place for your soul to linger."

(End of this chapter)