How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 232 Comeback
The dove occupies the magpie's nest.

It is an effective means for capital to rapidly erode the market.

This system has been effective globally since the 1950s and 60s, because they were the ones who first established the standards for the modern business system.

While everyone was still trying to distinguish between assets and capital, they had already anchored assets to core and non-core.

There are two important theoretical doctrines here. One is Ricardo's "comparative cost theory", which is developed on the basis of Adam Smith's absolute cost theory and is based on the relative differences in labor productivity.

The early decision to abandon semiconductor industry research and development and instead pursue a trade-industry-technology-driven path was a result of being misled by this theory.

Another example is Hayek's "Charter of Liberty," which uses the guise of free market competition to induce or attempt to gain control of core assets and to engage in monopolistic dumping competition, squeezing out good products with bad ones.

Their formula is to discover the core assets of an industry, then create public opinion or target the assets to cause devaluation, and then buy them at an extremely low price.

First, they short the market, then they acquire other companies, and finally they go long to reap the real remaining profits.

This tactic has worked every time around the world.

But unexpected changes occurred.

It was initially thought that after the incident involving harmful ingredients broke out on the internet, public opinion would be completely negative, causing a major upheaval.

However, the incident was quite sensational, with online discussions reaching hundreds of millions of views, even surpassing the popularity of the 'Baekdu Mountain incident' a few days ago.

However, the focus and trend of online discussion was not the one-sided pessimism that they imagined, but rather an objective discussion with much debate.

Progress has been made, but not as fast as expected.

Even though several influential Weibo users joined in to stir up trouble, the situation didn't turn out like a complete rout, and there were even many dissenters in the comments section.

The public relations manager in charge of this event spent a long time investigating and finally discovered that the reason for the slow progress was a post on the MS platform yesterday morning about 'discussing toxicity without considering dosage is irresponsible'.

This popular post successfully paved the way for the ingredient controversy, preventing the public from immediately falling into a binary opposition and providing a neutral buffer. Moreover, it wasn't just this one popular science post; within the next day, countless news articles about the relationship between 'dosage and ingredients' emerged on various social media platforms and forums.

One post, titled "What's the difference between carbonic acid and sulfuric acid?", used the fact that a well-known brand of carbonated beverage had excessive pesticide residue in 03 as a gimmick to introduce the tricks of carbonated beverage monopolizing the domestic market, as well as why the eight major domestic soda factories disappeared, and why old brands such as Tianfu, Laoshan, and Xuefeili quietly vanished, sparking a lot of discussion.

In 2010, the main internet users were those born in the 80s. These netizens were the first to experience that era, and they showed unusual enthusiasm for the topic of why the "taste of childhood" had disappeared.

The comments section also started to steer the discussion towards the daily chemical industry, in addition to the beverage industry. Many of the hair care brands that we were familiar with when we were young have been acquired and shelved using the same method. And this ingredient dispute, which involves harmful substances that are present in almost all products on the market.

Later that night, Wang Hai's team, which had made a name for itself in the sanitary napkin industry in March, released another set of data, listing 20 best-selling shampoos on the market, all of which contained similar ingredients.

However, they are all basically within the international standard safety thresholds.

In an instant, the anger over 'childhood being stolen' was directly transferred to this discussion. With a stance and objective evidence to support it, many netizens no longer cared whether the ingredients were actually harmful; they just wanted to vent their emotions first.

Since we don't know where the source is, let's bombard the entire map, smashing stones and making dogs bark.

Struggle is the means to unite, while unity is the goal of struggle.

Wang Yao's purpose was very clear.

Sure enough, around noon that morning, Deng Wendi called to say that Ms. had received a big order.

"A Hong Kong company called Shengle paid us $100 million to take down the positive posts about Bawang, and they also want to pay $200 million to get us into the top three trending topics for the next week to promote their products," Deng Wendi said excitedly.

This is the largest order in Ms's history.

"Shengle? I've never heard of this company. Could it be a scam?" Wang Yao was taken aback.

This company is truly unheard of, and a company that can come up with $300 million to generate buzz and do marketing is obviously not some unknown entity.

"I've sent the information to your email. This company is just a shell company; the boss is from Hong Kong, and they also make hair growth shampoo, but they claim their products have zero harmful ingredients."

"Perhaps they saw that Ba Wang is currently caught in a media storm, which is a perfect opportunity to replace him? Besides, they can pay in advance, so what's there to be afraid of?" Deng Wendi guessed.

Wang Yao opened his email and found that the company had been established for less than two years, the boss's surname was also Cheng, and the number of employees was only 5.

“Of course we want to make money, but we must require full payment.” Wang Yao pondered for a moment.

Given Ba Wang's current situation, trending topics are no longer very effective. Netizens' rebellious sentiments and stances have already been aroused. Once his base is solidified, even if there are other negative news later, he can simply shift the focus.

With Ba Wang on the left and Sheng Le on the right, charging from both sides, that's the advantage of being a platform.

You don't even need to rewrite the article; you can just reverse the stance. This money is practically free.

However, it is clear that this Shengle Company is most likely the agent in this dispute.

The next day, Jin Quan, CEO of Huo Xiangjiang branch, also sent an inquiry. This company, Shengle, purchased a batch of soft advertisements for its product "Pear Blossom Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo" from Tianhuo, which gave it an extremely high CPM of 50 yuan per thousand impressions. This means that the cost of 1 million impressions would be 500 million yuan.

Based on the current channels for generating buzz around Tianhuo, the cost of 1 million exposures would be at most around 50 yuan.

It has to be said, they are indeed very generous; no wonder they have so many people. "I've accepted, but the minimum order is 10 billion impressions, and a 50% deposit must be paid upfront. We'll use a matrix of ordinary people to generate data," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Amateur matrix" refers to accounts that inflate their engagement metrics. These accounts are generated in batches, and the data is fabricated. Their purpose is to exploit unsuspecting individuals, making it a one-time business.

A 2500 million yuan order only costs 500 million yuan. Even if the final payment isn't made, the profit from completing this order will be equivalent to half a year's hard work for the branch office.

It seems that the market for new media channels is finally starting to open up.

The emergence of any new market with unclear rules is bound to be accompanied by gray market activities, and Tianhuo is best at harvesting these gray market activities.

However, the stalemate in public opinion did not ease the situation for Ba Wang's stock price. After the market opened, due to the lack of major support, it plummeted all the way down to below 1. In less than two hours, the drop exceeded 40%, and Mr. Cheng finally lost heart and applied for an emergency suspension of trading.

Furthermore, they disclosed false and negative information about Ba Wang's release, and maliciously shorted the stock.

Wang Yao and Liu Haifeng directly settled more than 1 million yuan of short-selling profits within a day and a half. At the same time, they built a position at the lowest point of the trading halt, 1.6 yuan, absorbing nearly 1 million shares, accounting for one-tenth of BaWang's total share capital.

After the trading halt, he was invited by Jackie Chan to fly to Hong Kong for a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Chan.

BaWang founder Cheng Qiyuan claims to be a descendant of Chen Ba, the founder of the Chen Dynasty. He says his family has traditional Chinese medicine secrets passed down from the royal family and is a well-connected family of Chinese medicine practitioners. He himself is also a student who studied in the United States, and his wife, Wan Yu, is an expert in chemical engineering. The couple founded BaWang, and their first product was beer shampoo, which helped them accumulate initial capital.

However, the technology for beer shampoo was still monopolized by foreign countries, and the research and development prospects were not high. In the end, the couple decided to focus on the research and development of pure natural Chinese herbal medicines, and Cheng Qiyuan was very good at marketing.

After all, the reason this beer shampoo was invented was that the West felt that hops were a waste, so they simply changed its function and turned it into shampoo, which could then be sold again.

Using anti-hair loss, traditional methods, and all-natural Chinese herbal medicine as gimmicks, coupled with the influence of Hong Kong celebrities, and investing tens of millions in marketing every year, the company has finally established itself as one of the top five shampoo brands in China and achieved more than 50% market share in the Chinese herbal hair care sector.

BaWang's business model is very stable, with virtually no debt and a consistently stable cash flow. Therefore, Cheng Qiyuan had the confidence to refuse offers from international giants like Lianli and Baojie.

The company went public simply to obtain more working capital to expand its market and invest in research and development, but it did not expect to touch the interests of the giants and suffer such an abrupt blow.

However, he is not of Chinese descent.

When Wang Yao saw Cheng Qiyuan, his eyes were bloodshot, clearly indicating that he hadn't slept well for the past two days.

On the contrary, his wife, Wan Yu, was full of energy and composed.

"Boss Cheng, this is my good brother Yao. To help you, I even had him drop his big project in Korea and come over here." Cheng Long said with a smile, acting as the middleman.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wang. You're much younger than I expected." Cheng Qiyuan had a solid build and a very kind smile.

"He truly is a young hero." Wan Yu smiled with a loving expression.

In terms of age, the couple could be Wang Yao's father, but because of Cheng Long's "brother," they became "peers."

"President Cheng, President Wan, it's a pleasure to meet you." Wang Yao nodded in greeting.

"Thanks to Mr. Wang's timely reminder, otherwise I might have really gotten caught up in a stock market dispute and wasted cash," Cheng Qiyuan said, raising his glass.

"Mr. Cheng, you're too kind. It was just my suggestion, but this time the other side was indeed coming on strong." Wang Yao nodded.

“Writing a few posts on MS was the real lifesaver. If those posts hadn’t laid the groundwork and diverted the impact of this public opinion storm, our supplier return rate today would probably be a terrifying number.” Wan Yuze saw the core problem.

“That’s right, that’s right. I didn’t take it seriously when the news came out, since this ingredient is in all products on the market. But I didn’t expect it to have such a big impact on consumers. Thinking about it now, I’m still a little scared.” Cheng Qiyuan sighed.

When the incident happened the day before yesterday, he thought it was just a minor news story about a competitor maliciously smearing him. After all, this ingredient has existed in the entire daily chemical industry for decades and is a common occurrence in the industry that is impossible to eliminate.

"It's normal. Mr. Cheng is just too close to the forest for the trees and has fallen into a trap of limited knowledge. You and your wife are both top students in chemical engineering and work in this industry. The common sense you talk about is actually quite obscure to the general public."

After all, chemistry isn't a compulsory subject for the general public; at least 98% of people in China aren't very interested in fields like chemical engineering and physics. But it's alright, this incident with Ba Wang provides everyone with an opportunity for popular science learning." Wang Yao smiled.

"This opportunity comes at a very high price," Cheng Qiyuan sighed.

In less than three days, Bawang's market value evaporated by 4 billion, which would be painful for anyone.

"The battle has just begun, don't say such discouraging things. It's normal for the stock market to fluctuate like waves, don't get discouraged," Cheng Long said reassuringly.

“Brother is right. As the saying goes, fortune and misfortune are intertwined. We have also realized how serious the gap between our understanding and that of consumers is. I think this is actually a good thing. Moreover, as President Wang said before, as long as there is no problem with the product, the stock price will eventually recover.” Wan Yu nodded with a smile.

"President Wang, you flatter me. It's just that things have changed unexpectedly these past two days," Cheng Qiyuan sighed.

“That’s normal. I was under a lot of pressure when Mr. Ma was chasing after me before,” Wang Yao smiled.

Cheng Qiyuan recently conducted extensive background research on Wang Yao, and he knew almost everything about Wang Yao's dealings with Alibaba and Cheng Tian/Meishe. It was because of this that he decided to cooperate with Wang Yao at such a cost.

After all, he is a young man who fought against Alibaba and emerged unscathed, and even made further progress.

“That’s true. Mr. Wang is so young and already under so much pressure, while I, this old man, am a bit too fragile.” Cheng Qiyuan smiled.

"Now that trading is suspended, Mr. Wang, how do you think we can turn things around?" Wan Yu asked.

(End of this chapter)