Chapter 569 – One year had passed again
Hong Kong University’s examinations were much easier than China’s university. It tests the students more on the applications of the theories and general knowledge.
Feng Yu completed the exams with no difficulties. As the examinations’ dates clashed with CCTV advertisement slots bidding, Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang, Li Mingde and the rest to go and bid for the slots themselves. Of course, Feng Yu had given Chief Jia a call beforehand.
Chief Jia was willing to help Feng Yu. Other than the slot before the evening news, he let Feng Yu’s companies win the slots of most of the other timings.
Although the slots for the programs with the highest ratings cannot be arranged, Feng Yu asked Wu Zhigang to bid at 16 million RMB. This amount was much higher than last year and should be able to win the bid. If they still lost the bid with this amount, that means there was someone crazier than Feng Yu out there.
Feng Yu’s companies currently do not have any new products. All he wanted was to make sure his products were still remembered by the consumers. He does not really need this top primetime slot. This amount was more than enough to buy 3 other primetime slots at CCTV 2.
In the end, Feng Yu’s companies had won 24 advertising slots and spent a total of 73 million RMB.
The top primetime slot was won by Kongfu Liquor with the winning bid of 20.3 million. This was officially the start of Baijiu Companies’ monopoly of the primetime advertising slots.
When Feng Yu heard about this, he remembered that in the next few years, the Baijiu industry will be winning the top primetime advertising slots and creates their record-breaking sales.
But these Baijiu factories became popular fast and also close down fast. Their production could not keep up with the demand, and their sales personnel were still selling aggressively. The bigger Baijiu factories had no choice but to take over the smaller factories in a bid to increase their productions.
This caused decreasing quality. There were some Baijiu in the market that does not even have the required alcohol content. There was also another problem. As a brand of Baijiu became popular, lots of imitations and fake baijiu appeared.
Brewing liquor does not need any big factory. This Baijiu could also be brew in people’s backyard. Those imitations used the same bottles and brand. Consumers would not be able to tell if they were fakes without opening the bottles.
After advertising on CCTV, Kongfu Alcohol’s prices increased by several folds. This caused jealousy. Commoners might not know about Kongfu Alcohol’s production cost, but those in the same trade knew. They could easily calculate a rough estimation of their cost. Kongfu Alcohol was making high profits, and the rest also wanted a slice of the pie.
This was also why Feng Yu rejected Zhang Ruiqiang in the past when the latter asked Feng Yu to invest in Bing City’s Baijiu Factory. Anyone can brew Baijiu. If Feng Yu increased the popularity of Bing City’s Baijiu, he knew the City Government leaders will want to improve their profits further and start to expand aggressively.
But the results of such expansion were death. Feng Yu would be able to escape unscathed when that time comes. But Bing City’s government and residents will be the one who suffered. Feng Yu will never do anything to cheat people in his hometown.
Furthermore, Feng Yu only knew how to increase the popularity of Baijiu. But he does not like to drink it and does not know the differences between the good and bad Baijiu. If he improved the popularity of Bing City’s Baijiu and found that the Baijiu were of inferior quality, his reputation will be gone.
This year there was a difference in CCTV advertisements. There were no Health supplements products advertisements, and there were only 3 nourishment products advertisements. These nourishment products’ companies were all state-owned enterprises.
Although the health supplement products were affected by the scandal, nourishment products were not affected. The Suboptimal health concept was common knowledge now. The sales of the book on Suboptimal health had broke records. Even old men and women on the streets knew about the symptoms of Suboptimal Health.
The people now no longer buy products from small factories. They preferred the bigger factories and pharmaceutical factories. Their first choice was Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Even the world champions choose this company’s products.
Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s products were not expensive, but effective. All of their products were accepted by the people. When the people went to pharmacies, they would ask for medicines produced by Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise.
The other pharmaceutical factories also noticed this. They started to follow Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise and produce medical health supplements. Look at Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise. Their products were even exported to western countries. What’s so difficult about producing those medicines? We can also manufacture the same things. You have patents? We can just adjust the dosage, and it will not be a problem.
Your vitamin supplement is 20 in 1? Then we will produce 21 in 1.
Health products were out of the market, but Medicine products became popular again. The pharmaceutical companies start to advertise and promote their products in their local TV stations.
The people thought that pharmaceutical companies’ products were safe, but they do not know that some of these factories’ products were also unsafe.
Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s chief asked Feng Yu if they should look for some connections to check on those pharmaceutical companies.
But those products were mainly in the coastal and southern regions. They were rarely seen in the northern areas. That means the factories of these companies were mostly located in the southeast regions.
Feng Yu asked Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprise chief to report to the authorities. Feng Yu does not want to be the bad guy again. He had reported on the health products previously was because the Turtle Essences was too much. This trick cannot be used over and over again.
CCTV’s Chief Jia had helped Feng Yu a lot on the advertising slots. Feng Yu also did not want to trouble him again.
‘Guanxi’ or relationships between people are like this. You help me, and I help you. For example, Feng Yu helped Zhang Ruiqiang get credits with his higher-ups, and no other officials will target Feng Yu’s businesses in Bing City. Zhang Ruiqiang will help Feng Yu to fend off those officials. Even the leaders in the Provincial Government could not do anything to Feng Yu with Zhang Ruiqiang’s protection.
When a company becomes successful, many government agencies will think of ways to get money from the company. If it weren’t for Zhang Ruiqiang, all sorts of devils from those agencies would be coming after Feng Yu.
Zhang Ruiqiang had helped Feng Yu a lot but did not tell Feng Yu about most of these incidents. However, Feng Yu knew about it. Many of the Provincial Government agencies had approached Tai Hua Trading, Machinery company to ask for money. But Zhang Ruiqiang had stopped them. These companies had donated a lot of money to Bing City, and all of them should get lost. Even if these companies were to donate more money, it would also be donated to Bing City’s Government. It will have nothing to do with the Provincial Government.
The agencies in the City Government were also unhappy with Feng Yu. Why did Feng Yu only donate to the education ministry? Why didn’t he donate to the other departments? Zhang Ruiqiang will come in and reprimand these people. Feng Yu had already given so much money and how can they still ask for more? Why don’t you donate your monthly salaries? Just because he is rich, and he must give?
Luckily Feng Xingtai was still living in the town. The town was a small area, and Wen Deguang was around. No one dares to find trouble with Feng Xingtai. Furthermore, Feng Xingtai had a excellent reputation in the town. He had donated to the schools there. Which family in the town does not have children? They do not even need to pay any miscellaneous fees to the school. Whoever dares to speak ill of Feng Xingtai in the town will be spat by people around.
After the exams, Feng Yu and Fu Guangzheng sat down again to discuss the plan of buying restaurants.