PDLP Chapter 152 Collaboration with Qidian
Chapter 152 Collaboration with Qidian
Chapter 152 Collaboration with Qidian
mid-December.
At Pinduoduo's headquarters, Lin Mu looked at the mid-month report. Boss Jin's factory had already ramped up its production capacity and was operating at full capacity to produce co-branded phone cases. Now his factory could produce 3000 phone cases a day, nearly 10 a month.
The collaboration items across all three product lines are very popular.
Later, Chen Ping from the marketing department came to report, saying, "General Manager Lin, are you familiar with Qidian.com?"
Lin Mu was taken aback. How could he not know? He knew all too well. He replied, "I know, I read the novel in it. What's wrong?"
Chen Ping said, "Shanda saw that our phone cases were selling well, so they wanted to come and talk to us about cooperation, and wanted to produce a batch of 'Zhengtu' phone cases."
"Then Qidian was also eyeing this business and wanted to bring some of its IPs to collaborate with us. They didn't even want a minimum guarantee fee, they only asked for a 6% share of the revenue."
"Oh right, in 2010, Qidian was still under Shanda's umbrella and hadn't been acquired by Tencent yet." Lin Mu scratched his head and asked, "What kind of IP did they provide for the collaboration?"
Chen Ping replied, "There are quite a few, including 'Zi Chuan,' 'Mercenary World,' 'Top-Grade Servant,' 'Battle Through the Heavens,' 'Douluo Continent,' 'Yang Shen,' and 'Step by Step Lotus.'"
Lin Mu sighed, a wave of distant memories washing over him. However, these novels are not ancient books these days; they are the hottest novels.
He said, "Okay, go and contact Wang Zaixing."
Suddenly, he remembered something else and added, "By the way, in terms of graphic design, this time don't go for the chibi style. The character style should be more realistic and rugged, highlighting the female lead more."
"The group that can read online novels and afford smartphones are mostly college students or young people who have just graduated from college a few years ago. They don't like to have a big man printed on their phone cases."
"Okay, I understand." Chen Ping noted down the requirements and then went to the operations department to contact Wang Zaixing.
1
After a period of time.
Lin Mu, in a manner quite out of line with work procedures, directly interfered with the coordination work on the Qidian side.
Qidian sent over dozens of character images and illustrations from various IPs, but Lin Mu was very dissatisfied, as the quality was far inferior to that of later generations.
Wang Zaixing was quite puzzled and asked, "President Lin, is there a problem with these character designs? Why are you personally getting involved in such a small matter?"
Yes, this small project is really just a trivial matter for Pinduoduo right now, not even worth Wang Zaixing's personal attention.
Wang Zaixing assigned this task to a newly hired colleague, wanting to test his abilities and train him properly.
Lin Mu was also somewhat embarrassed. He knew that what he was doing was equivalent to Chiang Kai-shek ordering the machine guns on the position to move 5 meters to the left and begin micro-management.
But isn't it because he likes online novels that he really doesn't want to see these intellectual property rights being ruined?
O starting point, oh starting point, meeting me is truly your good fortune.
Lin Mu explained, "It's not that there's a problem with the character art, it's just that I happen to enjoy reading online novels, and I've read all of these books. I just can't bear to see the IP being ruined."
Wang Zaixing realized that it was the fans' behavior.
Lin Mu began writing, carefully noting his suggestions for revision on each character illustration.
The current online literature market has virtually no related industries, with only adaptations of physical books doing relatively well.
Some popular novels have collaborated with *Zhiyin Manke* magazine, resulting in comic book versions published there. However, *Zhiyin Manke* targets primary and secondary school students, and the art style of the characters is quite childish.
Qidian (the website's online platform) simply copied this art style directly into the character illustrations, which is too naive for young people who buy smartphones. Lin Mu's suggested revisions were for character designs similar to those in later 3D comics.
Soon, the copyright department at Qidian received Lin Mu's suggestions for revision.
When they saw the suggested changes, they couldn't help but complain: "It's just making a batch of phone cases, does it have to be this complicated? We don't even have this much trouble selling anime copyrights."
However, this was a task assigned by the big boss, and they couldn't just do it half-heartedly.
When the copyright department sent the modification requests to the outsourced illustrator, the illustrator was quite shocked. These suggestions were not random or arbitrary changes; the people who gave the suggestions had definitely read the original work and had a deep understanding of it.
Previously, he had wanted to draw in this adult-oriented style, but the people at Qidian suppressed his idea, believing that he should just follow the path that was already successful and not risk changing his style.
Now that the artists have received the "imperial sword" and professional suggestions for improvement, they begin working tirelessly to finish their work.
After several rounds of coordination, by the end of the month, the character illustrations for dozens of characters had been largely revised to be similar to those in later generations.
Lin Mu nodded in satisfaction and instructed the factory team to print this batch of phone cases.
At the same time, he contacted the bloggers on Tudou.com. At that time, the main hub for anime was not Bilibili, but Tudou.com. People who read online novels would more or less read some Japanese anime, so it was perfect to ask them for promotion.
Lin Mu found a group of bloggers with decent followings and asked the factory team to spend a small amount of money to have them produce a video promoting these IP phone cases.
Inside a university dormitory.
Zeng Wen is watching a video by an anime content creator on Tudou.com. This creator, who usually only recommends new Japanese anime series, surprisingly released a video recommending online novels today—what a coincidence!
Zeng Wen also reads online novels, and he is a valued, legitimate user who has a good habit of paying to read novels on the Qidian app.
When he saw the title, he immediately clicked on it with a "snap".
The content creator introduced several currently popular novels, and their work was anything but perfunctory. Their praise was substantial and meaningful, clearly demonstrating their dedication and genuine reading of the original works.
Zeng Wen was very satisfied with what he heard, feeling that this content creator was his cyber mouth double.
Just as the progress bar was about to reach the bottom, the blogger took out a small box containing a lot of phone cases.
He said, "The online novels I just recommended have recently released new merchandise. If you want to buy the merchandise, you can click the link at the bottom of the screen to purchase it on Pinduoduo."
Next, the blogger showcased some exquisite phone cases.
Huh, that was really unexpected. The video was almost over when he suddenly had a hard lag.
However, Zeng Wen did not skip directly because he was very interested in this merchandise. The popular online IPs on Qidian.com do not yet have unified character images, but they are now clearly displayed on phone cases. Moreover, most of the characters printed on the phone cases are female protagonists from the novels, and they are all very beautiful.
What else is there to say? You can take my wallet!
Zeng Wen clicked on the link at the bottom of the screen to check the price. If it wasn't too expensive, he would buy it, and he planned to buy more than one, even if he didn't use it, just to keep it as a collectible.
However, to his surprise, the link wasn't to Taobao, but to a website called Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo? Never heard of it. Fortunately, this website could be linked to QQ, allowing him to log in directly afterward.
Zeng Wen successfully navigated to the product page, where the prices of these phone cases were quite interesting: a single case cost 25 yuan, but if you could get someone to share the order with you, it would only cost 20 yuan each.
Zeng Wen spent some time figuring out what group buying meant, and then he pulled in a few roommates who loved reading online novels to join him in group buying. Soon, he bought three phone cases.
Zeng Wen's roommate Qiao Kai was also pulled into the group purchase. Of course, he himself doesn't read online novels; he was just pulled in to make up the numbers. Zeng Wen gave him the money for the group purchase, so he was essentially placing the order on his behalf.
Unlike Zeng Wen, Qiao Kai accidentally exited the group-buying interface and saw a dazzling array of cheap goods on Pinduoduo.
Qiao Kai's background is also quite interesting: he first worked as a packer at Li Zhi's shop, then was seconded to Spring Diary, and later moved between various Taobao shops. Through this exposure, his thinking has become much more agile.
He saw a business opportunity: he knew that many people read novels on campus. If he wholesaled a batch of phone cases on Pinduoduo and sold them directly on campus, would there be a market?
The price is only five or six yuan more expensive than on Pinduoduo, so I'll just consider it my hard-earned money.
Moreover, Qiao Kai also saw tempered glass screen protectors for mobile phones on Pinduoduo—these screen protectors sell for 10 yuan each in offline mobile phone stores, and installation is included.
But on Pinduoduo, they only sell for 1.5 yuan each, a huge price difference. He can also promote tempered glass screen protectors while selling phone cases.
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