Chapter 178: The Marketing Miracle

"Is this...?"

"Could it be? Did North Film students really create this? The quality... is quite high. The visuals, content, and selling points are all very prominent. Did some foreign advertising agency make this?"

"What's the song in this ad? I've never heard it before."

"Yeah, the music is really nice!"

After a long while, someone finally murmured a few words.

Amid the whispers, Director Tan Xisong put the folder under her arm and lightly clapped her hands.

The applause was somewhat abrupt.

And no one joined in.

After clapping by herself, Tan Xisong scanned the planning team and spoke: "You always think that their criticism is unreasonable and that you've done your job. Now, do you see? Is there a reason they didn't like your plan? You might think of yourselves as being at the top of the industry just because you're CCTV, but think about it—without the CCTV label, would you really deserve to be called top-notch?"

In the crowd, Gao Jingzhi's eyes darted away, and he silently took a step back, feeling his face burn with embarrassment.

In the eyes of the advertising department staff, they hadn't taken the 43-year-old female leader, who had just returned from the navy, very seriously.

In fact, since taking over the advertising department, Tan Xisong's leadership style had been quite mild, making her seem overly lenient and lacking in authority.

However, no one expected that this minor advertising stir would become Tan Xisong's leverage for action.

That day, Tan Xisong, who had just taken office, used the "Rainbow" ad and the previous planning team's lack of service awareness as the basis for proposing reforms that had been previously suggested but not implemented due to internal resistance in the advertising department.

The core of the reform was to enhance the market service awareness of the CCTV advertising department and to accelerate the complete commercialization process.

That day, as Beijing was drenched in heavy rain and the thunder rumbled, the stage for a major change was being set inside the towering CCTV building on East Third Ring Road.

...

Li Xian had no idea about the stir he had caused at CCTV.

After receiving the advertising department's review receipt, he first called Ding Sheng to the hotel and put the 100,000 yuan he had prepared in front of him. Then, he contacted the Bincheng side, instructing the company's business department to immediately notify the sales staff contacting agents in various first-tier cities that CCTV's advertisement had been scheduled and would soon air during the morning slot.

In the following days, while he took the disheartened Liang Yong around various sights in Beijing to relax, Hengyuan Company, which had just organized all its business, began to make its move!

In first-tier cities and densely populated second-tier cities, the agent network was quickly established. These agents, in turn, rapidly used their marketing networks to distribute the first batch of Weili sanitary napkins to sales terminals such as shopping centers, medium and small supermarkets, convenience stores, daily chemical stores, and even grocery stores.

With CCTV's scheduling completed, the Weili sanitary napkin ad "Rainbow" aired in the morning slot.

Although domestic advertising in the 1990s had reached a certain technical level, it generally still remained at a relatively low level in terms of aesthetics and concepts.

Currently, CCTV's ads could be roughly divided into a few categories: simple and blunt functional ads, such as the brainwashing "We are pests" ad for Lai Fuling; celebrity ads, where a celebrity—preferably from Hong Kong or Taiwan—proclaims "XX, I only use OO!" with a Hong Kong accent.

Then there are the ads that don't look like ads, like Dabao's ads that feature workers with tags like "factory worker," "primary school teacher," "news reporter," and so on, ending with a line like "Hey! This really lives up to our face!"

This is the domestic scene.

International ads are obviously more high-end and stylish, but cultural and regional differences make it difficult for foreign ads to resonate locally.

For example, Toshiba's ad "吐稀粑吐稀粑,新时代地吐稀粑!" was a direct translation of Toshiba's Japanese ad.

The "Rainbow" ad, with its fresh and delicate visual style and focus on care, immediately became a bright spot among many dull ads!

In Beijing.

In a traditional courtyard house.

Early in the morning, the smell of food filled this old yet charming residence. Xiao Wu, an employee from the electricity bureau, wearing cloth shoes, put down the newspaper and big tea mug and glanced at the quartz clock.

Seeing that it was already seven o'clock, and noticing his son sitting at the table, sleepy and waiting for breakfast, he couldn't help but stretch his neck and urge, "Juanzi, hurry up! The child's almost late for school!"

By the stove, Zhang Juan, holding her belly and wiping sweat, weakly responded while clanging a spatula and hurriedly serving the dishes from the pot onto the table.

Seeing the color of the scrambled eggs wasn't right, the picky child picked up his chopsticks and pouted, "Mom, these eggs are all burnt! How can we eat this? Dad, I don't want to eat this. How about we go out for wontons?"

"Oh, just make do with it. Your mom has been slow all morning, and it's almost seven. Where's the time to go out for wontons?"

Zhang Juan ignored the two of them, placed the steaming rice cooker inner pot on the table using a cloth, and then sat down at the folding table.

Noticing the father and son didn't pay attention to Zhang Juan's odd behavior, they grumbled as they picked up their bowls.

At that moment, a pleasant guitar melody came from the TV, catching the attention of the family of three.

Seeing the sanitary napkin that absorbed the ditch water and allowed the heroine to move freely, and then the rainbow after the storm, Zhang Juan, who had been feeling uncomfortable and frustrated all morning, had her eyes redden and slammed her chopsticks on the table.

The father and son, who were frowning and eating, were stunned to see Zhang Juan's tears streaming down her face.

"You two ungrateful wretches, you're not even as good as a sanitary napkin!"

Watching Zhang Juan run to the back room and lie on the bed, crying with grievance, the son outside scratched his head. "Mom, what's wrong?"

Nearby, Xiao Wu thought about the ad from earlier and pondered.

"Son, your mom isn't feeling well today. You go to school by yourself."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to buy sanitary napkins for your mom."

The "Rainbow" ad, which was full of care for women's special times, aired on CCTV and, to some extent, met a need that had long been ignored and forgotten by tradition—the need for women's menstrual care.

With its beautiful background music and the ad's sensitive understanding and focus on women's special times, the Weili sanitary napkin product quickly gained recognition in major cities across the country.

In just fifteen seconds, the line "I know there's always a pair of invisible wings, helping me fly over despair" became a widely hummed lyric among women during their commutes or while doing housework. Even after the ad aired, someone wrote to CCTV asking for the complete version of the song.

An otherwise inconspicuous morning ad became a hit.

And with that came a surge in Weili sanitary napkin sales!

The Honghua Factory in Bincheng had decent sales before. But even at its busiest, it could only run ten production lines simultaneously. After the ad aired, these ten production lines went into full operation.

With over 400 employees in the factory, even working two shifts couldn't keep up with the orders from agents.

To get the goods sooner, agents from Beijing, close to Bincheng, even sent people to stay at the factory and arrange shipments directly from the Honghua Factory's warehouse.

Several other agents, not wanting to fall behind, also sent people to oversee the operations.

The thriving production and sales situation made it impossible for the ten production lines at Honghua Factory to meet market demand! Warehouse delivery slips even became objects of speculation—one delivery slip for 100 boxes of sanitary napkins was inflated to 500 yuan!

If the company hadn't promptly discovered and fired the involved employees, and arranged shipments according to regional agent levels, the price might have risen even further.

By the time Li Xian returned to Bincheng with the disheartened Liang Yong, in just one week, the previously unknown Weili sanitary napkin had achieved a 15% market share in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen!

This was truly a marketing miracle.