This director needs to apologize

Chapter 123: Taking the lead in bad market conditions

Da Zhuang was so excited by Chen Yiming's words that he wished he could get up immediately and rush to Zhongguancun to practice his skills on the nearest wave of Weibo.

But after all, he has been the chairman for several years. He doesn't know much about the Internet, but the basic business logic will not change. In this world, it is not easy to trick others into spending money.

During lunch, Da Zhuang looked very worried. As soon as the two of them returned to the ward and sat down, he couldn't wait to ask questions.

"Master Zhu, the more I think about it, the more I feel that this tripartite cooperation is a bit idealistic. It's stuck in several places, and I can't think of a solution after much thought.

Let’s talk about the ticket booking platform first. Assuming they are willing to expand, I can also use my connections in the movie to connect them to more than a dozen theaters in the two movie theaters of the movie as quickly as possible. The number of tickets is still far away. Not nearly enough.

首日5000万预订票房，起码150万个座位，按照8厅影院1500个座位、首映日当天排映4场的平均数计算，需要至少250家影院。

According to information released by the Film Bureau at the beginning of the year, there are currently 2000 theaters across the country. From June to August, it is impossible to achieve 6/8 of the booking system coverage in 60 days.

The theater adopts an asset-heavy management model, and the progress of updating equipment and systems starts on an annual basis.

Even if Master Han is my biological uncle and Director Zhang of the Film Bureau is my godfather, it doesn’t matter. If I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.

Moreover, 250 is the theoretical maximum calculated based on 100% attendance.

First, many old theaters simply don’t have that many seats. Second, an average occupancy rate of 50% is already an excellent result. Third, it is impossible for theaters to allocate all shows to "1951."

I roughly estimate that in order to book 5000 million box office in a single day, the booking system needs to cover all urban theaters in the eight major ticket warehouse cities in the country within 2 months. This is simply a fantasy. "

Chen Yiming looked at Da Zhuang, who was holding his fingers with a serious look on his face, and couldn't help but sigh. Look at how simple and cute the film industry was before it was poisoned by Internet marketing ten years ago.

He waved his hand and interrupted Ma Yunteng's digital singing, "You didn't do things this way, and you didn't brag like this. If you are so down-to-earth and calculating, which Internet company can still defraud investment?

Isn’t this a bad move? "

Ma Yunteng has a question mark on his forehead, box office, it requires real money and silver to add movie tickets one by one, how else can it be calculated this way?
Chen Yiming unveiled the entire operation step by step.

“First of all, 5000 million first-day bookings are not something you can achieve in one go, but are foreshadowed by a trial screening.

Suppose we still follow the operation method of "Holiday", with trial screenings one week in advance, two to three screenings per day in eight cities, a preemptive price of [-] yuan, and a simultaneous taste of the hottest movies at the Cannes Film Festival. Do you think we can make the audience burst? Cinema? "

Da Zhuang nodded without hesitation, the discount and Cannes buffs were superimposed, and there had been good cooperation cases before. If this was not possible, neither he nor Tang Xiaoniu would have to work in this business anymore.

Chen Yiming continued, "Very good, now let's slightly expand the size of the screening venue, for example from eight cities to sixteen or twenty cities. Do you find it difficult?"

Da Zhuang thought for a moment and shook his head firmly.

His three rounds of nationwide tours in half a year were not in vain. Except for a few provinces such as the northwest and southwest, he basically visited all the major provincial capitals and big cities in the country. With the results of "Holiday in the Magic City" and the foreshadowing of previous visits, , it’s not a big problem to talk about the test screening.

So Chen Yiming continued, "OK, since there is no problem, let's nest the domestic test screening and the Cannes screening.

On the second day of the Cannes premiere, preview screenings began in eight domestic cities. After the Cannes program scores were released, the domestic previews were expanded, and the day after the Cannes closing ceremony, the film was officially released in China.

Don’t worry, I mentioned this release date to the second uncle before drinking the film, and he said it would be covered by him. "

Ma Yunteng hesitated and looked at Chen Yiming, who directly revealed his thoughts, "I know that being deeply bound to Cannes seems a bit overconfident, and it will be embarrassing if something goes wrong, but we have no choice this time.

You know the ins and outs of this movie very well. The original intention was to focus on foreign affairs and support domestic affairs, and winning awards and reputation overseas was the first consideration.

Now that the situation has changed and we have to strive for high box office in China, we can only play all the cards we can.

Not to mention the quality of "1951", I had a certain degree of confidence in winning the award. Even if I was unlucky and failed to win the award, I would still hype it up to become the light of China in Cannes.

Don’t forget that Cannes is Sister Shen’s home venue. It’s just a matter of asking a few foreign film critics to brag.

In short, regardless of whether we can win the award or not, we must make overall planning based on winning the award, because we have no retreat.

The bottom line drawn above for "1951" is to support the summer market. According to my estimation, just over 3 million is not enough. It must at least exceed 5 million to have any hope.

Because in August last year during the summer season, there were two blockbusters that exceeded 8 million, but this year only one "3" took the leading role. "

Ma Yunteng put away his worry, but his suspicious look remained, "Yi Ming, I understand the preview, but you still haven't said how to achieve the 5000 million pre-sales on the first day."

Chen Yiming spread his fingers and gestured at him, "Since you believe more in calculation, then I will do the calculation for you.

If the early trial screening goes well, based on the average of 5 shows in 15 cities over 5 days, the attendance rate will be 70%, which is about 4 seed users.In fact, this is my most conservative calculation, and the actual number of people is likely to exceed 5.

I have not checked the latest Weibo data. According to the first quarter report released in April, the number of daily active users announced by the four major Weibos were 4 million, 460 million, 310 million, and 240 million respectively. The gap has not yet widened.

5, which is 1% more than the number of daily active users of Inspur Weibo, which is the leader. This number is not small.

What’s more, discounted movie tickets are highly contagious. If you knew there was an opportunity to redeem tickets by registering on Weibo, would you tell your family, colleagues, and classmates?
Based on a conservative estimate of a 1:5 ratio, 5 seed users can reach at least 25 first-level users.

25, which is still a very high-quality entertainment and high-attention user for Weibo. If the four major Weibos don’t go crazy, I will take your surname.

Then on Weibo, these 25 first-level users can conduct another round of exponential diffusion, and run another round at a ratio of 1:5, and they will not be far from the guaranteed bottom line of 150 million.

In fact, the spread of viruses on the Internet is far more than 5 times what I described, especially for highly diffuse topics like 'discount'. "

Mr. Ma couldn't close his mouth again. Why, just multiply it 5 times and 5 times. How can anyone do this kind of business?
But he couldn't refute it, because Chen Yiming's estimate sounded reasonable and logical.

After thinking for a while, he finally found a loophole.

"Yiming, you can buy discounted tickets by registering. How to identify repeated registrations? In the end, won't it only lead to cheap ticket sellers?"

Chen Yiming smiled, "Dazhuang, this doesn't seem to be a problem with our "1951", right? Isn't that something Weibo and the ticket booking platform should worry about?

I have brought all the food to the table, is it possible that I have to feed it to their mouths myself? "

Seeing the unconvinced look on Da Zhuang's face, Chen Yiming had no choice but to explain further.

"You have to think outside of traditional business thinking and think according to Internet thinking. I know that users are registering repeatedly, but the number of registered users is indeed growing. How many tickets have been sold by the theater? This number is definitely not fake.

When many companies on a track compete for land, they are not only competing for users, but also for attention and investment. What everyone burns is not their own money, but the money of venture capital investors.

Therefore, the short-term goal of the four companies is not to live better than others, but to live better than other parents. Whoever survives until N rounds of investment burns out and takes over the entire track, all users will be included in the package.

The Internet is a game where the boss supports the second child while the third and fourth are hungry and cannot find this person.

Just put your mind at ease and confidently talk to Weibo and the ticket booking platform. They have many ways to solve the so-called duplicate registration problem. Of course, I guess they won't care much.

As long as "1951" is a hit at the box office, they can't just fill in the number of new users themselves. Who in the media and netizens will have the patience to do arithmetic problems? "

Ma Yunteng still has a doubtful look on his face. After all, he is not a time traveler. He can only understand the Internet based on the existing knowledge structure. Suspicion and distrust are normal.

Chen Yiming simply gave him another reassurance, "Dazhuang, let's put it this way, I assume that Weibo will bear the ticket reimbursement costs only until the official release, and the three-party cooperation will end after the premiere day.

According to our calculation just now, 25 first-level users, a single ticket recharge of 20 yuan, and a mere 500 million marketing fees are easy for any Weibo, right? "

Ma Yunteng nodded immediately. He was relatively indifferent to the figure of 500 million, because now there are more than one 500 million in Bo Jue's account, and it is no problem to pay for it himself.

Chen Yiming continued, "OK, now Weibo has burned 500 million and gained 25 high-quality users. This group of people must overlap with Weibo's registered users. How to distribute their rewards? Weibo must have a charter .

More importantly, the closed loop of the event requires Weibo users to register and pay on the ticket booking platform. This is equivalent to Weibo directing the users it has made real money to overseas. Do you think Weibo is willing to do so?
But Weibo still needs to rely on ticket booking platforms, because they cannot reach theater chains and theaters. The only one who has resources in this area is you, Mr. Ma, and you only rely on ticket booking websites.

If you were on Weibo, what would you do? "

Chen Yiming waited patiently for Ma Yunteng to think, until the latter suddenly shouted, "Just build one yourself, or simply take over the ticket booking website!"

Weibo has money and I have connections, but the ticket booking website only has a bunch of codes, so why bother with it? "

Chen Yiming raised his index finger and shook it, "Dazhuang, you are too rude. Whether it is acquisition or kicking him away, it is too ugly.

The Internet is all about sharing and win-win. It is obviously a strategic investment by Weibo, which has doubled the expansion of their respective territories. This is the attitude of telling stories to venture capital investors.

More importantly, after the merger, Weibo and the ticket booking website became one family. One side subsidized 20 yuan, and the other side received 10 yuan from selling tickets. The internal and external costs were suddenly reduced by half.

The account expenses are also tens of millions. Before the merger and acquisition, they were pure marketing expenses, which were included in the operating expenses of the quarter. After the merger and acquisition, they were strategic investment expenses. Not only were they not included as expenses, but because of the purchase of high-value strategic assets, the valuation would be larger. Soaring.

Chairman of Mada University, do you need me to tell you how you should choose? "

(End of this chapter)