Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 216 The Real Business War

The Chen and Yan families played in BJ for a few days, and Chen Pingjiang and Yan Yan slept separately.

The supervision is too strict, so we can't have a secret meeting.

Sometimes, when the couple was kissing in the room with their mouths full of saliva and were about to take it to the next step, there would be a sound of the door opening.

With a heavy heart, Chen Pingjiang returned to Dongjiang.

As soon as I arrived at the company, Ge Mengshi came to me.

This smart woman knew from the beginning that Chen Pingjiang went to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games with Yan Yan, but she never asked.

"In just a few months, we have completed the Miaocha coverage of first-tier cities and have captured almost all important business districts. However, problems also arise."

Chen Pingjiang raised his eyebrows: "What's the problem?"

"COCO Milk Tea is attacking us like crazy and waging a price war."

Frankly speaking, this kind of price war is the most unsolvable tactic.

If you don’t follow, you will inevitably lose customers, and if you follow, you will be dragged to death.

Even Starbucks of later generations could not get away with it when facing Ruixi.

There is no lowest price in a "price war", only lower prices. If you just keep trying to lower prices, you may give consumers the value concept that cheap products are not good products. At that time, not only will your store lose money, but your original customer base will also be lost, resulting in a situation where you lose more than you gain.

Chen Pingjiang pondered for a while and then asked, "How are you coping now?"

Ge Mengshi explained: "In Dongjiang and surrounding cities, we rely on Renren Group Buying and are not afraid of competitors, but we are powerless in the face of price wars in first-tier cities where group buying has not yet covered. In the face of price wars, we first start with the product itself, emphasizing the product's tone and production process. Secondly, we avoid direct competition and stagger direct comparisons by offering discounts on purchases above a certain amount. We also use the method of offering discounts on special-selling products but not reducing the prices of other products to achieve a multiplier effect with little effort."

Chen Pingjiang nodded: "No matter what, we still have to establish the brand. Otherwise, if we defeat COCO today, there will be BOBO tomorrow, and there will be endless battles. I will help you with this matter, and also show you how awesome Miaocha is with its publicity channels."

Seeing Chen Pingjiang's confident look, Ge Mengshi smiled and said, "If you can handle it, I will invite you to my house for tea."

Chen Pingjiang laughed when he heard it, and his thoughts drifted far away.

Within two days, related posts appeared on Renren.

In a video, a consumer who bought milk tea from COCO found that there were a lot of ice cubes in it. Unless he was told to reduce the ice or eliminate the ice, half of the cup would always be filled with ice cubes.

It was all gone after just a few sips, and all that was left was ice.

This is not a smear campaign by Chen Pingjiang.

Since COCO is engaging in a price war and still has to pay high rent and labor costs, it will inevitably make up for it from other places.

If we can’t increase the price, we can only reduce the quantity.

As soon as the video was released, countless people watched.

What’s even more hilarious is that a row of official accounts with the name of Miaocha personally came out to mock.

Miaocha (Dongjiang Xinjiekou Main Branch): Is the global temperature rising because COCO shaved all the ice in Nanjing?
Miaocha (Shanghai Main Store): What's going on with COCO? Are you giving customers ice cream?
Miaocha (BJ Main Store): Why did the CO put so much ice? Did he want to freeze the customers to death?

Miaocha (Shenzhen Main Branch): It just started to hail here, and everyone ran inside. Only the store clerk COCO came out with a washbasin.

Miaocha (Guangzhou Headquarters): The ice cubes sold by COCO every year can circle the earth sixty times.

The silly netizens had never seen such a realistic "business war" and were all amused.

Then a group of people responded below: "I drank Miaocha at noon and my stomach hurts. It should be because I passed by COCO."

"Today I saw... [a large basin of ice] at the entrance of COCO."jpg.

"There's a picture to prove it! [Three-quarters of an ice cube] Jpg."

“To be honest, COCO’s fruit tea has a lot of ice cubes.”

"I thought it was just me, but it turns out that all the COCOs that everyone buys are like this?"

“Why didn’t the OP mention that the ice was removed or that there was less ice?”

"I watched it with great enthusiasm. I thought the business war was suspenseful and brain-burning, but the reality was that everyone on the Internet complained about the business war."

"..."

The official who is good at dealing with things deliberately made this post a hot topic.

Wow, in just two days, the original post received over 500 comments and the video was played million times.

As the leader in the SNS industry, Renren's popular memes have naturally spread to every corner of the Internet.

It then dominated various keyword hot searches.

Qiu Lu is an employee of COCO Milk Tea Dongjiang Xinjiekou store. She was surprised to find that business today was surprisingly good.

As I was busy flying around, I was also wondering why today's customers took out their phones and started taking photos right after receiving their drinks. Some even took photos with DVs in their hands.

The funniest thing is that someone got the drink and finished it in three gulps, like a starving ghost, and then took a lot of photos.

"Manager, something is wrong. Today's customers are so weird."

The store manager nodded, found a customer and asked, "Hello, I want to ask what you are doing taking pictures of empty cups and ice cubes?"

The customers at the door laughed out loud: "Don't you know? The hottest meme on the Internet right now is the ice cubes in your COCO store. They say that a cup of your fruit tea is mostly ice cubes. We tried it and didn't expect it to be true, so we took a photo and uploaded it to the Internet for fun."

The store manager's eyes widened immediately, and he asked in a panic, "Which website is it on?" "Renren.com, go to the hot search on the right, the first one is this."

The store manager took out his cell phone with trembling hands, opened WAP, and logged into Renren.

When I saw the number of comments, the number of reposts, and a lot of negative reviews, I felt a little dizzy.

Call the regional manager immediately.

Not long after, the news was reported to COCO headquarters in Shanghai.

COCO's founder, Hong Zhaoshui, is Taiwanese and was stunned when he heard the news.

"If this matter is not handled properly, it will cause a huge blow to COCO's brand image."

“Do you want to find a PR company?”

Hong Zhaoshui shook his head: "This is not a national event. You should arrange for someone to register a Renren account to fight back. I will contact Renren to see if it can be removed from the trending searches."

The experienced Hong Zhaoshui instinctively smelled a conspiracy.

Otherwise, it is impossible to explain why the first messages to be affected were from Miaocha’s five main stores, and their messages were also the most popular.

Considering the recent price war, this speculation is basically confirmed.

If there were no messages from the five Miaocha branches, this post would at most just attract a few complaints and a few people's attention, but it would not generate any heat.

It was the additional comments from competitors that made people laugh so hard, and it was only after the behind-the-scenes promoters added fuel to the fire that it became so popular.

After searching on Baidu again, Hong Zhaoshui found that all the search results were complaints about COCO, which made him feel disappointed.

The most troublesome thing doesn’t end there!

If COCO is cautious and adds less ice, then there is no point in engaging in a price war and she will lose money on every cup sold.

Because the retail price of their competitor Miaocha is up to three times higher than theirs!
Hong Zhaoshui felt a little bitter at the corners of his mouth. Although some tricks were used to add ice, it cannot be denied that in the hot summer, with the temperature above 35 degrees every day, the fruit tea itself is a little astringent, and the taste is actually better after adding ice.

But it’s impossible for customers to listen to you now!
It has become a popular meme, rather than a simple complaint. As people eat melons, a fixed concept is formed in their minds - COCO is cheap because it has more ice.

Social media has just emerged, and the older Hong Zhaoshui and COCO company obviously don’t know how to deal with it.

Not long after, a pale explanation appeared below the original viral post: "After many studies, we found that more ice can maintain the best taste. If customers don't like more ice, they can ask the counter for less ice or no ice at all."

It would have been fine if he hadn't spoken under the account of "COCO Shanghai Headquarters", but as soon as he spoke he immediately attracted a lot of attention.

It wasn't a big deal in itself. The onlookers just watched it for fun and were planning to turn around and leave, but they didn't expect there would be new developments.

The opposing debater actually entered the arena! ?

Suddenly, everyone started to reply, and their saliva was enough to drown the reply.

Hong Zhaoshui's hands were shaking with anger.

You can fuck me? I can't fuck you?

Not long after, another post popped up. "As expected, all crows are the same. COCO's half cup of ice is at least cheaper, but Miaocha is so much more expensive than others, but you still have so much ice?"

Ge Mengshi, who was following the progress of the whole incident, was secretly happy when she realized the power of online public opinion.

After seeing this post, we immediately conducted an internal self-examination and finally realized that this was a deliberate smear campaign by the other party, who deliberately asked for more ice cubes and then staged the photo.

Just as Ge Mengshi was about to ask someone to explain, she was held down by Chen Pingjiang.

"Your empty explanations cannot reverse online public opinion. The future belongs to the Internet. You have to grasp the pulse of the times, understand what users like to watch, and learn from them."

Soon, comments began to appear under the post that discredited Miaocha.

Miao Cha (Dongjiang Xinjiekou Main Store): We’re sorry, this employee just transferred from COCO to our store and is not used to it yet. We have already criticized him internally.

Miaocha (Shanghai Main Store): This ice cube is so mad that I want to call the police! [Angry]!
This kind of purely slanderous post did not have any replies from other users and could not cause any waves at all. Instead, the various jokes and self-deprecations on the Miaocha official account made people smile.

Chen Pingjiang also led the topic to the concept of "business war".

Now the onlookers have something to eat.

This has heightened the heat of the entire incident.

Unexpectedly, the public opinion on the Internet would go in this direction. After careful consideration, Ge Mengshi suddenly realized, "Your real purpose is to push the whole thing up and attract more and more attention. Do you not care about the smear campaign against COCO?"

Chen Pingjiang smiled and nodded: "What else? No one will listen to your refutation and explanation on the Internet. People only believe what they see! Right or wrong is not important. Even if you are wrong, we can magnify the opponent's mistakes to divert the focus and topic."

Ge Mengshi, who had little exposure to the Internet, was taught a good lesson. She didn't expect that the Internet could be played like this?

"Come to my house tonight for tea. I just bought the best West Lake Longjing tea."

After saying this, she walked away gracefully with a cat-like gait, which made Chen Pingjiang feel hot all over.

On the other hand, COCO contacted Renren and expressed its willingness to pay in the hope of reducing the popularity.

However, Li Xiyi sternly rejected the suggestion: "Our platform is a place where users can speak freely and communicate. In order to maintain objectivity, fairness and justice, we do not intend to use such means. Sorry."

After hanging up the phone, Hong Zhaoshui was so angry that he smashed his phone.

(End of this chapter)