Guo Xiangdong returned to the office and urgently summoned the employees of the public relations department to hold a meeting to discuss how to deal with the exposure of the 3.15 party.
The employees in the public relations department talked a lot and made Guo Xiangdong frown.
"Mr. Guo, I have an idea."
A newcomer who just joined the job raised his hand and said.
Guo Xiangdong looked up and saw a young man who seemed to have just joined the public relations department: "Tell me about it."
"That's right. I feel that our blind apology cannot reverse the overwhelming doubts about us from the outside world. We might as well divert the trouble to the east."
Guo Xiangdong became interested: "Tell me carefully."
"I plan to use an employee account with Weibo certification in our name to post a comment mocking CCTV and transfer public opinion to our public relations department."
The idea of young employees is very simple. To put it bluntly, it is to divert public anger.
Guo Xiangdong became more and more interested and asked: "How are you going to mock me?"
"For example, if you send a message saying, 'Sorry, we forgot to renew the central bank account,' I think it will arouse heated discussion among the public."
After the young employee finished speaking, other employees looked at him in surprise.
No one thought that a young man who had just joined the job could have such an idea.
Guo Xiangdong's eyes are getting brighter and brighter, and posting this Weibo will definitely arouse dissatisfaction from the media and the public.
In fact, the pressure on the public relations department will be even greater.
But as long as it can divert consumers’ anger, isn’t that the most perfect public relations plan?
"Okay, I'll do as you say. What's your name?"
"My name is Zuo Jie."
Guo Xiangdong glanced at Zuo Jie with satisfaction: "I will ask the personnel department to regularize your contract, and you can receive a bonus."
Zuo Jie was a little surprised: "Thank you, Mr. Guo."
"If there is no other better suggestion, just follow Zuo Jie's suggestion.
In addition, prepare an internal employee letter for Mr. Zhang, with the tone as sincere as possible.
Then we pay the media to help us publish it.”
Guo Xiangdong has rich experience, but he just didn't think of a better idea for a while.
So, soon there was an account labeled as a high-level individual employee of Hungry? and posted a Weibo: "Sorry, we forgot to renew the central bank account today."
Afterwards, all employees of Are You Hungry were asked to forward it.
They even mobilized their relatives to repost it, making this Weibo post even more popular.
Some people are led astray without even realizing it.
It was originally intended to mock the food safety issues of Hungry Me, but ended up mocking the level of Hungry Me’s public relations team.
Gan Jiawei had been paying close attention to Hungry's actions and instantly realized that the other party had a master.
At the same time, are you hungry? We are also actively conducting multi-party public relations operations through various shareholder relations.
The most obvious effect is that the local Food and Drug Administration in Shanghai hastily settled the matter by imposing a symbolic fine of 120,000 yuan.
The fine of RMB 120,000 is nothing compared to the financing amount of Hungry?
Gan Jiawei would definitely not let go of hunger so easily, and the same goes for magnesium balls.
On this point of fighting against Hungry?, the two families coincided with each other.
As a result, more and more self-media and reports began to return to the theme of food safety.
Hungry Me also posted an internal email sent by Zhang Xuhao to its employees online, calling on Hungry Me employees to show the sense of responsibility that a mature company should have.
Gan Jiawei is very disdainful of this. Will the emails sent to the company be known to the outside world?
The public relations departments of several companies began to fight over each other, but the order volume of the platform will not deceive people.
Are you hungry? Within a week after 3.15, orders fell to the bottom.
Even with high subsidies, it still cannot stop the decline in orders.
I had no choice but to do something stupid when I was hungry.
Brush orders!
In order to tell a story for capital, the number one position in market share must not be lost.
The vast majority of Hungry? merchants are blatantly cheating on their orders.
Even Hungry?’s marketing manager is responsible for teaching them how to place orders.
Judging from the order volume, Are You Hungry seems to have not fallen behind too much.
Cao Cao Takeaway seized this opportunity and ran a wave of positive advertising at the 3.15 party for free.
The most obvious effect of this wave of advertising is that the Cao Cao food delivery app in major app stores has received rave reviews.
"No wonder Cao Cao's takeout is rated so highly. I thought it was fake at first."
"After watching the 3.15 party, I will never eat Magnesium Rice Balls or Hungry Are You takeaways in my life."
"Cao Cao's takeout is good, but the number of merchants is a bit small."
"There are many magnesium balls and Are You Hungry? They are all black workshops. I don't dare to order them because my life is at stake."
…
Now for the food delivery market, Cao Cao Food Delivery has seized two waves of opportunities and firmly maintained its position in the top three.
Baidu Waimai is completely lagging behind. Although 3.15 gave Baidu some face, it can't stand up to Baidu Waimai.
After Li Hong saw the market share report of Baidu Waimai, he slammed the table angrily and said: "How do you do things? What's the use of just having a false reputation?"
"Mr. Li, it's all my fault, and I will take full responsibility for it."
Kong Weibing looked guilty, lowered his head and admitted his mistake.
"Follow it all?"
Li Hong has always been elegant and easy-going, but at this time, he seemed to choose others to devour.
"The original third position was completely ruined by you.
Now that the market share is almost overtaken by Ali’s reputation, how can I continue to support you?”
Kong Weibing lowered his head and said hesitantly: "Can the group give us some more marketing expenses? We used to spend most of our funds on building the food delivery ecological chain, but now we are a little short of funds."
"You should go back first and wait until I think about it carefully."
Li Hong breathed out lightly, not wanting to let the Baidu takeout affect his mood.
The intensity of money burning in the food delivery market far exceeded Li Hong's expectations.
Advertisements on the stairs of shopping malls and office buildings across the country include Magnesium Tuan, Are You Hungry, and Cao Cao takeaways?
Almost to the extent that white-collar workers are well-known.
In comparison, Baidu Waimai did stupid things throughout last year.
It seems to have built a takeaway ecological chain consisting of a central kitchen, fresh food, ingredient supply, supermarkets, crowdsourcing, etc., strengthening its competitiveness.
In fact, it has suffered a massive loss of resources on the b-side and c-side, and will eventually lose the white-collar market that it once dominated to the other three companies.
"madness!"
Li Hong really had nothing to say to Kong Weibing.
But it would be a bit reluctant to give up so easily.
The transaction volume of the takeaway market has increased significantly this year.
Many institutions predict that the transaction volume of the food delivery market this year is likely to exceed 100 billion.
There is no doubt that the takeaway market is a big one.
Just a single oversight by Baidu Waimai made its advantage disappear.
Li Hong stood up and saw an advertisement for Cao Cao's takeout on a building not far away in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with a complicated expression.
A new rising star was able to defeat them step by step.
Back at his desk, Li Hong called Kong Weibing.
"I'll give you another amount of funds. If the market share hasn't increased yet, you don't have to do it."
"Don't worry, Mr. Li, we will do our best to reverse the decline."
Kong Weibing quickly promised that he was finally expecting this life-saving money.
After getting the money, Baidu Takeaway finally didn’t do anything stupid again this time.
Like its peers, it places building advertisements, recruits riders, and subsidizes merchants and users.
Are you hungry? You are still trapped in fake orders. Only Zhang Xuhao and the others know the moisture in the order volume.
The other two families kept pouring dirty water on Are You Hungry? They washed it faster than they could splash it.
When Zhang Xuhao heard that Baidu Takeaway was not giving up, he actually dared to play with subsidies and said disdainfully: "No matter how bad we are, we are not something Kong Weibing and the others can covet."
Kangjia and the others didn’t pay much attention to Baidu Takeout. They were more concerned about the white-collar market.
Through user data analysis, Kangjia and the others calculated that the white-collar market accounts for 60% of the takeout market, and the campus market accounts for 30%.
In the campus market, Hungry?’s position is hard to shake.
But for the white-collar market, Hungry?’s development is a bit slow.
What white-collar workers value is the efficiency of delivery, and this experience allows them to accept higher unit prices.
“The number of crowdsourced riders is going to increase.”
Zhang Xuhao has strict requirements for the delivery division: "I hope to see the number of crowdsourcing riders exceed one million in June."
Zhao Hui smiled bitterly in his heart. In just three months, it was not easy to more than double the number of crowdsourced riders.
The above sentence will break your legs if you run away.
Zhao Hui understands the importance of riders. Recently, orders from Are You Hungry have declined, and many riders have begun to go to other two companies.
However, several other companies were very unscrupulous and offered high prices to seduce their riders.
Crowdsourcing riders who already lack loyalty naturally want them to compete as fiercely as possible.
…
There is a post on Zhihu about "What do you think is the greatest evil in human nature?"
A young man named Wei Zexi used his own treatment process to answer this question and completely set off online public opinion.
At first, it was just a netizen who used to be a reporter, and he posted a casual post on Weibo.
He just wanted to complain about Wei Zexi's story he accidentally saw and looked it up on Baidu.
The hospital that cheated Wei Zexi actually appeared at the top of the bidding ranking recommended by Baidu.
In the beginning, no one forwarded his Weibo post at all.
It was not until a doctor forwarded it that the incident began to be discussed among the doctor community.
“A department contracted by a private hospital paid a high price for its ranking online.
By using biological immunotherapy that has been eliminated by the United States, patients were deceived and a precious life was taken away."
Then articles such as "Medical Bidding Ranking, an Evil Advertising Model" and "A Young Man Died at the Hands of Baidu and Private Hospitals" began to spread.
Even on the second day, this topic gradually became popular and attracted more and more heated discussions among netizens.
Baidu didn't take it seriously at first, but by the time the situation escalated and it was already too late to react.
The long-standing public anger completely erupted with the death of this young life.
Baidu's pale apology and explanation could not stop the stock price from plummeting.
On May 3, Baidu’s stock price began to plummet at the opening.
By the close of trading, the stock price had fallen by nearly 8%, and the market value had evaporated by more than $5 billion.
At this time, Baidu finally realized the seriousness of the situation.
All kinds of public relations tactics were used, and he kept apologizing to the outside world.
After Chen Dongcheng saw the news, he realized that Baidu was finally going to transform.
Once Baidu completely bets on artificial intelligence, O2O businesses such as Baidu's takeout that are not closely related to future artificial intelligence strategies will probably not be within their scope of concern.
Chen Dongcheng saw a reporter reporting that Wei Zexi's parents had borrowed more than 200,000 yuan to treat his illness.
Ask Xie Jingyu to ask someone to contact the other party and help him repay the debt.
From a certain perspective, several other food delivery platforms are beneficiaries of Wei Zexi’s incident.
Even Baidu's own internal affairs are so busy now, how can it care about the life and death of a subsidiary such as Baidu Waimai.
Sure enough, Baidu began to sell Baidu takeout and Baidu glutinous rice.
Peng Zhijian was well-informed. When Chen Dongcheng had dinner with him, he listened to his detailed analysis.
"Li Hong is extremely sensitive to and cares about the capital market. Since December last year, he has shifted Baidu's focus to financial business and established Baidu's financial services business group.
It's just that he didn't expect that you guys would choose subsidies so decisively.
Coupled with Kong Weibing’s strategic mistakes, the fighter plane was delayed.”
Peng Zhijian said with a smile in his eyes: "You guys really dare to spend money. According to the rules of the takeout industry, the subsidy is 5-6 yuan per order.
If your daily order volume reaches 1 million, it means that your daily loss will reach 5-6 million.
The monthly subsidy alone exceeds 150 million yuan."
Chen Dongcheng said with a smile: "This does not include the video advertisements we put in the office elevators, building advertisements, employee expenses..."
Calculated, if the monthly loss is controlled at 200 million, it is already very good.
Peng Zhijian shook his head and sighed: "So, Li Hong is not very interested in Baidu Waimai.
Recently, they also approached me and asked me if I was interested in investing in Baidu Waimai’s Series B round.
They lowered the valuation to US$1.2 billion and planned to raise US$300 million.
I have no interest at all. Their current daily order volume is only about 500,000, which is far less than you guys."
Compared with Kong Weibing, Peng Zhijian is more optimistic about Gan Jiawei, who was born in Ahli and built the underground iron army for the Magnesium Regiment.
It's also an investment, why not invest in Cao Cao's takeaway that has potential?
Do you have to go for Baidu Takeout, which Baidu itself has already given up on?
Peng Zhijian continued: "Li Hong is more interested in Xinmei University, but his appetite is a bit bigger.
He plans to price Baidu Waimai and Baidu Nuomi at US$3 billion, and then team up with Ctrip to inject US$1 billion each into New Meida.
The hotel and tourism businesses of Mei Tuan and Nuomi will be merged into Ctrip.
Let Ctrip and Magnesium Group jointly establish a new online travel platform.
Meituan’s existing hotel and tourism business group will be the main operating entity.
It focuses on the low-cost hotel tourism market and is invested and controlled by Ctrip.
If the entire transaction can be completed, Baidu will own about 30% of New Meida's shares.
Li Hong serves as the honorary chairman of New American University, and Wang Xing continues to be CEO."
After hearing this, Chen Dongcheng sneered: "Li Hong and the others have a pretty good idea."
Magnesium Tuan doesn’t care about the market share of glutinous rice.
Nuomi and Baidu Takeout combined are not worth US$3 billion.
Peng Zhijian smiled: "Who says it's not the case? Wang Xing is particularly short of money right now. Don't look at the fact that they raised US$3 billion in January, and their success is endless.
In fact, a lot of funds were used to purchase Ahri’s old shares.
In addition, Dianping’s founding team cashed out and other early investors withdrew.
The funds transferred to Xinmei’s big account are far less than 3 billion US dollars.”
After all, Magnesium Group is still short of money.
If we were really not short of money, we would have invested heavily in reducing the dimensionality of the other companies, and there would be no competition among the three companies today.