Chapter 159 It's Not A Selling Point That The High Society Can't Understand
The effect of frantically spending money to buy, buy, buy, is immediate.
Although it will take nearly 18 months for Lusen Shipyard to deliver to Gu Kun "the world's most expensive yacht" that can only sail but has no interior decoration.
However, Gu Kun's budget of more than 2 billion euros was spent, and he instantly gained a small reputation among Europe's top luxury vehicle buyers——
Previous mergers and acquisitions with Kering, the upper management of Richemont Group, and Giorgio Armani and others only gave Gu Kun a small reputation in the ordinary circles of food, clothing, and luxury goods.
This crazy spending with Lufeng Shipyard has made those European factories that sell luxury planes, luxury cars, and yachts aware of Gu Kun's approach.
Not to mention, Eric Hansen, the boss of Lusen Shipyard, and Robin Southwell, the coo of Airbus, are close cousins. They are also among the top executives of luxury car companies such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche.
There are also many superficial brothers.
There is no way, this industry is like this, people carry people in sedan chairs, because these companies know that they can complement each other, and the customers they serve are most likely the same group of people, and their products are not in the same track, which is just right
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to introduce clients to each other?
No, Gu Kun had just negotiated with Eric Hansen about a 2 billion euro investment in buying a boat and a yacht decoration factory. Hansen had already secretly tipped off a lot of information about his intentions to Robin Sow.
Sver and Mercedes CMO Schmidt.
This is not a leak of customer privacy. After all, it is just an intention, and Gu Kun is also happy to see it happen.
Anyway, it will take at least a year and a half to order a special plane for delivery, and now the order is just in time for the subsequent outbreak of his pretentious career. A few years ago, because there was no airport in Lanzhou, even the royal family did not have a special plane, only a helicopter.
Now Lanfang Airport was put into use in July 1997, and it has been in operation for 18 months. Because I was busy with other things and the demand was not urgent, I had been holding back from buying a special plane. Now it is time to take action.
This timing is very particular, because if we go back one year, the Southeast Asian financial crisis has not yet completely ended. As the tycoons and royal families of the disaster-stricken countries, they also need to pay attention to the public impact. At that time, they should not appear to share the joys and sorrows with the people.
, it is too arousing hatred and can easily cause internal resentment and disunity.
In other Southeast Asian countries with kings, their royal families also appeared quite simple during the financial crisis. Therefore, the kings of this generation generally have better public reputation and support. At this level, public image must be paid attention to.
Therefore, when the financial crisis is over and Hong Kong stock funds have almost been shipped out, it will be a good time to place crazy orders.
Airbus COO Robin Southwell took advantage of Gu Kun's stay in Hamburg and flew to Hamburg in person to sell Gu Kun whether he needed several special planes.
The scale of the order, which is only two planes at most, is certainly not worthy of being personally invited by an Airbus executive like Robin Southwell. It would be very honorable to send a sales director at most, or a regional market manager.
But the reason why Southwell came in person was because he saw that Gu Kun was now very popular in the industry, and on the other hand he wanted to attract more royal customers.
For Airbus, competing with Boeing for special aircraft orders from royal families in various countries is also very clumsy. For example, more than 20 years ago, when Airbus started, it obtained royal planes from Monaco, a small country in Europe.
The order has since given Airbus a lot of help in competing for the "luxury passenger aircraft" design.
Don't look at Monaco, a little booger country that is much smaller than Lanfang. Its population is less than half of Lanfang, but it is also the character of a rich country. The per capita wealth index is extremely high. The princess at that time was still with Audrey
Grace Kelly, the Oscar-winning actress who is as famous as Hepburn, is also so influential in Hollywood that even Hermès begged to make customized models as gifts for the Monaco royal family to build up its signature style.
Although Lanfang is poorer than Monaco now, the international reputation and hype level of Gu Kun, the future son-in-law of the Lanfang royal family, far exceeds that of Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco.
The Monaco royal family can win widespread attention from the upper class by finding a wife. Why can’t the Lanfang royal family do the same thing by recruiting a son-in-law? Aren’t men and women supposed to have equal rights?
Therefore, it is not surprising that Robin Southwell had the foresight to come to serve Gu Kun personally.
Gu Kun was also very happy.
Special planes are not the most luxurious thing in the world, and they are not easy to compare, because they are all standardized. Moreover, Airbus is such a large company, and it is jointly organized by many European countries. I borrowed a few from Gu Kun.
He wouldn't even think about taking shares in Airbus. There's no need to do so if he doesn't have the strength.
Then just buy, buy, buy.
"Then let me order an A330-200 special plane first. Give me the best interior customization and functional cabin modification. Can I do it for 100 million euros?"
Gu Kun directly stated his needs.
Don't look at the special planes of those later generations who pretend to be rich. The starting price is two to three billion US dollars. This is because of rising prices, coupled with the application and amortization of many new technologies.
According to the prices in 1999, the ordinary A320 was only sold for 30 to 40 million euros. The A330 has a much longer endurance and is a long-range model, but it is a twin-engine model after all, so it only costs more than 60 million euros.
Gu Kun gave 100 million yuan, and the extra 30 million yuan was used to renovate and decorate the interior cabin, which was very flattering. Apart from Gu Kun, there should be no other twin-engine civilian aircraft in the world that is more arrogant.
Not counting the Air Force One of the Commander-in-Chief of Oceania, that one was modified from a four-engine Boeing 747, and most people don’t have that need.
Gu Kun won’t need to cross the Pacific in the future. After the Sydney Olympics, he probably won’t go to America within ten years. The 12,000 kilometers of the A330 is just right.
Of course, Robin Southwell had no objections to this order. He just reminded: "As a Lanfang royal family, shouldn't I buy two and keep a backup? 'Air Force One' has two aircraft all year round.
This is at least the case for other small European royal families. As for Brittany and those Middle Eastern royal families, they have more planes.
I think you can consider buying an A340 with higher or lower configurations. The four-engine 340 has better endurance and is safer. And with a range of 15,000 to 16,000 kilometers, you can fly directly to Panama in Central America, or
Countries like Chile and Argentina in South America.”
Gu Kun: "It's not necessary. I'm interested in the A330 because you deliver it quickly, it's easy to modify, it already has a middle sleeper cabin, and the privacy is good. You may not be able to sell these advantages when selling commercial airliners, but we
This kind of user who doesn't care about the scenery is just right, which is what I like.
Moreover, Lanfang is a weak country and the royal family has a sparse population, so one is enough. A special plane is not a luxury item, and it will depreciate and fall behind after ten or eight years. In the future, when you have more high-tech and newer models, come back to us
Me, I would buy another one, not more than five years ago.
If you just want to make more orders, I can introduce you to the civil routes of China Flying Lanfang. China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Air China have some friendship with me. I also have some say in China's tourism and shipping circles.
, friends all over the world. If I say that I hope to improve the quality of the Flying Lanfang route and ask that all A320s be used, they will still give me a bit of a thumbs-down."
Anyway, as far as airlines are concerned, if they upgrade the quality of their planes, they can also make the air tickets more expensive. There is no problem in that the wool comes from the sheep.
The key is to see whether the quality of the passengers taking this flight is generally high enough, rich enough, and affordable. As long as Gu Kun can ensure that he sticks to high-end customers in his future Lanfang tours and attracts the richest people in the country,
No matter how luxurious the model is, there is no problem.
Gu Kun believes that as long as he does a good job, even if the air ticket to Lanfang is more expensive than the air ticket to Lijiapo in the future, there will be enough high-class people to support him. (Flying from Guangdong to Lijiapo and Feizhou
The distance between Lanfang and Lanfang is the same. If you take off from East China and North China, Lanfang is closer. If you take off from western cities such as Shudu, Lijiapo is closer.)
As for what Gu Kun mentioned, "the inherent sleeper cabin design of the A330 is exactly what it needs." This refers to the embarrassment of the A330 aircraft when used in civil aviation.
As we all know, civil aviation of the A320 level is non-wide-body. The thickness of the fuselage cylinder is just enough to accommodate a single-layer passenger cabin. The extra curved space above and below is just enough for checked luggage.
As for other later wide-body passenger aircraft, even the double-decker ones like the A380, because the upper and lower diameters of the fuselage cylinder were too thick, far exceeding the height of a floor, they were simply divided into two layers to avoid waste.
However, the height of the barrel of an aircraft like the A330 is quite awkward. It would be too much of a waste of height to have only one passenger cabin, and it would be too extravagant to convert it all into a cargo hold for checked baggage. If you want to have a two-story cabin, the structural strength of the upper floor will not allow it.
The porthole is equivalent to a stuffy cabin. Even if it is made into a sleeper, consumers will be disgusted and the sales of air tickets will be extremely low.
The main reason is that people who fly today are still very greedy for viewing. They like to look around when flying. Without windows, the plane feels like a waste.
But this kind of problem is not a problem at all for an upper-class person like Gu Kun, who is tired of flying and vomiting.
He’s not a country bumpkin, so who would look around on a plane? He’s never seen the world! He falls asleep and plays with women right after he gets on the plane!
The A330-200 model was put into the market in the second half of 1997. It has only been more than a year now. The world has not heard of any royal family/rich people ordering this model as a special aircraft. Gu Kun bought this model and cooperated with it.
It's time to use just the right propaganda skills.
Wouldn't it be nice to promote the selling point of "The reason why others don't buy the A330 is because they always want to look around when they get on the plane. But the reason why I bought it is because I'm tired of looking at it."
Both Gu Kun and Airbus can find publicity gimmicks. Whoever buys Boeing in the future will be a fool, and whoever buys Boeing again will have ADHD and has never seen the world.
Seeing that Robin Southwell had already said this, he stopped insisting: "Indeed, words are not as good as actual actions. We will come up with the best decoration plan and let you experience it for yourself after using it."
With our quality, you are welcome to place follow-up orders when the time comes. You can rest assured that Airbus has always invested heavily in research and development, and new models with sufficient technological content will often be launched."
"Very good, this is a check for 100 million. I like to pay in full when I spend money."