Chapter 237
Before 1999, bus decorations were all hand-painted with paint on display boards. You can imagine how high the cost and production cycle were. Because of this limitation, although bus decorations appeared as early as 1995, they have never been developed on a large scale. Cities outside Beijing are even blank.
Therefore, although many people know that using buses to play games is a good idea, no one has thought of using buses to promote movies.
Zhang Shaohui immediately thought of this after Jiang Ning's reminder, because the price of inkjet printers was very high in the past two years. But this year, with the continuous improvement of inkjet equipment and the reduction of consumables, the price of inkjet has dropped significantly, but the quality of the picture has increased year by year, which has also led to the emergence of more and more inkjet equipment on the market.
Their company's business includes inkjet printers.
For others, imported equipment is scarce and production costs are high, but for the second generation of these family businesses, it is not a problem.
Among this group of people, although it was Young Master Zhang who invested the most, many of the others were his good brothers. They followed him to invest in the movie "White Snake" at that time. On the one hand, Director Yu was short of money for making the movie, and he tried his best to fool the second-generation rich. Not only did he fool Young Master Zhang, but he also brought a lot of good brothers with him. These good brothers were just like him. They had hundreds of thousands of funds in their hands, but they didn't know what to do. So they simply followed Young Master Zhang and invested some money in the movie "White Snake". Among them, Young Master Zhang invested the most and made the most money. Although the others also made two or three times as much, this income is certainly faster than making money from the physical business, but the total funds are not that much.
This time they wanted to take advantage of the release of "The Song Dynasty" to make a fortune. In this way, the funds they had on hand would increase from hundreds of thousands in 1997 to two or three million in just two or three years. This rate of return on investment is very high. With these funds, they will have sufficient funds to do whatever they want to do later.
More importantly, when people mention them in the family or circle, they are no longer the idle second-generation rich, but young talents with careers.
In order to maximize the incubation of the copyright of "The Song Dynasty", this group of second-generation rich people got together and opened a film and television entertainment company. In addition to this group of second-generation rich people, the current shareholders also include Director Yu.
It seemed like they had suddenly found the direction of their careers, and naturally they devoted all their efforts to promoting the movie "The Song Dynasty". They all worked hard and, through their respective circles of contacts, obtained inkjet printers, which are now rare in the market.
The second-generation rich people all came on the scene and, through their own networks of connections, contracted all the bus services in the provincial capitals and major movie-watching cities across the country.
In cities outside the capital, since public bus subscription has not yet been used, the price of urban public bus subscription that is first tried is extremely low. For example, Jiangcheng, the capital of Jingchu Province, the total subscription cost of subsidizing the 3,000 buses in the city is only 35,000 yuan per month. Some provincial capitals are more expensive, but no more than 50,000 yuan.
This is much cheaper than the price of inserting gg on TV programs. In this era, except for a few wealthy families who have private cars, it is difficult for others to avoid seeing buses when they go out, even if they don’t take the bus. As long as you see the buses shuttling through the streets, your eyes have passively suffered the baptism of bus gg.
There are 34 provincial-level administrative regions in the country, plus important cities in some provinces, a total of 50 cities. The advertising fee plus the inkjet printing painting and publicity fee is 50,000 for one city, 500,000 for ten cities, and 2.5 million for fifty cities. Add to that the advertising they did in mainstream media such as "Wuxia", and their total advertising fee is about 2.8 million.
Such publicity expenses are naturally not worth mentioning compared with the publicity expenses of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions in later generations. However, in this era before the 21st century, publicity expenses of nearly three million are already the entire investment of a work or a TV series for many crews with insufficient funds.
These second-generation rich people are indeed generous. It's as if overnight, all the major cities in the country were adapted from Lemon Meng's work "The Years I Was a Constable in the Song Dynasty", another masterpiece after the movie "The King's Guards"! The movie "The Great Song Dynasty Detective: Crane Dances in the Sky" will be released on January 3rd! 】
Next to it are spray-painted photos of the heroine and hero.
The book "Being a Chief Constable in the Song Dynasty" is about a female protagonist. The female protagonist is the absolute number one, and the male protagonist is not the original candidate for Zhan Zhao. On the contrary, the image of "Judge Bao" was weakened in the adaptation. In the movie, it is basically based on martial arts and detective work. In the end, the thief is led out, the truth is found out, and the criminal is brought to justice together with the male protagonist. Bao Zheng only appears as a background board at the beginning and the end of the movie as a symbol.
They are not pursuing any awards, it is just a refreshing commercial film suitable for watching during the Chinese New Year for the whole family.
Originally, they wanted to find Jiang Bai to play the leading actor, but this year Jiang Bai was recommended by his tutor to take the postgraduate entrance examination, so he really had no time to film. In addition, Jiang Bai felt that he had earned enough money, had a house and a shop. Probably influenced by his father Jiang since he was a child, he was stubborn and still felt that learning was the most important thing. After solving the survival problem of food and clothing, the idea that everything should give way to learning, which was instilled in him since childhood, overcame his desire to make money, and he concentrated on preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination.
The most important thing is that for him, filming is just a means of making a living, and mechanics is his real hobby. During the filming period, every page of the notebook he brought was filled with various mechanical drawings. He has not even learned to paint, and he has managed to draw every detail exactly based on his interest and hobby.
Jiang Bai was not invited, but when the contract for the movie "The Song Dynasty" series was signed, Jiang Ning also held 10% of the shares. So except for not being able to participate in the promotional roadshow, she did not refuse the idea of using her fame to promote the movie. Also because of Director Yu and Ning Meng's fame, another currently popular male actor was invited to be the male lead and participate in the promotional roadshow.
Such large-scale publicity resulted in the entire 1999 Lunar New Year holiday season being almost completely flooded with information about "The Great Song Dynasty Detective: Crane Dances in the Sky", which directly caught the film team of "Never Part, Never Die" - another Lunar New Year film this year - off guard.
Under such circumstances, the originally planned publicity and promotion plan would definitely not work, as the bus gg had already been preempted by "The Great Song Detective". After overnight discussions, the film team of "Never Parting" had no choice but to increase publicity and promotion funds and increase investment in the main publicity media such as television, newspapers, and print media.
"Never Part" was originally a low-budget movie like the original "Party A and Party B". No matter how much profit it made, it was still a profit. Now that the publicity and promotion costs have increased, the investment cost of the entire movie has also increased by two to three million.
But there is no way. "The Great Song Dynasty Detective" has no moral principles. With their overwhelming publicity, if they do not increase their investment in publicity and promotion, the Lunar New Year period will basically become the world of "The Great Song Dynasty Detective", and their movies can only follow behind and get a share of the spoils at best.
When competing with them for "White Snake" before, our movie lost at the box office, ranking second in the same year. In the 1998 Wanhua Film Festival, the awards were evenly divided. Who knew that we would meet again this time.
The most competitive movie this year should be Stephen Chow's "Drama Star". Unfortunately, this movie was released in Hong Kong. The mainland film market mainly has several movies such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "Never Say Die", and "Women's Male Director". It can be said that this year's film market basically has no overly competitive opponents. As a result, as soon as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" was released, it directly swept the film market and swept this year's Lunar New Year box office without any rivals.
"Never Say Die", which originally had some competitiveness, was eventually reduced to a mere shadow of its former self due to the overwhelming publicity of "The Song of Greatness". The crew of "The Song of Greatness" eventually became the number one box office of this year's Lunar New Year holiday with a box office of over 52 million.
The box office revenue was over 52 million. Excluding the cost to the cinema and the publicity and promotion costs, Jiang Ning got 10%, so a total share of nearly 3 million.
This can be said to be the largest income Jiang Ning has received from the film and television industry, except for the film and television copyright of the book "Star Mecha".
Jiang Ning didn't bother to be polite with them and directly invested the money into the stock market again.
Since the 519 market last year, the money Jiang Ning has invested in the stock market has multiplied several times, but she still seems to think that she has not earned enough. As long as it is income other than serialized royalties, she will invest it all in the stock market based on the principle that even the smallest bit of money is still meat.
When Jiang Ning and his friends returned to their hometown, the changes in their hometown were not only earth-shaking, but also made many young men and women who worked outside feel as if they had come to the wrong place as soon as they returned home.
I’ve only been away for a year, how come I can hardly recognize my hometown here?
First, when the boat passed a small island very close to their Linhe Brigade, an artificial beach appeared on the island. Not far from the beach there were several slides, swings that several people could swing on together, see-saws and many other children's facilities. The artificial beach was directly facing the side they were returning from, so that all the migrant workers returning home from other places could see the changes on the island first.
Originally there was only a small brick house on the island. The small house on the top of the island had been replaced by a manor at some point. Many small trees were planted near the water. It was winter now, and they couldn't tell what kind of tree it was. In addition to the first one, it seemed that many other saplings had been transplanted.
The young men and women stood on the boat. Even after the boat had sailed far away, they were still looking out and talking to each other from time to time: "What's going on with that island? Why is there an extra beach? Where are the houses on it? Why are there new people?"
They didn’t know anyone lived on the island before, except for a small house on the top of the island that stood out.
Grandpa Jiang was also watching, with a satisfied smile on his face.
After the boat passed, it did not head towards the embankment of Xujia Village, but continued towards Jiangjia Village.
The young man sitting in the shed saw this and couldn't help asking the boat captain, "Brother San, is the boat going the wrong way? Is this heading towards Jiangjia Village? The river water in Jiangjia Village should have dropped by now, so the boat can't dock at the shore, right?"
The river water level dropped and the river beach emerged from the water. The beach was covered with mud. If a boat ran aground on the beach, the only way to push the boat out into deep water was to use a bamboo pole to continue sailing.
Because the terrain of Jiangjia Village is higher than that of Xujia Village, every winter, there is a large area of river beach exposed above the water surface between the river embankment of Jiangjia Village and the water surface, making it impossible to approach the shore. This is why they have to return from the river embankment of Xujia Village every winter.
Unexpectedly, the boat boss' wife, holding a bamboo pole in her hand, looked at the river and said with a smile: "This year is different! You know Jiang Guotai from your Jiangjia Village, right? He contracted the entire river beach and asked people to dig a canal to connect the sand river water in your village to the dam!"
This is actually not a big project. All you need to do is dig a four or five meter wide ditch on the river beach. It doesn't need to be very long, as long as it leads to the surface of the Sha River. The water from the Sha River will flow back into the ditch, and the boat will naturally reach the dam.
When they arrived at the embankment, they found that the embankment of Jiangjia Village was very different from the dirt road embankment in the past. It was all cast with cement. In the past, it was like a muddy pond. To go up and down the embankment, they could only hold the wild wormwood on the embankment for leverage to avoid slipping. If they could not climb up, they would slip down directly. Now, all the narrow paths were cast with cement into clean and tidy stairs. People returning home no longer have to slip like in the past. They can just go up the cement stairs directly.
Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai supported Grandpa Jiang and walked up the stairs step by step.
Jiang Bai is now very famous. When he came back, he not only wore a hat, but also wrapped a scarf around his neck, leaving only his eyes exposed. Even so, he was still recognized. Along the way, people kept talking to him, "Haha, are you Jiang Bai? Don't hide your face, I recognized you!"
Some people stared at the two siblings curiously, their eyes revealing kindness, admiration and yearning.
Jiang Bai, who was not good at speaking, gave them a subtle smile.
Although the road on the embankment is still not a cement road, but the snowy road of the past, the wild wormwood more than two meters deep on both sides of the embankment has been completely cut down. In contrast, many small willow saplings have been planted. Not only are willow saplings planted on the top, but also on the bank near the river below. In addition to a willow sapling every thirty to fifty meters, there are also "little pepper" seedlings that they used as "red lanterns" when they were young. They have not been cut down. Not only have they not been cut down, but bamboo poles have been inserted in the shape of a "well" to protect these wild "little peppers". The vines that used to grow wildly no longer bend down to the ground, but are carefully tied to the "well" shaped bamboo poles with straw ropes, allowing the vines of the "little peppers" to grow upward along the bamboo poles. There is a sign hung on the bamboo pole of each "little pepper" [Please do not climb or break, violators will be fined fifty].
Never mind whether Jiang Guotai has the right to impose fines. In this area, if he says that violators will be fined 50 yuan, no one will doubt that he can't do it. He can't do it. There is a group of uncles and aunts wearing red armbands patrolling in the village. They are all the elders of the village. If you are caught by them and don't pay the fine, they will twist your ears three times.
The young people who came back saw the protected chili peppers and asked their elders in confusion: "Uncle, why are these chili peppers tied to bamboo poles? Can they be eaten?"
They have all grown up watching these things, and they have also been told by their elders that these things are "little peppers", very spicy when eaten, poisonous, and cannot be eaten.
Even if some children tried it and found that it was not edible, they also felt that the bright red fruit did not look like it was inedible. In addition, there were many snakes in their area and the grass was full of snakes. There were snakes swimming over the fruits at any time, so they were even more afraid to eat it.
So no one ever questioned the words of the elders.
The uncle who was asked said with a smile: "You don't understand this, right? This is not some 'little pepper', it's wolfberry, you know wolfberry, right?"
Even the most ignorant people, after working outside for a few years, would know what wolfberries are when they see wolfberries soaked in the cups of the factory director and workshop director, and they would exclaim in surprise: "What is this? Are these wolfberries?"
"Yes, you don't understand this, right? So you still have to go to school and read more. If you don't read, who would have thought that these unwanted things everywhere would be wolfberries? You don't know, these wild wolfberries are more nutritious than artificially cultivated ones. This year, I don't know how many people came here to pick wild wolfberries. It was originally said that they could be picked for free, but later the price rose to five yuan per catty, and some people still came to buy them. They didn't dry them after buying them, but ate them fresh. The experts said that eating these wolfberries raw can reduce that..."
The woman next to him couldn't stand it anymore and quickly said, "Lower blood lipids, lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar!"
"Yeah, right, right." A tall, thin man in his 40s or 50s who has a hard time finding a job outside and works as a farmer at home all year round said, "What else is there..."
The older sister next to him was much smarter than him and had a much better memory. She said, "Regulate immunity, resist aging, resist fatigue, and enhance the body's immune ability!"
They don’t understand what it means to enhance the body’s immunity, but the general idea is that enhancing the body’s resistance can make the body less likely to get sick.
This is good stuff!
After hearing these experts' advice, only some families who are good at planting planted wolfberries this year. Many families who did not plant wolfberries this year also plan to plant one or two acres of wolfberries in the early spring of next year!
This is the first year that Aunt Jiang and her family are planting wolfberries, and the yield is not high. Most of the wolfberries are bought up by the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Provincial Bureau of Agriculture. The method of drying wolfberries is actually very simple. You just need to use edible alkali to destroy the wax on the surface of the wolfberries, and then place them on bamboo grates to dry.
The wolfberries they dry out are all grown under the guidance of experts, without any additives added, so the color may not be as good as the wolfberries on the market, but a little darker.
But the experts like it, the leaders of the Agricultural Bureau like it, and relatives and friends give some to it, saying that it is a new variety bred by experts from the Provincial Agricultural Bureau and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences this year. It is safe and pollution-free. I wonder how popular it is.
Aunt Jiang made a net profit of three to four thousand yuan just from the two acres of wolfberries she planted this year, not to mention the money she earned from tea and running a small restaurant and hotel. This year, she and her two daughters-in-law did not go out and stayed at home, earning nearly 20,000 yuan a year, with tea making the bulk of the money.
This is because tea and wolfberry are only planted in the first year and the yield is not high. After another three to five years, when wolfberry reaches its golden period of fruiting, the income from wolfberry alone is estimated to be nearly 10,000 yuan a year.
This income is almost as much as what Uncle Jiang and his three sons earn in a year building houses for others.
They did not sell their tea individually this year. After the tea was picked, it was sent to the tea processing factory opened by Jiang Guotai at the foot of the mountain for unified processing and packaging. However, the tea sent to Jiang Guotai was also priced according to quality.
At this time, the difference between good tea fields and shady tea fields emerged. For the same tea from Huolu Mountain, the tea grown in the sunny tea fields generally has a higher purchase price than the tea grown in the valleys and shady tea fields. At the same time, tea picking will also affect the price.
There is always a shortage of people in this world who treat others as fools. When picking tea from their own tea estate, some people pick the old leaves and mix them with the tender buds, thinking that if they mix them in, others will not be able to tell the difference. Some even go further, mixing tea leaves with the tea, some even mix gravel into the tea, and some even put a brick under the bamboo basket to increase the weight of the tea.
This is simply trampling on other people's IQ.
Jiang Guotai never indulged these people. Once he found stones mixed in the tea, he would discard all of it. As for the tea mixed with tea leaves, he would ask them to pick out the tea leaves and fruits before sending it to him. No matter how good the quality of the tea they sent was, he would not purchase it at the same price as high-quality tea, but would put it among the lower-grade teas.
The same applies to tea mixed with old tea tree leaves.
This directly dumbfounded those who delivered tea to Jiang Guotai's tea processing factory. If there were still those who wanted to make trouble, Jiang Guotai didn't need to do it himself, the old village chief would bring people to deal with those troublemakers.
Jiang Guotai stopped accepting tea from those who were causing trouble, so they took the tea back home, roasted it, and sold it themselves.
Almost all local people know how to roast tea, the only difference is the taste of the tea due to different techniques and temperature.
They thought that they could set the price by roasting the tea themselves, which would definitely be more cost-effective than sending the tea to Jiang Guotai's tea processing factory. However, they did not expect that the tea they roasted was all bulk tea and had not been carefully packaged, so it could not be sold at a high price.
Jiang Guotai spent so much money on repairing the water and land facilities in his hometown, could it be that he did it just to sell "Wugong Tea" at a low price? The gossip about "Wu Gong Tea" has been reported to CCTV. Even people in Beijing are drinking "Wu Gong Tea". Even the leaders of the municipal party committee are drinking "Wu Gong Tea". The status of Wu Gong Tea has been raised high, and Jiang Guotai will not let it fall easily.
Therefore, the best batch of Mingqian tea produced this year are not for sale. All of them are packaged in extremely exquisite and high-end ways for giving as gifts.
As a result, the price of tea in his tea processing factory is naturally much higher than that in the ordinary market, but those tea merchants just want the beautifully packaged "Wugong Tea" that the leaders are drinking. Even if there is loose tea in the market, the tea merchants know that these are the "Wugong Tea" produced in the local Wugong Mountain, and they don't want them. They want the famous tea with the "Wugong Tea" logo.
Therefore, those who wanted to take advantage but failed and had to sell it themselves can only sell it to tourists who come to visit at a low price.
Tourists are divided into two categories, those who drink the tea themselves and those who buy the tea as gifts. As long as they buy the tea as gifts or want to take it back to show off, they will all buy beautifully packaged tea with the "Wugong Tea" logo. Only those tourists who like to drink tea but have limited money will consider buying loose tea on the market.
However, no matter how much or how little they earn, it is certain that every household will have a prosperous year this year.
After working hard all year round, these migrant workers can only earn five or six thousand yuan. Even so, they live frugally and are reluctant to spend money, so they can bring back so much. When they come back and hear that the income from the tea fields in their hometown on the mountains alone is as low as nearly ten thousand yuan, and as much as fifteen thousand or twenty thousand yuan, they are shocked.
They've only been away for a year, so why does it feel like they've been away for most of their lives?
Grandpa Jiang's eyes seemed to be full of seeing. Along the way, he listened to others introducing their hometown with a smile on his face. From time to time, he stopped to look at the endless withered lotus leaves in winter and the large farmland next to the river beach.
Many of those farmlands are surrounded by nylon nets, where river crabs and crayfish are raised.
Many families raising crayfish have earned a lot this year. Although they are not rich yet, for those of them who are older and no longer competitive when working outside, and no one even wants to hire them, and who rely on the harvest from the fields all year round and do not earn much money, this money is already something they never dared to imagine they could earn in the past.
It’s more than what those who go out to work earn!
They walked on the snow towards Jiangjia Village.
In previous years, at the end of the year, the endless river beach was full of people digging wild lotus roots, but this year there was no one digging lotus roots at all.
They asked the elders in the village, and they immediately said with a serious face: "What wild lotus roots? The wild lotus roots on this river beach were all submerged in a flood last year, and even the roots were rotten. Where are the wild lotus roots? The lotus roots on this river beach now are all planted by Guotai alone at a high price, and people from all over the country were hired to plant them in March and April this year!" He pointed to the large river beach and said: "This piece of land is now contracted by Guotai alone, and all the red lotus is planted here. When the red lotus is in full bloom, it is so beautiful that even CCTV TV series come here to shoot, you know?"
The young people hesitated and nodded.
"The Legend of White Snake" was broadcast in the morning during the summer vacation and replayed in the afternoon. During this time period, they were all working in the factory, so where would they have the time to watch TV? Occasionally, when they have a holiday, young men and women all want to date, go out shopping, and eat something delicious. Who would want to find a place to watch TV in the morning or afternoon?
However, they had also heard of this TV series, but they just didn't know about the GG advertisements for Wugong Mountain and Wugong Tea interspersed in the series. After all, they were soft advertisements without any trace of GG, not hard advertisements. There were people in the factory who had watched the TV series, but they didn't know that Wugong Mountain was their hometown, so naturally they wouldn't tell them.
They know about it only because the TV series is so popular and Jiang Bo is the lead actor, so they have more or less taken a look at it.
The elders in the village said: "This river beach has now become a scenic spot for our Linhe Brigade. The lotus has only been planted for a year. Not only can we not dig the lotus roots, we can't even pick the lotus leaves and lotus flowers at will, otherwise the lotus roots will be damaged!"
The artificially cultivated lotus roots are not as vigorous as the wild ones, and the blooming area is wider. It will take three to four years, or even five to six years for this place to fully recover.
When they arrived at the entrance of the village, next to the brigade headquarters, they saw a house covered with red tiles on the outside. It looked bigger and more luxurious than many other houses in the village. They couldn't help but ask curiously, "Whose house is that? Why is it built next to the brigade headquarters?"
Logically speaking, that piece of land is not a residential site.
When the uncles and aunties heard the young man talking, they all burst into laughter, puffed out their chests and said loudly with some pride and boasting: "Hey~, that's not someone's house, it's the public toilet of our village!"
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