This wasn’t Xia Xiaolan making excuses to avoid filming advertisements.

Audience appeal was truly important.

Who was buying electronic dictionaries?

Parents were the buyers.

Electronic dictionaries weren’t items students could purchase themselves, unlike Coca-Cola or Big Bubble Gum which students could buy with their own pocket money.

Xia Xiaolan was too strikingly beautiful – if someone who looked like her advertised electronic dictionaries, while students might remember it vividly, would parents approve?

They needed to find a college entrance exam top scorer with proper features who looked like a good student – that kind of image would appeal to parents and easily gain their trust once the advertisement aired!

Common sense would tell you that since the electronic dictionary had just come off the production line, even if a top scorer got full marks in English, it couldn’t have been due to the electronic dictionary.

But neither Xu Jing nor Ma Hai objected to Xia Xiaolan’s suggestion.

Advertisements always had some exaggeration.

This wasn’t like health products where they could make wild claims about curing all diseases – Xu Jing and Ma Hai didn’t feel too guilty about it.

They were still idealistic entrepreneurs, confident that electronic dictionaries could improve users’ English levels… At that time, electronic dictionaries were genuinely used for learning, with limited memory – no one had thought about adding games to them.

As for why later generations of electronic dictionaries and learning machines included games, even Xia Xiaolan was puzzled.

Market demand determines businesspeople’s integrity. If Wenquxing didn’t add games now, BBK would be willing to do so, along with many other educational product brands competing to add them – Xu Jing and Ma Hai’s principles would eventually have to be compromised.

-Well, let these two keep their principles a bit longer. She’d remind them when competitors emerged!

Getting a list of top college entrance exam scorers wasn’t difficult.

The ’86 college entrance exam had just finished a few months ago, and it wasn’t yet common for high school graduates to study abroad. Provincial top scorers would choose domestic universities anyway.

Finally, Xu Jing and Ma Hai preliminarily selected two candidates.

One was last year’s liberal arts top scorer from Ji Bei Province, now studying at Beijing University.

The other was last year’s science top scorer from Xiang Nan Province, currently at the University of Science and Technology of China.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t need to manage these details anymore, leaving Xu Jing and Ma Hai to handle the specifics. They eventually secured the Xiang Nan Province science top scorer from USTC, a proper-looking, somewhat handsome male student.

For a student at this academic level, the first-generation Wenquxing electronic dictionary actually couldn’t help much – no matter how simple the English test papers were, without a vocabulary of several thousand words, it would be impossible to score high marks in the college entrance English exam.

He wasn’t interested in becoming famous through advertisements either.

This science top scorer was interested in Xu Jing and Ma Hai themselves – Xu Jing had previously been a teacher at Beijing Normal University, self-funded his studies abroad, and returned to start a business – that experience was quite interesting.

Of course, payment for the advertisement was also a factor.

Top scorers like Xia Xiaolan who didn’t need money were the exception – ahem, other top scorers would somewhat bend their principles for financial considerations.

Everyone had some vanity, and this electronic dictionary happened to be called “Wenquxing.” The old saying went that top scholars were Wenquxing (God of Literature) descended to earth. Among provincial top scorers, though there were dozens nationwide each year, being chosen made the Xiang Nan Province science top scorer somewhat proud.

Advertising for an electronic dictionary wasn’t too embarrassing.

It was just an electronic book for studying, nothing else. While buying one wouldn’t make you the next top scorer, it wasn’t useless either – some financially well-off parents would be willing to spend money on it for their children.

In short, with Xia Xiaolan’s reminder, things progressed quickly. “Wenquxing” didn’t need nationwide advertising – they couldn’t distribute products nationally yet, so there was no need for such a big campaign.

They would first test the waters in the areas around Guangdong Province.

Compared to inland cities, coastal cities were more open-minded, and people had more disposable income – this was the best market to enter.

Of course, the market was blank, and Xu Jing and Ma Hai were just early movers. Mass-producing electronic dictionaries was only the first step, including advertising which was just promotion.

Their situation was different from Cheng Rong Plaza.

Cheng Rong Plaza was a marketplace that stood in place, attracting various merchants to set up shop.

Xu Jing and Ma Hai needed to promote their electronic dictionary – advertising would attract people, and the electronic plaza booths would serve as displays, but their ultimate goal was to make electronics retailers see the profit potential and actively sell it!

They needed their own sales channels!

Build them one by one?

No, that would be too slow.

They should borrow others’ channels.

In her previous life, how were those electronic dictionaries, learning machines, and reading pens sold?

They used bookstore channels – specifically Xinhua Bookstore channels. Some people didn’t need to be reborn to be clever; whoever thought of this first was smart. There wasn’t a more suitable channel than Xinhua Bookstore – it was the country’s largest state-owned book distribution enterprise with outlets throughout urban China.

Well, even if towns didn’t have them, and smaller counties didn’t either, city-level areas definitely had Xinhua Bookstores.

Xia Xiaolan went to the factory again and caught the busy Ma Hai:

“While we need to launch advertisements, we can’t forget about distribution channels. We can’t passively wait for people to come to us; we should actively expand. Let’s start with Guangdong Province and find a way to rent counter space in Guangdong’s Xinhua Bookstores.”

They didn’t need much space, as there was only one model of electronic dictionary.

They wouldn’t even need to train many salespeople – Xinhua Bookstore staff could sell it as part of their job.

They’d get a commission for each unit sold.

Many state-owned store employees had poor attitudes now, which was a result of their environment.

Whether they were polite or not, customers had no choice but to shop at state-owned stores… This monopoly hadn’t been broken yet, but would gradually weaken over time.

As private stores slowly increased, the monopoly would be broken.

Private capital had started to touch department stores, and with competition, those arrogant state-owned store salespeople wouldn’t be able to look down their noses at customers anymore.

Why did Asia Department Store become an instant hit in her previous life? Besides advertising and various gimmicks, it was their service attitude.

It was said that when entering the Asia Department Store, customers first experienced being treated like “gods.”

Xia Xiaolan didn’t have time to train other employees, but she knew that generous rewards would bring forth brave people. Like those clothing store employees – were they all naturally good-tempered, always able to greet customers with smiles?

No, it was because of comparison and commission.

If they treated customers with disdain, customers wouldn’t buy clothes from them.

Every piece of clothing was related to their performance and affected how much commission they could earn!

Selling books had no commission, but selling electronic dictionaries did – this extra income beyond their salary was quite motivating, right?

After listening to Xia Xiaolan’s explanation, the scattered thoughts in Ma Hai’s mind became clear.

“Director Xia… you’re truly a natural businessperson!”

Using others’ channels and even their salespeople – was incredibly shrewd.

Ma Hai was both excited and couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat, fortunately, he hadn’t harbored any inappropriate thoughts, or he definitely wouldn’t have been able to hide them from Director Xia.