June 29, Friday.

Pei Qian sat in the living room of his residence, sighing heavily at his laptop.

During the three days since returning from Zhixing Studio, he hadn’t gone to the company, but instead secluded himself at home, seriously contemplating next month’s marketing plan for the VR headset.

Although he had maintained a calm and composed appearance in front of the Zhixing Studio staff and Meng Chang, only he knew how panicked he truly was.

He had temporarily fooled Meng Chang with his god-tier acting skills, but that was only temporary. Whether he could deceive Meng Chang for a longer period, keep him working for him, and preserve the only good brother in the entire Tenda Group would depend on the success of the upcoming marketing plan.

This task was extremely challenging.

VR technology naturally came with its own hype, and with the golden brand name of Tenda Group, attention would naturally be high.

Pei Qian had seen the VR headset prototype and played the game demo—both were top-tier standards in the industry.

From any angle, it seemed like an impenetrable deadlock.

At this point, even if they gave the marketing plan to someone who knew nothing about it, that person could randomly put something together with minimal effort and still achieve good results.

Meng Chang was clearly aware of this point, which was why he had quit.

For Pei Qian to take over this mess and clean it up would be no easy feat.

Fortunately, Pei Qian was naturally gifted in this area, combined with his profound understanding of Tenda Group and the experience accumulated from three years of battling wits with the system…

By now, he had finally gained some insight.

“To achieve this goal, I need to follow a ‘three-step’ process. Rushing into marketing would definitely end in disaster.”

“The first step must be to separate Tenda’s reputation from this product.”

“Players are now obsessed—once they hear the words ‘Tenda Games,’ regardless of the game type or product, there’s a group that mindlessly buys whatever is offered.”

“This is extremely bad.”

“After the Doubt VR headset and ‘Animal Island’ are released, when everyone hears they’re Tenda games, coupled with people like Qiao Laoshi making noise, no matter how hard the marketing plan tries to discourage players, it will be drowned out by players clamoring to buy.”

“So, first we need to let players know that both the headset and game were made by Zhixing Studio, and that Zhixing Studio merely has an investment relationship with Tenda, so they shouldn’t have too many expectations.”

“We’ll promote this for a while, and once some questioning voices appear, we can proceed to the next step of the plan.”

Pei Qian stood up and paced around the large balcony for a moment.

“For the second and third steps, I need to think of a special approach.”

“The reason why Meng Chang’s marketing failed so many times before was that he ended up creating a ‘lower expectations first, then exceed them’ effect. He kept things too low-key at the beginning, and when the game or product came out, it instantly met and exceeded everyone’s psychological expectations, making the situation unmanageable.”

“Therefore, I must strive to create a ‘raise expectations first, then disappoint’ effect!”

“First, find a way to infinitely raise everyone’s psychological expectations, lavishly and irrationally promoting everything. This way, when the actual product comes out and doesn’t meet everyone’s expectations, the effect will naturally be greatly diminished.”

“The second step is to elevate everyone’s psychological expectations, and the third step is to find ways to reduce the influence and effect after the product is released.”

Pei Qian sat back down at his computer and quickly recorded his thoughts.

“For the second step, make a very abstract, extremely cool promotional video. In this video, strive to show everyone the ultimate, most outrageous scenarios of virtual reality.”

“Also add some suggestive slogans like ‘The Future Has Arrived,’ and use exaggerated descriptions such as ‘Once in a Lifetime,’ ‘Unprecedented,’ ‘No Product Will Surpass It for Three Years,’ and so on.”

“Then hire some internet commenters to hype it up aggressively.”

“This way, everyone’s psychological expectations will be infinitely elevated. Even if they don’t imagine black technology like plugging cables into their brains, their mental images will definitely be completely higher than the actual effect of Doubt VR.”

“At the same time, the more aggressively we hype, the more backlash we’ll attract.”

“Moreover, in the first step, we’ve already separated Zhixing Studio from Tenda Games, which will leave an impression that Zhixing Studio is exaggerating, clickbaiting, and over-marketing, further reducing its score.”

“Then comes the most crucial third step: working hard to ensure the VR headset falls short of players’ expectations when it’s released.”

“I must ensure a batch of VR headsets hits the market within two weeks, but absolutely not too many.”

“Although I could choose not to release any products within two weeks, this marketing plan would still generate promotional effects, and as the hype grows, it might become uncontrollable.”

“So, it’s best to hold a launch event and release a batch of products three or four days before the deadline approaches, at a peak of hype. This way, most players will see but won’t be able to play with it. They’ll be very disappointed, and there will be many questioning voices online, naturally leading to poor marketing results.”

“Besides, my marketing plan is only targeting the headset, not the game.”

“So we can completely release the headset first, then release the game a week later, which is entirely reasonable.”

“And the first batch of released headsets must not be too many, because if there are too many products released, more people buy them, and online reviews will tend to be fair, making it difficult to muddy the waters.”

“It’s best to specifically gift them to some players, including content creators. Find some content creators with a history of being paid for positive reviews, and give them some money to speak well of the product.”

“Although they will indeed be saying good things, in the eyes of players, they’re being paid to give insincere praise.”

“Releasing few products will also be criticized as a publicity stunt.”

“Finally, pay out of pocket to hire some internet commenters to stir things up online and provoke players’ anger. Wouldn’t that complete the plan?”

“Although it’s impossible to maintain the full commission for a month, lasting two weeks shouldn’t be a problem.”

“But… I wonder what Meng Chang, who will witness this operation from start to finish, will think.”

“Anyway, regardless of what he thinks, as long as he continues to stay as the head of my marketing department, that’s fine.”

Thinking of Meng Chang, Pei Qian suddenly had a flash of inspiration and came up with a new idea.

“And… maybe I can take advantage of the bad impression Meng Chang previously left on everyone?”

“Although many people within Tenda already know that Meng Chang is working for Tenda and has ‘reformed,’ and some similar claims have leaked online before, most people’s impression of Meng Chang still remains at the initial ‘cold-faced girl’ period.”

“Everyone still thinks he’s someone who would stoop to any level for attention.”

“So, if everyone knows that this marketing plan was actually done by Meng Chang, that Zhixing Studio has formed a partnership with Meng Chang, they would naturally view the entire marketing plan, and even the product itself, with colored glasses!”

When two entities collaborate, inevitably the more famous one influences the less famous one.

If Tenda Group collaborated with Meng Chang, people would wonder if Meng Chang had reformed.

But Zhixing Studio was a newly established company without much reputation. If they collaborated with Meng Chang, people would only think this company was stooping to his level and colluding with him.

Taking advantage of people’s stereotypical impression of Meng Chang would indeed increase the success rate of this plan.

As for whether Meng Chang would be willing…

What did he have to be unwilling about? This was originally his style of operation. Besides, he had no choice but to agree.

Pei Qian checked his plan from beginning to end once more.

Although it wasn’t perfect, it was the best plan available at the moment. If this plan failed again…

Then let it fail—Pei Qian was out of ideas.

The worst outcome would be Meng Chang insisting on leaving. He would think of other ways then. After all, his debt was still in hand; there would always be ways to manage him clearly.

Now that the task was set, it was time to quickly implement the first step: distance themselves from Zhixing Studio.

Issuing a statement from Tenda Group would be the most direct and effective method.

But the timing of this statement must be carefully considered.

If there was no pretext and they suddenly issued such a statement, it would raise suspicion among players.

Nobody was paying attention to Zhixing Studio, so why issue a statement about your relationship with it? Oh, while we’re at it, let’s learn about Zhixing Studio!

That would be a disaster.

Therefore, this operation definitely needed coordination—it had to be a two-person act.

Creating a miniature version of the “raise then disappoint” routine to test the effect.

Hire internet commenters to hype it up: “Tenda’s new game ‘Animal Island’ is about to be released.” This kind of positive promotion would be reimbursed by the system, so they could do it freely.

Of course, they shouldn’t overdo it—keep it moderate.

After simply hyping for two days and getting a little attention, immediately arrange for an official Tenda statement: Tenda has not developed the game “Animal Island,” and Tenda Group and Zhixing Studio have an investment relationship.

Although this was all factual, it would give players the illusion that Zhixing Studio was trying to ride on Tenda Group’s popularity, while Tenda Group quickly issued a statement to distance itself.

This way, they could both lower expectations and impact Zhixing Studio’s first impression in everyone’s minds!

Yes, this seemed promising!

First, find a way to distance themselves. At the same time, starting next Monday, arrange for Meng Chang to shoot the promotional video for the VR headset—making it as abstract as possible, definitely deceiving players into a state of confusion.

Before the promotional video was released, have Meng Chang post on his Weibo, saying he was collaborating with Zhixing Studio to shoot the promotional video.

After the promotional video was released, due to their stereotypical impression of Meng Chang, people would naturally think this was another project that was all talk and no action.

Perfect!

The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more suitable it seemed. It was Friday now; he needed to quickly arrange the preliminary preparations. Next month would bring the real challenge!