Chapter 222 Internationalized Yuanxin
After hearing everything, Su Yuanshan fell silent for a moment.
He pursed his lips, picked up his cup, and glanced at it. Zhou Xiaohui, noticing this, quickly reached over to take it from him, preparing to refill it with coffee.
"No need. Let me try your chrysanthemum tea," Su Yuanshan said, grabbing her glass teacup, unscrewing the lid, and casually pouring some of it into his coffee cup — not at all concerned about mixing flavors.
Zhou Xiaohui gave a helpless shrug. Su Yuanshan was usually quite picky about his coffee, so the fact that he was now fine with drinking floral tea in a coffee mug showed he wasn't even thinking about taste anymore.
"I think I get what Old Wan is saying." Su Yuanshan took a sip, looked up at everyone, and said, "What he means is, in branding and marketing, without some kind of 'black tech' advantage, it's extremely difficult for our brand to break through. But I notice none of you seem too discouraged, which shows you're all fairly satisfied with how we've performed so far in branding and sales."
"Is that right?"
The people from the marketing and branding departments exchanged looks, eventually all turning toward Wan Yongliang.
Last night, Wan had called Chen Jing — after all, even though Su Yuanshan was the boss, he hadn't been involved in corporate affairs for long. So it was only natural for Wan to brief Chen Jing and seek guidance before this meeting.
During the call, Chen Jing had gone quiet for a long time, making Wan worry he might've messed things up.
But in the end, Chen Jing told him: just report everything honestly to Su Yuanshan — the workflows, progress, ideas, and challenges — and keep it focused on the work. Don't think about anything else. And especially don't just nod along like a yes-man.
So now, Wan Yongliang nodded calmly. "Yes. In fact, current sales and feedback have already reached the expectations we set initially. If we really wanted to boost volume, we could just run a campaign, knock the price down a bit in disguise, and sales would immediately jump."
"Hmm." Su Yuanshan nodded again.
He stared at his cup for a moment, then pushed it aside and opened Zhou Xiaohui's cup to take another sip.
"Is chrysanthemum tea always this bland?"
Zhou Xiaohui replied, "...Want me to add some rock sugar?"
"Forget it. I'm not used to it." Su Yuanshan smiled while holding her cup. "Here's the thing, Old Wan — you're overlooking one fact: mobile phones, for quite a long time, won't have disruptive technological breakthroughs. Improvements will be incremental at best. And even when we do make progress, competitors will quickly copy it."
"As long as there's a market, capital will always push in headfirst. For example, over the past year and a half, our VCD business created an entirely new home entertainment market and basically formed a de facto monopoly. That let us rake in money while doing almost nothing for over a year. But at the start of this year, Southeast Asian grey-market VCDs started flooding in. Even though they can't match us in tech or design, they're cheap... and once their volume picks up, decoding chips get cheaper too — and that lowers costs even more."
After giving that example, Su Yuanshan continued, "Price cuts are fine, but they have to wait until the new model is released — and the new model must maintain pricing levels. That's our bottom line."
Wan Yongliang let out a slight breath of relief.
Though he was in charge of overall marketing, his recent focus had been almost entirely on mobile. He knew very well that in two months, the new phones would be launching. And based on the designs he'd seen, they wouldn't just have better features — they'd also be sleeker and more refined.
Even if the new model didn't become a smash hit, as long as it maintained its price tier, and the older YX1201 model dropped in price, they could create a clear price gradient and gradually boost sales.
"I reviewed the reports and found that our brand messaging is still quite conservative," Su Yuanshan said.
"Identify media outlets that resonate well with phone users and organize press tours of Yuanxin's facilities."
He sipped his tea, giving everyone time to take notes, and continued slowly, "Be subtle with the tone — show off Yuanxin's overall strength from an objective angle."
He paused again.
"Visually and content-wise, highlight our design capabilities. Show how we design. Make it scream 'tech-forward.'"
Su Yuanshan squinted, his mind suddenly flashing back to all those futuristic commercials from the future — white lab coats, people holding beakers, teams of Chinese and foreign experts, full of scientific jargon no one understood... yet they were always just selling vitamins.
"Print media should highlight our international collaborations — Sony licensing, GSM alliance participation, patent counts, etc."
"TV spots should also emphasize joint efforts between Chinese and foreign teams. Teamwork, preferably."
Wan Yongliang was scribbling notes rapidly, then looked up and asked, "But we don't have many foreign experts, right?"
Su Yuanshan didn't answer directly. He simply chuckled. "Then go hire some foreigners for the photo shoots."
"Our past branding strategies had some flaws — they made our 'domestic is just as good' approach a bit too difficult to sell. That's on me."
He paused, then said, "I should've thought more deeply about the difficulty of standing out from the domestic crowd — the challenge of being 'unstained while growing in the mud.'"
"So from now on, let's shift our narrative from 'domestic brands can be good too' to 'internationalized Yuanxin.'"
Wan Yongliang's eyes lit up. His pen flew across the page.
"Over the May Day holiday, Zhongxin's new phones will hit distribution channels. That's when we'll go head-to-head with the big brands. This includes — but is not limited to — releasing reports on competitor flaws, conducting comparison reviews, and promoting hands-on experiences."
When everyone had finished taking notes, Su Yuanshan added, "But remember the line — respect your competitors and your audience. Don't resort to smearing."
Zhou Xiaohui asked softly, "What counts as smearing?"
"Things like: 'foreign phones are just scams for gullible people' — that's what we avoid. Don't stoke unnecessary tribalism between brand loyalists." Su Yuanshan paused. "Consider that a preemptive reminder. We're a company with aspirations, so we must act with integrity."
He tapped the table, waited a few beats, then looked up. "Everyone, stay steady. The first two years are tough — fighting head-on is always hard at first. But if we endure..."
"We'll have our black tech by then."
Wan Yongliang blinked. "What black tech?"
Su Yuanshan smiled. "The kind that smashes the enemy's dog head."
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