18: Chapter 18 The Advertiser Who Discovered Something Was Wrong

Three days later.

Weikan's official Weibo account posted a pinned announcement.

"Seventy-two hours after Weikan's launch, download numbers have exceeded 30 million, and daily active users have surpassed 10 million! Thank you to every user for your trust and companionship."

"In the era of Short Video, Weikan walks with you."

The top of the comment section was filled with nothing but well-wishes. Tencent's own accounts and partner marketing accounts lined up to flood the section with phrases like "Congratulations to Weikan" and "The future of Short Video."

But at the bottom of this Weibo post, there were occasionally a few comments mixed in that had been pushed to the back.

"Downloaded it, scrolled for ten minutes, and deleted it. Everything it pushed was videos I wasn't interested in."

"Aren't there too many ads on Weikan? A pop-up ad every three swipes—the experience is terrible."

"Why is everything I scroll through content from marketing accounts? Can you let me see videos from normal people?"

"Trash app, uninstalled."

No one replied to these comments, and no one noticed them.

Under the halo of Weikan's 30 million downloads and 10 million daily active users, a few disgruntled voices were insignificant, like throwing a few pebbles into the ocean—you couldn't even see the ripples.

Meanwhile, facing Weikan's bombardment, Douyin did not post a single official Weibo update, did not trend on any hot searches, and was so quiet it seemed as if it had given up all resistance.

However.

Under Weikan's massive offensive.

Douyin's daily active users didn't drop; instead, riding the favorable wind of Weikan hyping up the "Short Video" concept, it silently grew from 600,000 to nearly a million.

Every user attracted to download Weikan by its pop-ups and ads, after scrolling for a few minutes and finding it boring, would see another app listed right next to Weikan in the app store—Douyin.

Some people clicked in out of curiosity and never came back.

However.

Although Douyin didn't respond, Tencent's smear campaign didn't stop.

That afternoon.

A new entry climbed onto the Weibo hot search list.

"Douyin gives up on itself; no response to Weikan's launch?"

Clicking on it led to a long article posted by a tech blogger with over a million followers.

The article's tone seemed objective and neutral, even specifically emphasizing at the beginning, "I have always been bullish on Douyin."

But every paragraph pushed in the same direction.

He said that in the face of the massive waves caused by Weikan's launch, the only competitor in the same track didn't even have a single response or any activities; this could only mean they had already admitted defeat.

He said that as a startup, Douyin was worthy of respect, but in front of a giant like Tencent, sentimentality couldn't put food on the table.

This person mentioned that without traffic entry points or capital support, Douyin couldn't even manage the most basic promotional counterattack when facing a challenge.

At this rate, Douyin exiting the market was just a matter of time.

This blogger usually had quite a few followers.

So for a time, the comment section was also led by the narrative.

"It's a pity, it was clearly Douyin that did it first."

"Tencent has money, so they can do whatever they want."

"Nothing to be done, who told Douyin not to step up?"

"This blogger is telling the truth; after Weikan launched, everyone around me was discussing Weikan, nobody remembers Douyin anymore."

"I went to search for it, the founder of Douyin is just an ordinary college student who failed at making several apps before. What does he have to fight Tencent with?"

Occasionally, a few rational voices appeared at the back.

"I'm actually still scrolling Douyin; Weikan's content is too messy, I can't scroll to what I want to see."

"Douyin's recommendations are genuinely accurate; Weikan is far behind."

"Wait until you've used Douyin and you'll know, it's simply not the same thing."

But these voices were quickly drowned out by the one-sided public opinion.

Almost everyone felt that Weikan's explosive popularity was a done deal, and Douyin's exit was only a matter of time.

After all.

Currently, Weikan's heat and daily active users were truly too exaggerated.

In three days, it had already achieved ten times the daily active users that Douyin had managed in over two months!

However.

These were just calm waters on the surface.

The first to notice something was wrong wasn't the bloggers talking big on Weibo, nor the executives at Tencent headquarters staring at data dashboards.

It was the merchants who had invested money on Weikan.

...

Lucheng District, Wenzhou.

Fatty Guo was sitting in his office on the second floor of his shoe factory; the ergonomic chair he had spent over ten thousand yuan on was creaking under his weight.

He held his phone in his hand, his face pale with anger.

The ashtray on the desk was stuffed full of cigarette butts he had smoked since morning.

"What did you say? It's been three days, and our sales volume has only increased by fifty percent?"

Fatty Guo's voice echoed buzzy in the office.

"When Old Chen invested in ads on Douyin, his sales volume increased seven or eight-fold in a week, and he cleared out more than half his inventory! We only grew fifty percent? That's not even a fraction of Old Chen's!"

On the other end of the line was the manager in charge of e-commerce channels at Guangyuan Trading, his voice sounding as aggrieved as if someone had slapped him across the mouth.

"Manager Guo."

"We also didn't expect the results to be so unsatisfactory."

"We compared data from the same period; previously, just casually investing in a Taobao Express Train would at least pull in a twenty or thirty percent increase. This time, we spent so much money, and to only have this much growth in three days is indeed not normal."

"The people at Weikan said it might be because it just launched and users are still in an adaptation period; the ad results need some time to manifest..."

"Bullshit!"

Fatty Guo slammed his hand on the desk, making the calculator on the table jump.

"I spent a million in advertising fees, added two production lines, and stacked half a warehouse with raw materials, and this is what you show me?"

He hung up the phone and paced back and forth in the office three times.

Outside the window was the new production line he had added last week; the machines ran non-stop twenty-four hours a day, workers were on three shifts, and the new shoes produced were being stacked in the warehouse one pair after another.

But now, he had no idea if these shoes could be turned into money.

He pulled out the number for his contact in Weikan's business cooperation department and dialed it.

The phone rang nearly ten times before it was answered; it was a young male voice on the other end, his tone actually quite polite.

"Hello, Manager Guo, how can I help you?"

Fatty Guo took a deep breath and suppressed his anger. Although he was arrogant toward his own employees, when facing Tencent's personnel, he quickly switched to a subservient tone.

"It's like this."

"We've been running ads for three days, but the sales increase is far below expectations."

"I invested a million, and it only went up fifty percent in three days. A peer who also makes shoes invested a little over a hundred thousand on Douyin and saw a seven or eight-fold increase in a week."

"Isn't this gap a bit too big? I want to ask, does your platform have any optimization plans for the future?"

"You don't need to worry at all, Manager Guo."

The other person's voice was very relaxed, so relaxed that it seemed he didn't detect the anxiety in Fatty Guo's voice.

"You know Weikan's user volume; downloads have already exceeded 30 million, with daily active users over 10 million, covering over ten times the users of Douyin."

"The user base reached by the ads is large, so the absolute number of orders converted definitely won't be small."

"The platform is still making optimization adjustments in these first few days after launch; the ad results will gradually improve, just wait a little longer."

"But..."

Fatty Guo was still a bit worried.

"Manager Guo, it was written very clearly in the contract when you signed: once advertising funds are paid, they are non-refundable."

"What we can do on our end is to help you extend the advertising cycle or increase the exposure."

"We will contact you proactively if there are any subsequent changes; please wait patiently."

"Weikan's user volume is still growing rapidly; think about it, when the user volume doubles again, won't your ad results double as well?"

The call ended.

Fatty Guo stood there holding his phone, the veins on the back of his hand bulging one by one.

Outside the window, a truck was still unloading raw materials; that was what he had ordered before adding the production line last week.

Now these goods were all piled up in the warehouse, stacked together with the unsold inventory from before.

He suddenly remembered the way Old Chen had looked that day, squatting on a plastic crate at the factory entrance smoking a cigarette.

Old Chen said one had to have a conscience; Douyin had helped his factory come back to life, and now that Douyin was in trouble, he couldn't run.

At the time, he had laughed at Old Chen for being a blockhead, laughing that he really treated doing business like making friends.

But now, he couldn't laugh.

However, for him, he had no other choice now but to wait for Weikan's subsequent optimizations to see if they could raise the conversion rate. Otherwise, his factory would likely be finished.

...

The same situation kept playing out among almost all the merchants who had invested in Weikan ads.

A manufacturer of small appliances invested over a hundred thousand in advertising fees; after three days, inquiries had only increased by a few dozen, which was not even as good as the natural traffic of his usual Taobao store, and sales conversion was almost zero.

A snack brand invested eighty thousand; the backend order data barely moved. The person in charge called to ask about the situation and received the exact same reply that Fatty Guo had heard—the user base is large, wait patiently, no refunds.

Another manufacturer of household goods had it even worse.

They invested two hundred thousand; the first day brought over a dozen inquiries, the second day there were only five left, and by the third day, there were none at all, as if the ads had been turned off by someone.

He opened Weikan himself and scrolled dozens of times but couldn't find his own ad. He called to ask and only then learned that the ads had indeed been deployed; the other side claimed the low conversion rate was a problem with his product.

Some of these manufacturers began to contact each other privately.

Someone discovered.

Some peers had already quietly turned back, contacted the business manager at Inspur Technology, and asked if there were any advertising slots left on Douyin.

However, most of the manufacturers still chose to trust Tencent and planned to wait and see.