9: Chapter 9 The Power of Targeted Advertising

9:00 PM.

In a rental unit in Longgang District, Shenzhen.

Liu Wei lay sprawled on a second-hand sofa beside his bed, his fingers scrolling across his phone screen.

He worked as a quality inspector at an electronics factory, earning just over four thousand a month. After deducting eight hundred for rent, one thousand for food, and three hundred for phone installments, he didn't have much left each month.

The shoes he usually wore had come unglued, and he wanted to buy a new pair but couldn't find anything satisfactory.

He had been browsing Taobao for three days and had bookmarked seven or eight pairs of shoes, ranging in price from ninety-nine to one hundred and eighty. For every single pair, he had repeatedly compared the reviews, materials, buyer photos, and whether shipping was free.

In the reviews for the ninety-nine yuan pair, someone said the soles were too hard; the color of the one hundred and twenty yuan pair wasn't quite right; he liked the one hundred and fifty yuan pair but couldn't bring himself to place the order.

"I'll keep looking," he thought.

He exited Taobao and opened Douyin.

After Su Xiaomo's transformation video hit the trending list, Liu Wei had downloaded the app. He then discovered that whenever he opened Douyin, an hour would vanish just like that as he scrolled.

He swiped his finger up.

A funny video.

He swiped again.

It was a video of someone promoting Jiangnan Leather Factory shoes by the roadside; someone thought the salesperson's singing and dancing were entertaining, so they filmed it and posted it online.

Liu Wei was actually interested in these shoes and watched for a bit longer. Lately, many of the Douyin videos he scrolled through were related to shoes, likely because he had searched for how to buy cheap, good-quality shoes at the beginning.

After watching for a few moments, Liu Wei swiped again.

This time, an advertisement appeared before him.

Liu Wei's finger had habitually started to swipe up, but he stopped.

It was simply because this happened to be an advertisement for shoes, and it contained a sentence that made him unable to resist taking a second look.

"Quality guaranteed, lasts at least three years."

He subconsciously clicked into the comments section.

"It arrived yesterday and I put it on; the quality is really high, no worse than the ones in the mall for over three hundred."

"Bought this for my dad; the old man said it's very comfortable, so he asked me to order another pair."

"Just graduated, bought these for interviews, they're much better than I imagined, highly recommended."

The most critical part was that these shoes were very cheap—just a few dozen yuan, and shipping was included.

He stared at the number for a long time, then added the shoes to his cart and clicked pay.

The same thing was happening all over the country on this night.

It was just that different people were seeing different advertisements, yet they were exactly what they needed during this period.

2:14 AM.

Old Chen was woken up by a phone call.

He reached for his phone, which was vibrating incessantly on the nightstand; the caller ID on the screen was Xiao Zhou, who managed the warehouse at the factory.

He answered, his voice hoarse and irritable.

"Hello?"

"Factory Manager Chen!"

Xiao Zhou's voice had changed from his usual reporting tone; he was trembling, as he had never encountered a situation like this in his ten-plus years of working.

"Our system seems to have a problem!"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Old Chen sat up and reached for his glasses.

"We connected a system to handle the inventory recently, right? Well, just a moment ago, this system started showing our orders jumping continuously."

"Factory Manager Chen, the system is broken! The order numbers keep jumping. I saw with my own eyes that it jumped several pages in just one hour—is there a bug?"

Old Chen's sleepiness mostly vanished, and his heart sank.

A system issue was no small matter; all orders would need to be re-verified.

"How could there be a bug in the orders? Weren't they fine during the day?"

"I don't know, but the order data is abnormal. It's been rising since eleven o'clock and simply won't stop. By now, it's already..."

Xiao Zhou's voice paused, as if checking the numbers.

"It's already over several hundred orders."

"How many?"

"Over eight hundred orders, and it's still rising."

Old Chen stepped onto the floor barefoot; the autumn tiles were cold, but a layer of sweat had broken out on his back.

Xiao Zhou was still talking on the other end, but Old Chen wasn't really listening.

He opened his phone, his hands shaking violently. It took three tries to enter his lock screen password before it unlocked, and then he opened the Douyin merchant backend system.

On the backend data dashboard, a string of numbers was jumping wildly before his eyes.

Order quantity.

Transaction amount.

Consultation volume.

He moved the phone away from his face and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the numbers had changed.

The most obvious change was in the inventory; the original inventory count had been over one hundred thousand pairs, but now, that number was constantly decreasing.

This meant... the advertisement he had placed two days ago was actually working!

"Factory Manager? Factory Manager, are you still there?"

"I'm here."

Old Chen's voice sounded very calm, but only he knew that his voice was trembling at that moment. Having risen and fallen in the business world all these years, this was the first time he had encountered such an overnight turnaround; naturally, his mouth was dry, and he couldn't stop shaking.

He felt like he was dreaming.

No, even a dream wouldn't be this outrageous.

"The system isn't broken."

"But these orders..."

"These orders are real."

Old Chen hung up the phone.

He sat alone in the pitch-black bedroom for a full minute, looking down at the numbers on his phone screen as they jumped again. These jumping numbers were more direct than any words; they didn't speak of grand truths, they only spoke of one fact: his shoes had been sold.

One week later.

On the main road of Lucheng Industrial Zone, one box truck after another was parked in front of the Guangda Footwear factory gate, hazard lights flashing.

Inside every truck, there were large quantities of cardboard boxes.

The shoes inside these boxes had been lying in the warehouse gathering dust for the past few years, but now, they were leaving this factory at a speed Old Chen had never seen before.

Just at this moment, an old Audi pulled over across the street.

The window rolled down, revealing Fatty Guo's round face.

He squinted for a long time, first seeing the three box trucks, then seeing the cargo boxes being loaded onto them, and his mouth slowly curled up, revealing an "as I expected" expression.

He pushed the door open and got out, walking slowly to the factory gate, peering inside through the iron fence.

"Old Chen!" he shouted.

"What's this for? A bargain sale? Clearing out stock? I told you long ago, what's the point of holding on? You're losing even more now, aren't you?"

Old Chen turned around, looking at Fatty Guo's smiling, round face, and smiled back.

"Boss Guo, long time no see."

Fatty Guo pointed at the trucks and shook his head.

"This must be a big loss-making clearance sale, right? Pulling them out truckload by truckload, losing money on every pair you sell—what for? How about this: I'll add twenty percent to the price I mentioned last time; why don't you consider it? After all, we're old acquaintances, and I don't want to see you lose so badly."

Before Old Chen could finish speaking, an employee rushed over from behind.

"Boss, we've shipped thirty thousand orders this week. Our second round of advertising funds has been used up. Should we continue to invest?"

Hearing the words from behind him, Old Chen ignored Boss Guo, whose face had instantly turned somewhat pale, and hurriedly said, "Of course. Continue investing, and we will cooperate with Douyin long-term in the future!"

After saying this, he turned back to look at Fatty Guo and said somewhat apologetically, "Boss Guo, you've seen it yourself; it's really busy lately, and I have things to do, so I won't keep you company."

Having said that, he turned and returned to the factory.

Fatty Guo, looking grim, had never expected that a Short Video app could actually bring Old Chen back from the dead.

He hurriedly ran back to his old Audi, took out his phone, and found the number that the Douyin customer service representative had called him from before.

Since there was such a good advertising platform, it was impossible for him not to use it.

"What? Back to the original price? Only the first batch of manufacturers can continue to enjoy the discount? It's only been a week!"

"And I have to wait in line? It's already several months out?"

"I'll invest, I'll invest!"