244: Chapter 244 Film and Television Product Placement

As for the marketing plan, Chen Fan had also been thinking about it during this period.

In his past life, the marketing of new clothing brands could almost never bypass Douyin.

With a combination of livestream sales, influencer recommendations, and short video advertisements, a new brand could achieve tens of millions in sales within just a few months. The speed was ridiculously fast.

He remembered a brand called "Xiahu Shijia" that relied on the boss and his son shooting short videos every day.

One day saying they "invested tens of millions in R&D", the next day saying they "invested hundreds of millions to build factories". Their tone was exaggerated, their expressions intense, and they repeated the same few lines over and over.

Logically speaking, this kind of advertisement looked pretty cringey, but they spammed it every day. Eventually, even someone like Chen Fan, who paid absolutely no attention to clothing, remembered the name.

Unfortunately, it was currently 2011. Douyin hadn't been born yet, and livestream sales were non-existent.

It was unrealistic to try to promote through Douyin.

But fortunately, Weibo already existed.

Although they couldn't directly attach links to sell goods like on Douyin, they could still find some beauty influencers and fashion bloggers on Weibo to post a few ads and trend a topic.

Moreover, Weibo advertising prices weren't expensive right now, making these influencers the most suitable option.

Besides that, there were the common promotional methods of this era—television commercials and product placement in film and television.

As for television commercials, it wasn't that Chen Fan had thought about them.

CCTV's prime-time advertising resources were still extremely expensive in 2011, easily costing tens of millions, and the results were no longer as good as before. Many clothing enterprises were reducing their TV advertising budgets, turning instead to more precise promotion methods.

With Fanti's current scale, spending tens of millions on TV commercials was not cost-effective.

But product placement in film and television was different.

Product placement—Chen Fan's eyes lit up. This was an excellent promotional channel.

An outfit worn by a star, appearing on the big screen, and seen by tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people—this kind of exposure was unmatched by any hard advertising.

Moreover, product placement wasn't as off-putting as hard advertising. It was part of the story, part of the character's image, and the audience would unconsciously absorb the brand message.

In 2011, Meters/bonwe achieved a shipment volume of over a million units for its related product line through placement in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Its return on investment was staggering. This was the power of product placement.

As a reincarnated person, Chen Fan had an advantage that others didn't: he knew which movies would become hits and which were suitable for product placement.

Thinking of this, his eyes grew brighter and brighter. He picked up his phone, eager to call Li Nan and have her find out if there were any suitable movies or TV dramas for product placement.

Suddenly, Chen Fan's hand froze. He realized a problem.

Although he knew which movies would become hits, the problem was that he didn't know when they would be released.

For instance, he had no idea which movies were releasing today.

So the immediate issue was that Chen Fan had to first find out which movies were releasing in the second half of the year, and then find the one among them that would become a hit and be suitable for product placement.

With this in mind, he opened his computer and began searching for movies scheduled to be released in the second half of the year.

Half an hour later, Chen Fan sighed in discouragement.

He had indeed found a list of upcoming releases, but those that would become hits weren't suitable for product placement, and those suitable wouldn't become hits. Period dramas couldn't feature modern clothing, war films had no scenes for women's wear, and art films had too small an audience to make placement worthwhile.

After looking through everything, he surprisingly couldn't find a single suitable option.

Just then, he accidentally caught sight of a trending topic on Weibo about breakups.

The topic was flooded with breakup stories shared by netizens. Some wrote long essays reminiscing about their exes, some posted chat logs seeking comfort, and someone even posted a video—a girl talking to the camera about her experience being cheated on, crying so hard halfway through that she couldn't speak.

Looking at the content, Chen Fan scoffed slightly.

He had never been in a relationship in his past life, nor had he seriously dated in this life, so he really didn't know what heartbreak felt like.

Seeing these people wailing and crying, he felt no waves in his heart, even thinking they were making a mountain out of a molehill.

It's just a breakup, is it really that big of a deal?

Just as he was about to close the page, a name suddenly popped into his mind.

love is not blind.

He vaguely remembered some of the achievements this movie made after its release in his past life.

The total box office seemed to be over three hundred million yuan, while the investment was very small. It was the biggest dark horse among domestic films that year.

Not only did the male lead, Wen Zhang, rise to a higher level of fame, but it also catapulted the female lead, Bai He, to stardom, leading to endless acting offers.

Chen Fan froze for a moment, his finger hovering over the mouse.

He remembered that this movie seemed to have been released around these years.

But as for the exact year of its release, he only had a vague impression—probably 2011 or 2012, he couldn't remember clearly.

He began to search for love is not blind.

To his pleasant surprise, he indeed found no news of its release. At least from the search results, the movie had not yet premiered.

But strangely, he couldn't find any information about the movie either.

Refusing to give up, he continued to search for related news on Baidu and Weibo.

He typed "love is not blind movie 2011" into the Baidu search box and pressed enter.

The results page popped up, and most of it was irrelevant content—blog posts, novel serializations, and a few forum threads discussing 'what to do after a breakup'. Actual information related to the movie was extremely scarce.

He took a deep breath and typed another line: "love is not blind filming starts".

This time, a useful piece of information finally popped up in the search results.

The movie love is not blind, adapted from Bao Yuyu's web novel of the same name, was about to start filming, directed by Director Teng Huatao, starring Wen Zhang and Bai He.

Upon seeing this news, a flash of pleasant surprise crossed Chen Fan's eyes.

He finally found it. It turned out filming really hadn't started yet.

Did this mean there was definitely a chance for the product placement he envisioned?

Thinking of this, Chen Fan eagerly picked up his car keys from the desk and walked out of the office.

Over twenty minutes later, Chen Fan arrived at Fanti. He pushed the door open and walked through the office area, his pace much faster than usual. A few employees at their workstations looked up at him, then lowered their heads to continue with their work.

He immediately called Li Nan into the meeting room.

As soon as Li Nan sat down, Chen Fan asked directly, "How is the contact with Factory Director Su going?"

"I just contacted her today, but nothing is finalized yet. I plan to take the merchandiser with me to visit Factory Director Su's factory in the next couple of days," Li Nan continued. "We need to personally check the state of the production lines and the skill level of the workers. Just listening to her verbal assurances doesn't give me peace of mind."

"Alright, you indeed need to go take a look. Let me know if there are any issues at any time." Chen Fan expressed satisfaction with Li Nan's efficiency.

Furthermore, although he had been to Su Jingqiu's factory, he really didn't understand the equipment and the workers' skill level. It was still better for a professional to go inspect it.

"Understood, President Chen," Li Nan nodded.

"However, there's one more thing I need you to do."

"Please go ahead, President Chen." Li Nan's pen paused as she looked up at Chen Fan.