Chapter 42 Figures in Corporate History: Specimen of the Times

He gathered all the dramatic elements of a business legend: a young man from a border town, graduated from a prestigious university, came to a big city penniless, became the idol of youth across the country in just a few years, then quickly fell into desperation, and then unexpectedly And miraculously resurrected again, what is even more amazing is that he has achieved incredible success in more than two industries. After listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Shi Yuzhu told reporters, "I will only do online games before I retire." When he said this, Chinese entrepreneurs in all other industries probably breathed a sigh of relief .

If you want to choose a specimen character for this 30-year corporate history-only one, Shi Yuzhu may be the most typical.He gathered all the dramatic elements of a business legend: a young man from a border town, graduated from a prestigious university, came to a big city penniless, became the idol of youth across the country in just a few years, then quickly fell into desperation, and then unexpectedly And miraculously resurrected again, what is even more amazing is that he has achieved incredible success in more than two industries.This is a believer in Darwinism, he believes in the credo of "success first, survival first", and his experience seems to prove that "success is a great deodorant, it can remove all the smells of your past".This is American movie star Elizabeth Taylor's interpretation of Hollywood's survival rules.

At the end of 1997, Shi Yuzhu fled Zhuhai in a hurry with a debt of 200 million yuan.He went to climb Mount Everest, and almost lost his way and froze to death on the way. He later recalled, "This life is all for nothing, so people let go of it all at once." A person who has "died" once, so he has no taboos.After going down the mountain, Shi Yuzhu lived in Jiangyin County, Jiangsu Province, relying on 500,000 yuan borrowed from his friends to try to make a comeback.He changed the name of Brain Gold to Brain Platinum and repackaged it.This time, he did a lot of things right: the first is to fight steadily, penetrate one market and then the next; Money and energy are put on the promotion, so that the market explodes in a short period of time.He once went to the countryside to do research, chat with old farmers, and figure out their thoughts.Melatonin quickly became popular in county-level and township markets.

Arbitrarily exaggerating and exaggerating product functions to impress consumers with perceptual promotions is the secret of Shi's marketing.In addition to mad advertising, he has used the so-called "soft text" weapon to the extreme. "Soft text" is the kind of advertising text that looks like a news report, but is actually an advertisement paid for by the company. Because it appears in the form of "non-advertising", it can skillfully circumvent the restrictions of the "Advertising Law". of a freak.Shi Yuzhu personally wrote more than ten "soft articles" on melatonin. He declared that melatonin is the last secret of human "immortality". Big event".When the American spacecraft was launched, he invented that the astronauts improved their sleep because of eating melatonin.For a period of time, a full-page "letter of apology" for Melatonin appeared in many county and city newspapers in China.When a market cannot be attacked for a long time, Shi Yuzhu will plan a "free gift" event, and then apologize and say, "Because I underestimated the enthusiasm of the citizens for melatonin, and in the face of tens of thousands of citizens, we only have More than 40 (fill in the number according to different situations) order maintenance personnel were at a loss, coupled with the scorching sun, which eventually led to the scene out of control, the guardrails were overwhelmed, the security guards were scattered, more than ten people lost their shoes, and the melatonin used as a gift was destroyed. The looting, and even the tragedy of nearly 10 people being injured (skin trauma). This is what we are most distressed and unexpected.” The next step is of course urgent delivery to relieve the hunger and thirst of consumers.It is a very emotional and impulsive consumer group, and no one can resist the temptation of Shi Yuzhu's advertisements.

Due to the severe decoupling of advertisements and functions, Chinese health care products have an iron rule of two or three years, and Shi Yuzhu is the only person who "geniusly" broke this cycle.His method is to completely "detach" the function of taking melatonin, and directly define it as a "gift". There are overwhelming TV and newspaper advertisements of "If you don't give gifts during the holidays this year, you can give melatonin as a gift".This advertisement has been selected as the first among the "Top Ten Vulgar Advertisements in China" by relevant advertising evaluation agencies and media for many years. However, the sales of melatonin have been increasing year after year.Therefore, Shi Yuzhu said disdainfully, "The experts who select advertisements are aesthetically pleasing, they emphasize creativity and sense of social responsibility, but they don't care about whether they can sell goods, but manufacturers only recognize sales."

By 2001, Shi Yuzhu had made Melatonin the best-selling health care product in China in just three years. On February 3, Shi Yuzhu published an advertisement in a Shanghai newspaper, announcing the repayment to the creditors of the Giant Building.In this way, he tried to declare his new life and return to the mainstream of Chinese business. The "Debt Repayment News" caused a sensation, and he was selected by CCTV as the "CCTV China Economic Figure of the Year".However, many media still cannot forgive him for his actions in the promotion of Melatonin. Prior to this, Melatonin has been banned in various places on suspicion of rewriting product descriptions, arbitrarily exaggerating its efficacy and violating the "Advertising Law". On March 14, 2002, "Southern Weekend" published a long report "The Truth About Melatonin" on the front page, raising academic doubts about the function of melatonin in melatonin.The article cites a large number of facts to prove that many data and facts provided by Melatonin in various advertisements and soft articles are fake or one-sided. The reporter finally wrote, "The faces of Melatonin and Shi Yuzhu are in front of us, and they are becoming more and more blurred. We couldn’t find the right words to describe them.” According to the author Yang Haipeng, Shi Yuzhu flew to Guangzhou the night before this article was published, and sat in the editorial office of Southern Weekly until the early hours of the morning. send.This report severely damaged Shi Yuzhu's confidence in trying to return to the mainstream.What is very strange is that he originally thought that once this article was published, Melatonin would be the same as the three plants back then, and would disappear from now on. However, the market reaction was unexpectedly "strong", and the sales volume of Melatonin was not affected too much. Big shock.Shi Yuzhu's "Hundred Poisons Don't Invade" is amazing. In December 2003, Shi Yuzhu sold Melatonin to Duan Yongji of Beijing Stone for HK$1.17 billion.An interesting detail is that when Duan Yongji announced the acquisition news, he bluntly said that "Melatonin is nothing."He said, "Melatonin is nothing in terms of its technical content. However, he can sell such a thing so well, and it has lasted for six years, and it is still growing. Real platinum sells for platinum price, no Skill; and selling something that is not platinum for a platinum price is real skill.” Mr. Duan, who was a university professor, and Mr. Shi, who was once regarded as a “model of Chinese youth”, fought for a product that was “nothing”. When raising their glasses to celebrate, consumers all over China can only stare silently from afar and grit their teeth silently.

After cashing out the controversial melatonin, Shi Yuzhu turned to launch the golden partner of multivitamin products.In the promotion of the golden partner, Shi Yuzhu gave full play to his soft writing skills. Those texts are not only as provocative and threatening as the melatonin back then, but what is even more strange is that it never publishes the name of the production company, but Appearing in the name of "Chinese Nutrition Society", such as "Chinese Nutrition Society Statement Golden Partner: Functional and Non-Toxic", almost all readers will think that this is information released by an industry academic institution.Shi Yuzhu requires that all soft articles "try not to contain event announcements, hotlines, sales addresses, advertising viewing guides and other items. In order to prevent consumers from seeing advertisements and losing their hidden features. Event announcements can be announced in the form of hotlines, leaflets, banners, etc. Special needs to play hard banner advertisements".Shi Yuzhu himself is the creator of these soft articles. One of his subordinates once wrote an article and revealed, "Perhaps it is a common problem of geniuses. Mr. Shi does not trust the talents of employees enough. In order to write the advertising copy of his golden partner, he worked every day for two consecutive weeks. In the middle of the night—as the helm of a large company with annual sales of 1 billion yuan, President Shi’s behavior is not only admirable, but also deplorable." Not surprisingly, the golden partner really replicated the historic success again .

Shi Yuzhu knows that health care products are the most unsafe industry, so he never planned to "end his life here". In August 2002, he acquired the legal person shares of Qingdao Guohuo, becoming the largest shareholder, and changed the name of the listed company to Qingdao Jiante Biology.Jiante is the English transliteration of Giant (Giant), and is the producer of Melatonin. Shi Yuzhu has been hiding behind it before, only serving as a "strategic consultant" for this company.A few months later, he successively purchased 168 million shares of Huaxia Bank from Beijing Huazi Syndicate Company and Shougang Corporation, becoming the bank's sixth largest shareholder. In 2003, he received 143 million shares of Minsheng Bank from Beijing Wantong and became the eighth largest shareholder.In the next few years, Shi Yuzhu continued to increase his holdings of Huaxia Bank and Minsheng Bank. With the frenzy and bubble in the capital market, he made huge profits from it.At this time, Shi Yuzhu was beyond the reach of ordinary storms. In a forum, he said, "Of course the rivers and lakes are dangerous, but the danger is beyond my head."

In 2004, Shanghai Shanda Games was listed on Nasdaq, and 31-year-old Chen Tianqiao became the richest man in China.Shi Yuzhu, who was also in Shanghai, was very moved. He suddenly decided to switch to the online game industry. According to him, he was originally an IT person, and now he is "returning to the industry."In order to familiarize himself with online games, the 42-year-old Shi Yuzhu spent the whole night in the game and became a hardcore player.At that time, there were two major trends in online games. One was the point card sales model created by Chen Tianqiao, and the other was the 3D wave in the American game industry. Almost all Chinese game companies were seeking innovation and breakthroughs in these two directions.Only Shi Yuzhu saw the third way at a glance. He has always believed that "the market is greater than technology". The 2D games that have been abandoned by many companies may be a piece of land that has just become fertile, so he recruited a team that was abandoned by Chen Tianqiao. , named an unpopular 2D game with almost no technical advantages as "Zhengtu".Then, he subverted Chen Tianqiao's profit model. Unlike all online games at that time, "Journey" was a free game, and players only needed to pay for additional "equipment".This is like two amusement parks. Shanda requires tickets to enter, while Zhengtu is free to enter. You only have to pay when playing games. In April 2005, Shi Yuzhu held a press conference in Shanghai Jinmao Tower, the tallest building in China, and announced the "200 million yuan gambling online game".Just like what happened in the health care products industry, when Shi Yuzhu appeared in the online game industry, everything suddenly became turbulent. All kinds of melatonin-style "soft articles" appeared overwhelmingly in various domestic newspapers and periodicals. Shi Yuzhu was the first Put game advertisements on CCTV, and even declared that "playing games can earn wages". The number of players of "Zhengtu" has risen sharply, and the charging model of online games has been completely subverted. Chen Tianqiao was forced to declare that the game will always be free. On November 1, 2007, Giant Network, controlled by Shi Yuzhu, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.According to the prospectus, from January to June 2007, the total revenue of Giant Network was 687 million yuan, and the net profit in the same period was 512 million yuan. There is no word other than huge profits. The market value of Giant Network is as high as 5 billion US dollars, surpassing Shanda Network. Become the largest online game manufacturer in China by market value.

Shi Yuzhu's "Zhengtu" model has been greatly questioned. The typical players of "Zhengtu" are divided into two types, one is the rich, who spend tens of thousands of RMB to buy a set of virtual equipment without blinking their eyes; The idle young people in the small town, although they don't have much money, don't know how to spend a lot of time every day. When they hear that there are free games to play, and they can even get wages from the games, they flock to them.Xu Zhiyuan, a financial writer, commented that what "Zhengtu" sells is hope, the kind of "hope" for the power desire for indiscriminate killings, and the "hope" for the free will brought by money. The expansion of emotions, every player loves the pleasure of indulgence and is sure of this rule.

Shi Yuzhu is the most controversial figure in the history of this enterprise.Undoubtedly, he is one of the entrepreneurs with the best market intuition in this generation. He can quickly find the time point when the industry explodes and achieve success in the fastest and most efficient way. Therefore, he is called "Shi Daxian" , and even won the admiration of many proud peer entrepreneurs.His ups and downs and never-say-die spirit have resonated greatly among thousands of college students, and he is regarded as an entrepreneurial idol and spiritual leader.At the same time, his vulgar marketing methods and the lure of human greed have been seriously questioned.Shi Yuzhu claims to be "China's most famous loser". Therefore, in order to prove himself to the world, he even exalts this goal himself, uses all means, and ultimately despises the moral bottom line of society.This kind of commercial success is full of wild blood, cruelty and moral numbness.Shi Yuzhu's body reflects all the contradictions of this commercial age. After listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Shi Yuzhu told reporters, "I will only do online games before I retire." When he said this, Chinese entrepreneurs in all other industries probably breathed a sigh of relief .