Chapter 566 2017

Chapter 566 2017

Chapter 566 2017
"Mr. Wang, this is our Galaxy Pictures' work plan for this year."

"Mr. Wang, this is our cinema department's acquisition plan for this year."

"Director Wang, this is..."

After the beginning of the new year, although the release of "Detective Chinatown 3" during the Spring Festival was a relatively important event for the Galaxy Group and received a lot of attention from Wang Hao, the business of the entire group company also occupied a lot of energy from Chairman Wang Hao.

The work summaries of each branch in 2016 were piled on his desk, and the work plan for 2017 was determined in one meeting after another.

Not to mention that the company's six major departments (Finance Department, Legal Affairs Department, Social Relations Department, Government Relations Department, Human Resources Department and Capital Operations Department) are still operating, among the five major business groups, the work of the [Asset Management Business Group] and [Media Distribution Business Group] will be the focus of Galaxy Group this year.

The [Asset Management Business Group] of Galaxy Group is mainly responsible for various fixed assets under the name of the group company, including Galaxy Properties, [Galaxy Film City] Industrial Park, Galaxy Shopping Plaza, etc.

And this year they will also add a new cinema business.

After a period of seesaw negotiations, Galaxy Group finally acquired Orange Sky Golden Harvest's cinema business for 20.6 billion yuan plus partial equity swap, and renamed it "Galaxy Cinema Line."

As for Orange Sky Golden Harvest, with the help of Galaxy Group, it has also completed its transformation into a pure film and television investment and production company. In the future, it will continue to cooperate with Galaxy Group and use Wu Kebo's influence in the Japanese business community to develop the Japanese cultural market.

With the cinema chain on hand, Galaxy Group’s business model has made up for one of its shortcomings.

Although the "Xinghe Cinema Chain" is still very weak, with the number of theaters and screens ranking low among domestic cinema chains, its internal facilities are old, and its employees have poor professional capabilities, these are not problems for the Galaxy Group.

Fewer cinemas and screens?
Wanda will soon face a crisis, as Galaxy Group has been coveting Wanda Cinema Line for more than a day or two.

As for the old facilities, that can be solved with money.

However, although the Galaxy Group is rich, it will not spend money so lavishly.

While taking over the Orange Sky Golden Harvest Cinemas and restructuring the Star Harvest Cinemas, a major reorganization of the cinema chain and a cleanup of the management team were also carried out simultaneously.

For a company like this whose business has completely gone bad, there must be huge problems with its management team. Simply assigning them a few new leaders will not work at all.

Sometimes there are even old hands in there, and newcomers may be led astray by them, so the Galaxy Group directly checks the accounts, first fires some problematic theater managers, then allows some employees who want to leave to leave on their own, and finally draws personnel from other companies in the group to form a new theater management team.

Only after having a new management team can the problems existing in the original Orange Sky Golden Harvest Cinemas be solved.

In addition to filling in and developing the shortcomings of the cinema chain, the Douyin APP of Galaxy Group's [Media Distribution Business Group] is also a key project of the company in the next few years, and its importance is even comparable to that of the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe].

During the more than half a year since its launch, Douyin has always focused on polishing its product.

While optimizing the user experience, improving software performance, and actively integrating into the market, Douyin is also constantly improving the recommendation algorithm, exploring the characteristics and relationship between communicators and audiences, and constantly adjusting the core functions of the product.

During this process, the technology accumulated by Galaxy Group from its past cooperation with companies such as OPPO, DJI, and Sony was also applied to the optimization of TikTok.

In particular, shooting filters and picture optimization, as well as interesting post-production effects such as stickers, background replacement, cutouts, and editing, have greatly increased the playability and fun of Douyin, attracted many users, and lowered the threshold for public participation.

By this time, that is, this year, Galaxy Group's development of Douyin has shifted from product polishing to product dissemination.

In the next few years, Douyin's main focus will be on expanding its market share and competing with its peers.

Their biggest rival in this regard is Kuaishou.

According to the data reported to Wang Hao by the department below, from January 2016 to January 1, Kuaishou's market penetration rate in the short video market has always been at the forefront, and its market penetration rate is almost equivalent to the sum of the penetration rates of all other similar apps.

Moreover, Kuaishou has a solid foundation in the short video industry. Starting from its short video social networking business in 2013, Kuaishou has been in this field for four years by 2017, and now has nearly 6 million users.

From this we can see that Kuaishou is already very powerful at this time, and Douyin's size does not give it an advantage over it.

However, since Galaxy Group wanted to occupy short videos, one of the traffic entrances to the mobile Internet, when developing Douyin, it naturally conducted an in-depth and detailed analysis of Kuaishou, the biggest obstacle.

After research, they found that Kuaishou, the current leader in short videos, is not indestructible. Despite its huge size, it also has certain problems.

After all, the field of short videos in the mobile Internet is still a new thing at this time. Even China, Europe and the United States are in the stage of synchronous development. There is nothing to learn from, and everyone is crossing the river by feeling the stones.

How should the mobile short video business develop? Which direction is right? Can it follow the model of traditional video business?

These are just rough judgments for everyone, so the development directions of mobile short video businesses vary from company to company.

For example, Kuaishou has always followed a decentralized development model. It neither labels users nor deliberately favors celebrities. All video displays are completed by machine algorithms. It does not ignore any ordinary person and gives everyone equal exposure opportunities.

This is actually a continuation of their past social model. What they have created is actually a short video social platform. Even the advertisement says:

There is no high or low in life, everyone deserves to be remembered.

So what would such a freely developed community look like?

All aspects of Chinese society are condensed on Kuaishou. Rural people from third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities who never had the chance to show up in the past can be seen everywhere in these short videos.

As a result, Kuaishou was labeled as "vulgar" and "low" and became a performance venue for spirited young men and social dance.

"According to our investigation, we found that due to the characteristics of Kuaishou's algorithm, many urban and educated people, especially the emerging generation of young people who pay attention to fashion and trends, are repelled by this 'vulgar' software."

In the No. 2 conference room of Galaxy Building, Yang Zhenyuan, the technical vice president of Douyin APP, said this to Wang Hao. This talented person who graduated from the computer department of Beihang University originally worked at Baidu, and was mainly responsible for search architecture during the 2005 years from 2014 to 9.

Later, as Galaxy Group launched the Toutiao business, he was poached from the position of deputy director of Baidu's search department in 2014. Now he is mainly responsible for the recommendation algorithm business of Toutiao and Douyin.

“So we are currently adopting a small-step, fast-running update and iteration method, paying real-time attention to user feedback, focusing on the segmentation of music short videos, and using the group company’s advantage in popular music copyrights to attract young users in first- and second-tier cities who reject Kuaishou.
This group pays attention to fashion trends, is bold, loves new things, dares to try new things, and has high requirements for video quality.

In this way, we will not completely adopt a decentralized distribution mechanism like Kuaishou. On Douyin, well-shot videos will have greater exposure and obtain more traffic in the next-level traffic pool.

This will allow us to form differentiated competition with Kuaishou in certain areas.”

Wang Hao nodded with satisfaction. At this time, Tian Lili, the deputy director of the publicity department of Douyin, also said:

“Now that Douyin’s recommendation algorithm has been polished and matured, our next focus will be on the app promotion business.

In this regard, we plan to learn from our previous blogs and Weibo accounts, use the group company’s channels, go the celebrity route, and invite more celebrities and teams of movies, TV series, variety shows, and official government departments to join Douyin.”

"You should contact the group's agency department, production department and government relations department about this." Wang Hao gave instructions.

“There is also the issue of monetization.”

Tik Tok CEO Zhang Min also said:
“Kuaishou’s current algorithm does not distinguish between top users and ordinary users, which makes it extremely difficult for many of its influencers to monetize their fan traffic on Kuaishou.

In this regard, we referred to Sina's advertising distribution model, which can provide top creators with a traffic monetization platform. We believe that with the unique intelligent algorithm recommendation, the conversion rate of these advertisements must be high.

In addition, the department is currently stepping up the development of the live broadcast function, which is expected to be launched in the middle of the year..."

Wang Hao participated in the entire opening meeting of the Douyin department and also gave instructions at the end of the meeting.

“I know that everyone is facing many challenges in the field of mobile short videos, but the group and I will be your strongest backing.

I also listened to the New Year's plan just now. It is very good. Everyone’s goals are very clear and their ideas are also very clear.

However, I would like to make a few more suggestions on the development of TikTok.”

He paused to give others time to record, then continued:
“In terms of publicity, large-scale advertising and inviting celebrities to join are definitely feasible, but you should also be aware that the celebrity model is not a panacea.

At present, the software can borrow the influence of celebrities in its rapid development stage, but the platform still needs to pay attention to the cultivation of its own top creators, especially amateur creators, which will affect the future development ceiling of Douyin.

Then on the technical side, as the product becomes more polished and mature, your department’s focus for a long time to come should be on market expansion.

But we can’t relax when it comes to technology iteration, such as the popular augmented reality (AR), special effects rendering and beauty filters, animation mode, 360-degree panoramic video, and artificial intelligence editing and video generation. You can also communicate more with the group’s technical department on these technical matters to share what you have and what you don’t have…”

Wang Hao made suggestions one by one, and the people below took them seriously.

Such scenes happened almost every day inside the Galaxy Building in February.

Wang Hao has temporarily handed over the post-production of "The Three-Body Problem 1" to the company's editing and special effects departments, and is devoting more energy to the company's business planning for the beginning of the year.

In addition to Tik Tok and cinemas, the production and release of new works by Galaxy Pictures in 2017 are also top priorities.

This year is a critical year for the Galaxy Cinematic Universe. In three or four months, the second phase of the cinematic universe, Age of War, will usher in its final battle.

At the same time, the third phase of the movie universe [Dark Forest] will officially start this year.

There are currently three more movies to be released in the movie universe in 2017, in addition to "Detective Chinatown 1" which will be released during the Spring Festival in January.

They are the Sino-Korean co-production "Train to Busan" and the final battle "The Three-Body Problem 1", which belong to the second phase, followed by the starting film of the third phase, "The Accidental Detective" a Sino-Thai co-production that tells the childhood of Q, and "Kingsman: The Golden Circle", a Sino-British co-production.

In addition, there are also films invested by Galaxy Pictures but not belonging to the movie universe, namely "King Kong Skull Island" in cooperation with Legendary Pictures, "The Richest Man in Xihong City" invested by itself, and "Swords of Shushan", the first work of the company's new movie universe [Shushan Sword Universe].

In addition to the company's own TV series and variety shows, Galaxy Group continues to produce works in the film and television industry this year, and each of them is very promising.

This was demonstrated at Galaxy Group's project launch conference at the beginning of the year. Almost as soon as they announced these projects, Galaxy Pictures' stock price rose, making other film and television companies, large and small, envious.

However, for those film and television companies, although they cannot get a big piece of the pie like Galaxy Group, when there is a big brother like Galaxy Group in this market, some companies that actively approach it can still get some benefits.

For example, the popular TV series "Eternal Love" in February was jointly produced by Huace, Jiaxing and Xingyue Media.

In fact, it is not impossible for Galaxy Group to produce this work alone, but from the very beginning, Galaxy Group’s core goal has not been to make money.

They have their own pursuits and are striving for the development of China's film, television and cultural industry. Under such circumstances, monopolizing the market is definitely not a good choice. Only when a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred things flourish can the entire ecosystem become prosperous.

Therefore, after gaining a leading position in the industry, the Galaxy Group assumed the responsibility of "Big Brother" or "Leader of the Martial Arts World", and also attracted a group of small and medium-sized enterprises around it.

These small and medium-sized enterprises cover the entire upstream and downstream of the cultural industry chain, forming a positive supplement to the business ecology of Galaxy Group, while also further consolidating their position as the "leader of the martial arts world" in the industry.

Even from the increasing number of Sino-foreign co-productions of Galaxy Group, it can be seen that Galaxy Group is not only recruiting them to consolidate its domestic industry position, but also like a giant ship carrying these companies to expand the market overseas.

(End of this chapter)