Chapter 1443 Roll Up

It has indeed started to roll up!

Some people say, "Without the pressure of external competition, consumers cannot become God!"

This is true. Many things in business are actually like this.

However, it should be stated that at the beginning of 1988, the first industry to roll up in Beijing was not the high-end clothing industry, but the modern fast food industry that had just developed not long ago.

The past 1987 can definitely be called a landmark year for the enlightenment of Beijing's modern fast food industry.

Because in addition to the first American fast food restaurant Kentucky selling fried chicken appeared on Qianmen Street in November of this year.

A month later, a beef noodle chain store appeared on Dongsi West Street in Beijing, with the signboard of "American California Beef Noodle King".

These two fast food restaurants are completely different in business content. Although one focuses on pure Western fried chicken fast food and the other focuses on Chinese eating methods.

But the common point is that they both use the word "American" to attract customers.

Moreover, the bright-colored signs, simple decoration style, and the dining mode of queuing up to order food before returning to the seat to eat distinguish themselves from traditional Chinese snack bars and even Hong Kong-style fast food restaurants such as Yili Fast Food.

So for most people who have never been to the United States and even feel that they will never have the opportunity to set foot on American soil, their fantasy of the American dream is all invested in this fried chicken and this bowl of noodles.

To put it bluntly, for the Chinese people who are flocking to American fast food, what they buy is not just an ordinary fast food, but their curiosity and fantasy about the United States.

So these foods that originally have ordinary tastes and materials can naturally produce a sacred aura because of the beautiful emotions of customers, so they can be sold at high prices and easily earn their hard-earned money.

Especially the one selling beef noodles, it is simply a fake brand that is purely a gimmick. There is no such business in the United States at all.

After all, Kentucky is a big company from the United States. Although it is black-hearted, it is a real imported product after all. Food ingredients and some equipment and supplies are indeed imported from abroad.

But what is that beef noodle?

Except for a gimmick, nothing can be linked to the United States.

Whether it is the taste or the cooking level, let alone our authentic Lanzhou beef noodles, it can't be compared with the same fake, "Lanzhou ramen" created by our local people.

But the price is close to Kentucky's single meal of 7.3 yuan, and it dares to sell it for 6 yuan a bowl.

Just say how sharp the knife is!

Is this bold?

If you talk about this matter, it is just like the "authentic old Beijing sandwich" that appeared in Donghuamen Night Market for 30 yuan a portion several years later.

It's a pity that there are too many people who don't know the truth, and many people have no ability to distinguish, and really think that people in California, USA, love to eat beef noodles.

I would rather spend the money of one and a half pounds of braised beef to eat a bowl of two taels of noodles with only a small piece of coriander, four or five pieces of beef, and soaked in soy sauce soup, just to experience the difference between the beef noodles that Americans love to eat and our local ones.

This made unscrupulous merchants rich. With 80 seats, they had to serve more than 3,000 customers a day, and at the busiest time, they turned over tables more than 30 times a day.

As a result, nine out of ten people had their American dreams shattered. When they found that their hard-earned money had been swindled away, they could only think behind their backs that "Californians don't understand the world at all" and comfort themselves with "it's just a one-time loss."

Nothing else could be done.

However, the good days of these two American fast food restaurants, which made a lot of money by relying on the curiosity of Beijingers, were almost over in just a few days.

Because with the arrival of the new year, a Western fast food restaurant called "Gingerbread Man" opened in Beijing.

This brand focuses on affordable prices, and the low prices are ridiculous.

Moreover, it was "born" as a chain model, and even opened five stores in major downtown areas of Beijing.

This incident was just like the explosion of the magic stone on the top of Huaguo Mountain, and a monkey destined to make a big fuss in the Heavenly Palace jumped out.

The fried chicken king and beef noodle king who were enjoying the huge profits were simply stunned and could not live.

Needless to say, the manipulator behind this kind of weird thing that should not have happened and could not have happened was the invisible Beijing's richest man Ning Weimin.

And this "Gingerbread Man" fast food restaurant that suddenly appeared and disrupted the fast food pattern in Beijing was a business that he and his "American cousin" Shen Cun had planned for almost a year.

It was just that there were always various accidents before, and good things were always delayed again and again.

And this time, it finally came to fruition and opened for business.

As for why Ning Weimin gave the fast food restaurant such a name?

It is mainly because in Western culture, the various beautiful symbols and meanings represented by gingerbread men are particularly in line with the special complex of Chinese people for Western culture.

Gingerbread man is not just a Christmas food, it is also a symbol of Western culture that is widely spread and has no national boundaries.

There are many interesting legends around gingerbread man.

For example, the tradition of making gingerbread men at Christmas is said to have originated from Queen Elizabeth I of England who had a sudden idea and ordered pastry chefs to make gingerbread men in the shape of guests.

But out of romantic sentiment, many people believe that the popularity of gingerbread men comes from a pair of lovers who were separated by war. When they were old, they worried that the other party would not be able to find them, so they sold gingerbread men in their own village.

In addition, Christmas gingerbread men have their own traditional stories.

"The Gingerbread man" comes from Grimm's fairy tales. It is known to everyone in the entire Western world, regardless of gender or age.

This story tells that a freshly baked gingerbread man escaped from the oven to avoid being eaten. He ran all the way and avoided the old grandfather and grandmother, pigs, cows, and horses. Finally, when crossing the river, he was deceived by a cunning fox and was eaten.

And in this story, the gingerbread man kept singing a sentence during his escape.

"Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."

So "gingerbread man" has a special meaning and has always been used to describe the kind of simple and courageous people.

Just like the lyrics of another song "bigger than Gingerbread man's vitality" want to express, basically, it is equivalent to what we say in the Internet age, "more vitality than the indestructible cockroach".

So it can be seen that the cultural content that can be developed through gingerbread man is extremely rich.

There is no doubt that such a small thing has unlimited cultural ductility and a fairly broad cultural inclusiveness.

Whether it is Valentine's Day, Easter, Children's Day, Halloween, Christmas, or New Year, or even traditional Chinese festivals, it will be very convenient to plan theme activities in the future.

And because gingerbread man is a common cultural common sense in most Western countries, it is not limited to one country or one region,

so Ning Weimin can also select well-known delicacies suitable for pre-prepared dishes from the entire Western world diet to develop new products for the restaurant, without any violation.

In addition, the cute image of gingerbread man is already quite mature, and it is friendly and likable. It has long been a household name in the West and the most favorite fairy tale image of children.

Then as a brand symbol, people from all over the world, whether adults or children, will definitely like it.

This inevitable effect does not need to be proven.

Even the peripheral products are easy to design. If there is a chance to cooperate with the film and television industry and the animation industry, it is entirely possible to create a well-known IP.

So after listening to Ning Weimin's full explanation, Shen Cun agreed and nodded in approval for this name that is full of infinite commercial possibilities and strong potential.

Even Kang Shude and Jiang Nianyun also praised it and thought it was appropriate.

After all, each era has its own characteristics. They never thought that a fast food restaurant would have such a way of playing.

Even they have to admit that the names like Ji Shilin, French Bakery, and British Restaurant in the past are obviously a bit out of date now.

Saturday, January 30, 1988, was a good day for the grand opening of five "Gingerbread Men" in Beijing.

Unlike Kentucky, which opened a single store, Ning Weimin did not hold any celebrations such as leaders' speeches, lion dances, or even a huge inflatable balloon in front of these five stores.

In his opinion, these are all formalisms and have little effect on attracting customers.

He thought clearly that his store was located in the most prosperous traditional commercial areas of Beijing, such as Di'anmen, Xidan, Dongdan, Wangfujing, and Qianmen. There was no shortage of customers. As long as the signboard was eye-catching and the decoration style was special, people would definitely be attracted.

So on the opening day, he only asked the store managers of the five stores to set off a big firecracker each before opening the door according to the Chinese tradition.

To put it bluntly, it was just to increase the joy and bring good luck. He didn't want to spend any more money in this regard.

However, this does not mean that he would not pay attention to publicity and create momentum for the opening of the new store.

Who is Ning Weimin?

Don't forget that he has too many hidden attributes.

In addition to being the richest man in Beijing and a shareholder of LVMH and Pierre Cardon, he is also the number one boss in the domestic entertainment industry, the number one star agent in China, and has a wife who owns the sixth largest film company in Japan.

Since he has a natural advantage in star resources and media resources, he will of course promote the new store in the way he is best at.

In fact, the method he adopted is particularly direct.

Based on his past life experience, he discussed with Shen Cun and formulated an opening activity called "Red Five Stars".

Then he advertised through several local newspapers with the largest circulation in Beijing.

In the form of a full-page advertisement for a week, he informed everyone that their gingerbread fast food restaurant was about to open grandly, and introduced their activities in detail.

Specifically, Ning Weimin arranged for Matsumoto Keiko, Teresa Teng, Zhang Qiang, Fei Xiang, and Cui Jian, five big stars who are currently staying in Beijing, to come out.

At noon on the opening day, they will be arranged to go to one of the five "gingerbread" fast food restaurants to meet with fans.

As for which store each star goes to, it is randomly arranged, and it will bring surprises to customers like a lottery.

In addition to signing for fifty customers at random on the spot, they will also dine with everyone in the restaurant and taste the special foods of gingerbread.

More importantly, each star will recommend a favorite dish from the menu to the customers of the restaurant they visited.

After that, within a week, the recommended dish will be offered as a buy-one-get-one-free discount to customers who patronize this fast food restaurant.

In other words, five different restaurants, five different stars, will have five different discounted foods.

It's easy to get the wool, you just need to visit them one by one.

As long as the new store is open for a week, you can enjoy the different buy-one-get-one-free special offers of each gingerbread fast food restaurant.

In addition, within a week of the new store opening, no matter which "gingerbread" fast food restaurant customers patronize, as long as they consume on site, they can get a gingerbread keychain as a gift for every ten yuan.

Of course, the quantity is limited and it will be given away while supplies last, which is also an inevitable additional regulation.

At the same time, because these five stars are also responsible for the pre-promotion of "Crazy Rich Asians" next year, especially Teresa Teng and Fei Xiang will be on this year's Spring Festival Gala, they will inevitably be interviewed by many media reporters.

Whether it is radio stations, TV stations, or various newspapers, and well-known domestic magazines such as "Popular Movies", "Film Pictorial", and "Zhiyin", there are many opportunities to be interviewed.

Therefore, Ning Weimin does not have to worry about the publicity channels of TV and radio stations at all, and he does not have to pay a single word for the GG fee.

When these stars were interviewed, they consciously released the news of the opening of the Gingerbread Fast Food Restaurant.

Even a few stars helped voluntarily, and no one asked Ning Weimin about any commercial performance fees or endorsement fees.

Still Ning Weimin felt embarrassed and insisted on giving everyone an LV handbag.

Not counting the reward, but only the friendship, this matter was covered up.

As for his wife, there was really no reward at all, she was purely fulfilling the obligations of the boss's wife.

In short, the Gingerbread Man fast food restaurant made a lot of money in terms of GG publicity expenses.

Who in the world can be like Ning Weimin, who got five major domestic and foreign stars to endorse his fast food restaurant for free?

Anyone who sees this will exclaim that it is too exaggerated.

Especially the money he spent, in fact, is not much more than Kentucky.

It was just a total of about 120,000 GG fees given to several newspapers.

But the influence and coverage are completely different.

In fact, as soon as the news about the upcoming opening of the five Gingerbread Man fast food restaurants was released, it was like a royal salute that almost exploded the sky of the entire capital and attracted the attention of the whole city.

As a result, on the opening day, it was really lively, and a long queue began before the door opened.

The five stores were almost the same, and the queue stretched out for two miles.

Not to mention that Ning Weimin had to ask the police to help maintain order.

Places like Di'anmen, Xidan, and Dongdan are prone to traffic congestion, and even the traffic police came.

Near noon, five stores welcomed a big star each, which caused "three layers inside and three layers outside", and there was jubilation inside and outside the store.

Especially the three stores where Matsumoto Keiko, Teresa Teng, and Fei Xiang appeared, the fans were extremely enthusiastic.

If it weren't for the police helping to maintain order, the scene could have broken the doors and windows, and there would have been serious trampling.

However, there was no danger, and the result was still good.

Through interaction with the big stars, the customers who came to the scene that day were very satisfied.

The business data at the end of the day was also very gratifying.

The total turnover of the five stores exceeded 116,000 yuan, and almost all the prepared dishes were sold out.

That is to say, the average sales of each store were more than 23,000 yuan.

This is the data created on the basis of underestimating the enthusiasm of customers and having to close one and a half hours earlier.

Otherwise, I am afraid that the sales would have to increase by 10,000.

In addition, Zunlong was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in The Last Emperor, and flew to the United States to attend the Golden Globe Awards ceremony on January 23.

He couldn't stay to participate in this event.

Otherwise, if he, a handsome guy who has already become famous in the international film industry, came to support the event, it would definitely cause a bigger sensation, and it would be even more popular in this situation.

Of course, some people may still remember that on the opening day of Beijing Kentucky, the sales data of a single store was as high as 40,000 yuan.

It seems that Kentucky's business data is much higher than that of Gingerbread Man Fast Food.

But objectively speaking, it can't be compared.

Because Kentucky's store area is large and the price of a single product is high.

Moreover, each of the five stores of Gingerbread Man has a buy one get one free special menu.

So if we look at the number of goods sold, Gingerbread Man is definitely better.

Especially the fact that the opening of five branches together can create such a data, attracting people from almost all over the city to support it, which is even more incredible. A miracle of business.