Chapter 544 - 253: The Magic Power of a Smile (Part 4)

Every year before the E3 game expo, there are always rumors that some company will create a brand new AAA game IP, and so on.

The advantage of this approach is to gain more attention with the same advertising costs.

Mystique can spread like a virus, piquing curiosity among people, even those who originally had no interest in this field.

The downside is, people’s curiosity is piqued, they’re all geared up, but you just keep being mysterious.

If the final product quality doesn’t meet expectations, it instantly triggers backlash.

A product that could barely pass in terms of quality, under such marketing tactics, if the heightened expectations of the audience aren’t fulfilled,

it absolutely can’t escape being showered with curses and negative reviews.

This advertising approach is also the result of multiple considerations by the publishing company.

The budget for this advertisement was 3.6 million US dollars.

Not comparable to the marketing budgets of major films that often exceed hundreds of millions, nor the global warm-up campaign the group did for Lady Rowling’s last two Harry Potter books, "Half-Blood Prince" and "Deathly Hallows".

The "Little Prince" IP, however classic, can only be considered as reheating an old dish.

The accountants in the finance department are not idiots.

Each book is priced at 20 Pounds, and even if the first batch of three hundred thousand books sells out this year, the projected total revenue is only 6 million Pounds.

Not accounting for inflation over the next twenty years, achieving a total sales of 30 million Pounds would already be a top 0.01% success story in the book market.

The original marketing budget for "The Little Prince" was only 400,000 US dollars, inviting Dean Hawke from the University of Oxford to hold a dozen book signings and reader meet-ups in major English-speaking countries, frugally done for about 300,000 US dollars.

The remaining 100,000 US dollars to go to a few trendy book podcasts, hire book reporters to write a couple of articles, and that’s it.

This 3.6 million US dollar advertising budget is not for the "Little Prince" project but for the entire publisher’s Easter book season advertising budget.

The board can allow "Little Prince" to ride the wave, but if the main spotlight openly promotes a certain subgroup project, the other parallel project groups would revolt.

Moreover, Osborne also has confidence in the quality of "The Little Prince," so in communication with the ad team, this promotional plan was decided.

Not revealing what the main book is.

Just letting readers guess, think, and discuss on online forums.

The people whose curiosity is piqued go through the trouble to find the answer themselves.

Finally, when the book is on sale, they can’t resist the impulse to buy a copy to take a look, right?

The 30-second ad run on YouTube should’ve met Osborne’s expectations.

It was just that, with the authentic performance of that Black girl, the effect might have been a bit too good. Even someone as gentle and calm as Koizumi Katsuko found her heart itching as if a cat was scratching it.

How should she find it?

Koizumi Katsuko couldn’t resist opening her phone, opening the Google browser, and typing in keywords like "Scholastic Group, Easter book season".

Then, a bunch of related auto-suggestions immediately popped up in the browser—

[What is the headline book for Scholastic Easter book season?]

[Can someone tell what new book the Scholastic Group is releasing on March 25th?]

[What is the fairy tale book in the Scholastic ad clip that made the little girl laugh?]

...

Many questions related to these keywords have been captured by Google’s backend due to repeated entries by different users.

The girl had just finished typing the English letters for Scholastic, and many related search terms had already appeared below.

Noticing the mysterious gimmicks in the ad, those whose curiosity was piqued certainly weren’t limited to just Koizumi Katsuko.

"No need to search, I know, it’s ’The Little Prince’."