bookbashuk #414 - Bad start
#414 - Bad start
Clockwork Country.
The weather in Geneva in March is still very cold.
Fu Qianjin, the secretary of the Eastern Embassy, was stamping his feet and looking forward to the arrival at the airport.
His task today was to welcome the automobile exhibition delegation from China. After the joint efforts of the four major automobile factories and supporting factories, the prototype cars of three sedans and one pickup truck were finally completed before Ren Zhong's deadline.
Regardless of whether those parts were hand-polished or produced on an assembly line, everyone fully carried forward the spirit of working to the death. They worked around the clock in three shifts and created the four models carefully selected by Ren Zhong to enter the world.
All of them made it to this world-class auto show in early March.
After waiting for more than an hour, Fu Qianjin saw a large passenger plane painted with a phoenix slowly landing in the sky! His mood suddenly became excited. This is the Y-8 passenger plane, the main force of Dongda International Airlines, a deeply modified version based on the C-54 (the previous article said that using the C-54 for transportation felt a bit inappropriate. Transport aircraft are considered military aircraft, which may not be allowed, so passenger aircraft were temporarily used after removing the seats and converting them into cargo planes).
In a few minutes, another passenger plane painted with a phoenix landed. This is a Y-7, a deeply lengthened version based on the C-47. The conventional layout is 4 * 13 rows. This trip should be the representatives attending the exhibition.
According to the plan, the four automobile factories each sent 10 people to set up the exhibition hall and welcome visitors. The rest are the leaders of the competent departments and reporters. This time they chartered a flight not only to participate in the exhibition, but also to carry out large-scale publicity.
"Welcome leaders and colleagues from the motherland. I am Fu Qianjin, the second secretary of the embassy. You can call me Xiao Fu or Secretary Fu. According to the plan, our embassy will have me follow up and serve you throughout the whole process. Please line up and follow me onto the bus." At the airport exit, Fu Qianjin held a sign that read "Welcome the Dongda Automobile Delegation" and greeted the delegation led by Geng Pusheng.
"Thank you, Secretary Fu. After everyone gets off the plane, all actions must be under command. Except for the vehicles and residences arranged by Secretary Fu, everyone should not leave their posts and the delegation without authorization. Everyone must not forget the mission and tasks on their shoulders. This time, our performance at the exhibition will be a window for the outside world to observe our Dongda. Everyone should remember that every word and deed represents the country!"
"Yes, Team Leader Geng!" The delegation answered in an orderly manner. Then, following Geng Pusheng, they took off their factory work clothes, put on suits, and their temperament changed greatly, looking like a group of business elites. Ren Zhong provided technical guidance for the delegation's trip, and participated in guiding everything from clothing to exhibition details.
Especially in terms of clothing, when everyone was arguing about suits and Chinese-style clothing, Ren Zhong made the final decision to go with suits, two sets per person. The men wore two sets of dark gray suits, and the women wore a set of navy blue suits and a suit skirt, with a long black down jacket on the outside. In short, the grade was raised to the level of the Western mainstream middle-class elite.
In addition, these people are either returned overseas students or selected from Shui Mu Jingda. At least they are proficient in one or more foreign languages. For example, Geng Pusheng is proficient in English, French, German, and Russian. The reception staff arranged at each booth are proficient in at least English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian, and some even know Arabic (SUV pickup truck booth).
Each of them is a positive activist who is over 1.7 meters tall and can speak well. From the configuration point of view, it is almost the strongest sales team selected from China, and there is no trace of local flavor.
According to Ren Zhong, this is not only to promote automobiles, but also an excellent opportunity to promote the national image of Dongda.
Automobiles are currently high-end industrial products in the world, and every move is a product image. Under the premise that the West does not know much about Dongda's large industrial products, this automobile exhibition will inevitably attract some reports from the West. These reception staff may be high-frequency objects in the Western media.
In terms of the current development of Dongda, several wars have caused great divisions in Western public opinion on Dongda. Some people have accepted the awakening of the Eastern Dragon, but some people are still stubbornly stuck in the old impression, as if Dongda is an uncultivated black African tribe.
If they are allowed to maintain this stereotype, it will inevitably have a huge impact on Ren Zhong's automobile strategy.
Therefore, Ren Zhong took a lot of time to personally design and organize this exhibition.
He blocked a large number of playboys and leaders of various colors who wanted to fish in troubled waters. Ren Zhong conducted the final interview with each member of the delegation, and used the high-tech AI voice of the main world to test their language ability and response to sharp questions from the audience.
From more than 300 people to the scale of 50 people, it can be said that they are all elites among elites!
Coupled with Geng Pusheng, an old driver who has traveled to Europe, Ren Zhong wants to ensure that everything is foolproof.
Nothing happened overnight. After dragging the four prototype cars covered with rain tarpaulins to the exhibition site, Geng Pusheng found it a bit embarrassing.
I don't know what went wrong, their booth was arranged in the innermost corner of the exhibition hall!
"No, the booth that was originally said to be given to us was in the middle, with four booths adjacent to the left and right. I'll go and communicate with the organizer." Fu Qianjin, who came with him, couldn't help but feel a little anxious. If this matter is reported back to China, who knows what kind of scolding he will receive?
"I'm sorry, Mr. Fu, because three automobile companies from Detroit came, and they signed up a little late. Seeing that there were still those 4 booths left, they occupied them first." Although the person in charge of the exhibition said sorry, he didn't seem to care at all.
"I thought that your Dongda's specialties are silk clothing and food. There is nothing to exhibit at the auto show, so it's okay to arrange a booth inside casually. There is no need to be next to North American counterparts, which seems a bit out of place."
Fu Qianjin was almost so angry that he exploded at the person in charge's words, but on other people's territory, Fu Qianjin didn't have many other options. "Mr. Schmidt, this is a serious breach of contract. I will complain to your superiors and the media."
"Then do whatever you want," Schmidt shrugged, "Who would believe that Dongda can still build cars?"
Seeing that Fu Qianjin meant to go up and beat the guy, Geng Pusheng quickly grabbed Fu Qianjin.
After all, he is a diplomat. If something really happens, it will be hard to say.
Originally a reasonable thing has been turned into an unreasonable one.
He nodded and wrote the name of the exhibition's person in charge in his little notebook, determined not to make things easy for him if he had the chance.
The decoration and layout were all done according to the style and content discussed at home.
The Golf booth focused on youth, unrestrainedness, and sports. Overall, it was a fast-moving promotional image with the headline: Golf GTi: Not a racing car, but better than a racing car!
Below the car, in a prominent font, it stated: 110 horsepower, 0-100 km/h in just 9.5 seconds, top speed 190 km/h! The first sports sedan for young people!
Just looking at it made you feel a surge of excitement!
These were all sprayed plastic cloth posters, which were directly nailed to the booth's boards before being laid on top.
In the raised part of the booth, the sample car was tightly bound and dragged in by a trailer to be hoisted above the booth.
The Jetta booth focused on family fun, with a family driving to go camping, bringing tents and other camping equipment. The image showed a lot of camping gear, implying that the Jetta's trunk was very spacious.
As for the Passat booth, it was full of luxury and elite atmosphere, with the phrase "A car for successful people" instantly highlighting the high-end nature of the new Passat in this time and space. Even the seats in the booth were genuine leather sofas air-freighted over, using the same color scheme and workmanship as the car seats.
This so-called cloud-sense sponge special sofa technology fully improved the comfort and durability of the sofa to a new level in this era. If customers experienced the sofa here, they would definitely see the huge difference compared to other car sofas!
That feeling of being wrapped and the sitting experience were better than first class!
Comfort and luxury were reflected not only through power but also through the details inside the car, details that even business cars of this period could not provide!
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Whether in terms of appearance, interior vision, touch, or seating comfort, this first-generation Passat, supervised by Ren Zhong, far surpassed the best-selling model in the main world's timeline. This one focused on high-end business, aiming to compete with BBA.
After establishing the product image of this first-generation Passat, it would copy the product model approach of A4/A6/A8, using multiple models to cover the huge price range of high, medium, and low-end business cars. A successful brand would use multiple different-sized models to widen the price gap and capture the needs of different customers in the business market.
This was the path that car manufacturers in the main world had summarized over hundreds of years. Ren Zhong directly borrowed it, which was truly a dimensional reduction strike for this Bright Sword world.
Compared to the high-end brand building of Japanese cars next door, Ren Zhong's method was more direct and useful.
The opening was just around the corner.
The representatives were a bit flustered that the booth was hidden in a place where even dogs wouldn't want to go.
Although good wine doesn't need a deep alley, considering that this was Dongda's first expedition, and the Dongda automobile industry itself had no foundation in the world, it was likely that visitors would not bother to go to those corners after passing by the well-known car brand manufacturers.
Because for them, these booths were usually for small, unknown manufacturers, and the products they launched were really not worth seeing, mostly just followers with crude products, lacking creativity and highlights.
Not to mention high-end customers, even the flow of ordinary customers was only one-tenth or even less of the popular booths in the front.
“Captain Geng, what should we do?” The people from several car companies surrounded Geng Pusheng, all anxious.
This was their first time going abroad, and they originally had strong confidence to amaze the world with their unique products, but they found that they were met with a critical blow!
They were given the worst exhibition location, and the scene of crowds vying to visit, which they had envisioned, would probably only be realized in their dreams.
“Everyone, don’t panic.” Seeing that everyone’s emotions were a bit agitated, Geng Pusheng, as the captain, had the responsibility to guide them.
“Do you remember what Mr. Ren told everyone when we came?”
“I remember,” a young girl stood out.
“Mr. Ren said that as the first batch of Dongda automobile people to go overseas, we will encounter many unimaginable difficulties and setbacks, but no matter what, our Dongda automobiles will rise! Facing many uncontrollable problems, we Dongda automobile people must unite and work hard to overcome them!”
“Xiaoying is right! Now we have encountered an uncontrollable problem, but we are not without a solution. Our cars are world-class good cars that can stand the test, and each one is a potential hit! So the only problem we face is how to attract customers from other exhibition areas!” Geng Pusheng pointed to the young representative named Guan Liying.
“Do you all remember the small gifts we brought for the exhibition? We brought ten thousand panda figurines, which were originally intended to be given to customers who visited our booth. We also brought two large panda mascots, which were originally intended to be greeters in front of the Jetta car booth. Now I have decided to place the panda mascots at the main entrance outside the exhibition hall.”
Ren Zhong had already considered this situation. Therefore, he secretly instructed Geng Pusheng to directly run diversion advertisements outside when necessary.
The panda mascot was one point. In addition, depending on the situation, several members of the delegation would be selected to carry advertising banners on their backs and go to the places with the most people in the exhibition to solicit customers.
Ren Zhong had already thought of the advertising slogan: "Visit the XX booth to win an oriental panda!" Holding the exquisitely crafted palm-sized panda figurines in their hands to attract customers.
The original plan to give away the panda figurines for free was changed to a lottery format, with drawings held every day according to the number of days the exhibition was open.
Ren Zhong had already anticipated some of the unexpected situations that might occur at the exhibition, and the remote location of the booth was only one of them. (End of this chapter)