Chapter 77: Are You Interested?

Tianyou Yogurt has already lost its composure? Yu Zhile was curious and typed: "What do you mean? How have they lost their composure?"

Manager Chen edited a lengthy explanation: "Ever since the song 'Sweet and Sour, That's Me' became popular, along with the advertising video you planned—which has been parodied and discussed by so many netizens—our sales and orders for Mengniu’s Sour Yogurt have been skyrocketing these past few days! As our sales increase, Tianyou Yogurt’s sales start to decline. So now, Tianyou Yogurt has launched an all-out promotion, slashing prices to compete with us. Besides that, they've also imitated our ad, producing a video with exactly the same style and formula, and spent quite a bit of money pushing it online."

Well... that’s definitely panic! Yu Zhile replied, "Price cuts seem like a pretty good tactic!"

"Yes," Manager Chen agreed. "Tianyou Yogurt’s price-cutting promotion is currently the most effective way to challenge our dominance in the yogurt market. After all, before this, Tianyou Group was always the leader. But in terms of brand and capital, our Mengniu Group has the upper hand! As long as we hold fast to the yogurt market and follow suit with price reductions, over time, they won’t be able to sustain it and will have to temporarily give up the yogurt market and shift their focus to other dairy products."

Yu Zhile nodded: "When two rivals fight, the fisherman profits! Your promotional war is actually good for the ordinary people."

"The promotional war is just a bonus," Manager Chen continued. "Sales of sour yogurt have soared, but pure milk and breakfast milk have stagnated—some even dropped a bit. So this promotion is really a chance to advertise the other types of milk; otherwise, if those sit in inventory and expire, the losses would be considerable."

"True, in the end you’re still making money—it’s just a matter of how much. Alright, I won’t keep you, carry on!"

Afterwards, Yu Zhile searched for Tianyou Yogurt’s latest ad video and watched it, discovering that Tianyou really was panicking—now even their ads were copying the trend!

In Mengniu’s Sour Yogurt ad, Qin Haiyu sings off-key, gets laughed at, then takes a sip of yogurt and suddenly belts out a heavenly theme song, stunning everyone. Tianyou’s ad followed exactly the same formula—a young idol unfamiliar to Yu Zhile is ignored by the crowd, drinks yogurt, and is instantly enveloped in a holy glow, drawing shrieks and cheers from a group of infatuated girls.

Yu Zhile showed the video to Qin Haiyu, mocking, "Honey! Look at Tianyou Yogurt’s ad! Not only did they jump on the bandwagon, they made it so dumb—it’s hilarious!"

Qin Haiyu watched and looked awkward: "Is this plagiarism? It feels almost identical to your Mengniu Sour Yogurt ad!"

"It’s not quite plagiarism—more like borrowing and following the trend. After all, this kind of ad formula is pretty common, but few ever go viral. Mengniu’s ad owes its popularity to the song 'Sweet and Sour, That’s Me.' So no matter how much Tianyou Yogurt copies us, their ad won’t have much effect—if anything, netizens will just scorn them!"

Yu Zhile clicked the comments under the video, and sure enough, many people were ridiculing them, accusing them of shamelessly copying Mengniu’s ad.

Qin Haiyu, seeing all the negative comments, said, "Tianyou Yogurt must be regretting this—they’re getting what they deserve!"

Hearing the word "deserve," Yu Zhile was reminded of a particularly catchy phrase and sighed, "Every cause has its effect; your retribution is me!"

"Pfft!" Qin Haiyu laughed, "Honey, that rolls right off your tongue! I’ll send this ad video to Lingling—she’ll find it so satisfying!"

Yu Zhile said, "She won’t just be satisfied, I bet she’ll gleefully throw in a few jabs!"

Qin Haiyu added, "It was Tianyou Yogurt that acted unfairly first. If they hadn’t gone back on their word, I would have been their spokesperson, and none of this would have happened."

Yu Zhile responded, "If they hadn’t gone back on their word, I wouldn’t have thought up this ad campaign, and 'Sweet and Sour, That’s Me' wouldn’t exist! So it really is karma!"

After forwarding Tianyou’s ad video to Xu Ling, she saw all the critical comments and, feeling vindicated, gleefully threw in her own. She finally felt thoroughly satisfied.

Then she sent a voice message: "By the way, someone just contacted me, wanting your husband to plan an ad!"

Yu Zhile was speechless: "They’re treating me like an ad planner now! Ridiculous, I’m not even in that business. Ignore them!"

Qin Haiyu relayed her husband’s message. With New Year’s Day here and Spring Festival approaching, she wasn’t taking any new gigs or endorsements, and she knew her husband wouldn’t waste time chasing small money with ad planning either.

At noon, after his chess match, Dad returned for lunch.

Yu Zhile asked, "Dad, how did it go? Don’t tell me you got knocked out in the first round?"

Father Yu replied confidently, "How could I be eliminated in the first round? I’m not saying I’ll be champion, but getting into the top four is a breeze!"

Yu Zhile asked, "There are more matches this afternoon?"

Father Yu nodded, "Yes, matches run from nine in the morning until five. Two hours per match—this afternoon they’ll decide the top five hundred, tomorrow the top one hundred, and the day after that, the champion! But the prize for the champion is stingy—not even ten thousand yuan in cash!"

Yu Zhile teased, "Dad, you’re so spoiled! Five thousand eight hundred eighty-eight yuan is a month’s salary for many people. Spend three days over New Year playing chess, win the championship, and you get five thousand eight hundred eighty-eight yuan plus ten cases of yogurt—that’s already a great reward for most folks. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many signing up!"

"That’s true," Father Yu nodded, then glanced around the hall, asking, "Where’s your mother?"

Yu Zhile replied, "She’s taking a nap!"

Father Yu said sternly, "Alright, I’ll head back to the chess match after lunch. Tonight, have your mother buy groceries and cook—I won’t have time!"

Qin Haiyu smiled, "Dad, I’ll take care of cooking these two days. You just focus on your chess matches!"

"Good, you’re the sensible one!" Father Yu shot his son a glare, and after lunch, slipped out again to prepare for the afternoon’s chess matches.

With both mother and daughter napping, Yu Zhile and his wife returned to their room to catch up on sleep as well.

In the afternoon, Yang Bing messaged Yu Zhile: "The station wants to invite you to perform at the Spring Festival Gala. Interested?"