I Sell Mobile Phones Like a Swindler, and Customers Beg Me Not to Go Out of Business

133: Chapter 133 TikTok’s Full-Scale Deployment in the African MarketDing Kuan was puzzled: ”Oh? Is there something wrong with this promotional video? I think it was filmed quite normally. Besides, Boss Bai, look at the flashy, gold-plated style they used to film the commercial; they’ve practically turned Samsung into a luxury product!”

”If this commercial is rolled out on a large scale, I reckon many African girls will be dying to own a Samsung phone. It’s just like how our girls back home hope to be decked out in gold and silver when they get married. I feel like this is going to have a huge impact on our Huayao Phone!”

Bai Jingqing shook his head: ”Ding Ding, you still haven’t considered the actual situation. Advertising is like this too; you can’t just look at what is presented in the commercial itself, you also have to consider the local reality.”

”His commercial has no issues when viewed from your perspective, and it has no issues when viewed from the perspective of South Korea. But if this commercial is used for promotion in Africa, then there is a huge problem!”

Ding Kuan was puzzled: ”Why?”

Bai Jingqing continued to explain: ”Feminism in South Korea is extremely intense; this is well-known throughout the world. The girls over there have fought through all sorts of bizarre tactics and have indeed achieved a certain level of social status.”

”If you want to use consumerism to hijack those girls, promoting confidence and independence to them, telling them not to be held hostage by marriage, there will definitely be a huge market. Those girls will all agree with this because the public opinion environment they live in is exactly like that. They will only feel that this commercial is very well-suited to their local situation.”

”But this is not South Korea after all; this is Africa! Girls can’t even afford to eat and basically have to rely on men for survival. Against this backdrop, you make a commercial trying to brainwash women, telling them to be confident and independent, and making buying a Samsung phone a symbol of female confidence and independence. The problem is, after they become independent, where will the money come from?”

”If there really are African women who are successfully brainwashed by Samsung and want to seek confidence and independence, once they actually become confident and independent and realize they can’t even afford to eat, they will soon quiet down. Moreover, I think this kind of advertisement will make men in Africa very uncomfortable. Samsung didn’t think it through when they made this commercial—if those women want to buy phones, who is paying for them?”

Ding Kuan suddenly realized the truth at this moment and nodded, saying: ”That’s right! Without African men, African women can’t even afford to eat; how could they be confident? Confidence can’t be eaten as a meal!”

”If a woman watches this commercial and gets brainwashed into wanting to buy a Samsung phone, she will definitely have to ask her husband for the money. And if her husband happens to have seen this commercial too, he will definitely feel very uncomfortable. After all, a woman talking about being confident and independent while turning around and asking him for money—I imagine anyone would feel uncomfortable seeing that.”

”Furthermore, if these women pursue confidence and independence, it will deprive their husbands of a sense of conquest and make them feel that the women are hard to control. Our commercial, on the other hand, says that a Huayao Phone is the best dowry. While the ’discovering her beauty’ aspect may seem to be aimed at all African women, it is actually also targeting African men.”

”After all, marriage is a major life event, and it’s no big deal for a man to buy a woman a phone, so in this situation, African men generally won’t be repulsed by our commercial. But with Samsung teaching all the girls to be confident and independent, they will definitely be repulsed by the commercial Samsung filmed.”

Bai Jingqing nodded: ”Correct. In fact, the status of African women is still very low; to a large extent, they exist entirely as tools for reproduction. Being able to ask for an extra phone as a dowry for a marriage is already their limit. If they follow the way South Korea is promoting, wanting both confidence and independence, I don’t think they have the courage or the strength for that.”

”After all, only the economic base can determine the superstructure. So, from the root, this commercial from South Korea is completely wrong in its direction. Just wait and see; the people of Africa will certainly not buy into such a commercial.”

This explanation not only cleared up Ding Kuan’s confusion, but also made him admire Boss Bai to the point of prostration. He felt that Boss Bai was practically a god-like figure!

As far as he knew, Bai Jingqing had never been to Africa, yet he was deeply aware of the pain points of Africans using mobile phones and was able to tackle these pain points one by one, gaining an advantage in the African market through these unique features. Furthermore, he combined this with local customs to formulate appropriate promotional strategies, winning the recognition of the African people. It seemed that every step Boss Bai had taken until now was correct.

Instead, it was him—whenever the competitor Samsung made any move, he always felt it was all over, and whenever there was a difficulty, he would seek help from Boss Bai. He knew that the road ahead for him was still long, and he still needed to learn a lot from Boss Bai.

Actually, the reason Bai Jingqing was so confident was that he had a trump card he hadn’t told Ding Kuan about. But this was also a very important part of enabling his strategy to be promoted. Samsung wanted to compete with Huayao in advertising? Wasn’t that just asking for death?

While Huayao Phone was expanding overseas, it also brought TikTok abroad. The so-called TikTok is the overseas version of Douyin. In other words, currently, TikTok is pre-installed on basically all Huayao Phones in the African region.

In such a poor and backward place, this kind of short video has a huge impact on those people. After all, on TikTok, they can see all sorts of things from all over the world, allowing them to open their eyes and see the world.

Moreover, its audience is very broad. Compared to other kinds of entertainment activities, scrolling through short videos can be considered the most cost-effective pastime, where everyone can find fun and discover things they are interested in.

Furthermore, the cost and barrier to entry for scrolling through short videos are extremely low. If you use other platforms, you need to be literate, know how to be sarcastic, and know how to brag. But for scrolling through short videos, you don’t even need to know how to read; you just need to be able to move one finger! Even Stephen Hawking should be able to master the ability to scroll through short videos.

If TikTok just tosses in a few activities where you can earn money and get red envelopes by scrolling through short videos, those Africans will scroll tirelessly. Therefore, along with the comprehensive rollout of Huayao Phone in the African region, the installation volume of TikTok in Africa has also increased sharply, becoming extremely popular in every African country.

Even in the most extreme case, an African country named Kenya, which has a population of about 54 million, 54% of the people are using TikTok and are active users of TikTok! (This data can be verified.)