自買自銷 票房有假？
Every film company wants to make hits, but not every one of them is ready to engage in marketing and sales maneuvers so outlandish many deem them barely legal.
Fighting is a boxing movie set in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). It stars a pair of newly beefed-up young male actors, which is said to have special appeal to female fans, especially when they take off their shirts and reveal their washboard abs.
However, what raised eyebrows is not the hunky torsos, but the way this movie has been filling seats and winning media attention. Before it opened on March 21, its production company Daohe Group predicted it would sell 1.3 billion yuan ($210 million) of tickets, making it the No 1 Chinese movie in box-office receipts. It was based on the presale of 4.5 million tickets, which, at an average price of 35 yuan, would amount to 150 million yuan already.
The media soon found out that the sold-out shows were all due to institutional buyers. There were people buying up large blocks of tickets, yet according to some media reports the actual attendance rate was quite low. This was manifested in a sampling of seat charts of movie theaters that show most seats were sold and accompanying photographs of the exact same venues right before the room went dark, showing only a few seats being occupied.
Similar situations arose when government entities bought tickets to certain government-endorsed or government-invested movies and gave them to employees as perks. But such practices are becoming less and less common as they come under fire for misusing taxpayer money. Instead, businesses may purchase memberships or prepaid cards, but employees can choose which movies they would like to see. This is one reason year-end releases attract crowds, because many of these cards and memberships expire by the end of December and holders have to use them up.
If Daohe, the production company, was driving up sales to give the false impression of the movie's popularity, it might not be illegal, said a regulator, because it did not use a pyramid scheme. However, an executive of Inlook Vision, the distribution company, was reportedly "taken away for questioning by authorities" who wanted to probe into the matter more deeply.
It is known across the world that some businesses temporarily become their own consumers so their products make the top-selling charts, which, in turn, arouses wider interest and generates real sales down the road.
It was not the first time a Chinese film company has been suspected of using sales as marketing. Daohe was extreme only in the amount spent. But it was soon discovered that the figure for presales was exaggerated. The real number was around 1 million tickets, not 4.5 million, but still a substantial amount if translated into a marketing budget.
Most unorthodox was the way the company distributed the tickets it bought. First, it reminded its employees to treat their account contacts, family members and friends to the movie, saying this was a means to boost corporate culture.
In corporate memos obtained by the media, there were detailed instructions about the cameo appearances of its executives and how employees should artfully praise the movie－but not too much lest they sound conceited. Funny thing, the movie is a period piece with no ostensible link to the company or its products. On a certain level it seems it was being used as a corporate video to build customer relations and employee cohesion.
Then came the really dubious part. Daohe made the movie under a subsidiary and the parent company is reported to be engaged in selling so-called ecological products in a multilevel marketing arrangement.
Members are required to spend tens of thousands of yuan to be admitted into various levels of membership and sell the products further downstream. For example, someone who buys 55,000 yuan worth of its "ecological bedding" can qualify for 300 tickets to Fighting.
Mind you, they get the movie tickets for free, which theoretically they should give as a fringe benefit to those who buy the bedding from them. The lowest membership costs 32,000 yuan, but if you can enroll 12 people to join, you'll become a diamond member. And you'll get 10,000 yuan on top of that when you recruit three more members. So, the complimentary tickets seem to figure in nicely with this complicated game plan even though the plot of the movie has little to do with the business.
One diamond member said he had seen the film many times but he is going to see it many more when he takes members he recruited to future screenings. "If I do well, I'll have a chance to be selected for appearing in future movies produced by the company," he disclosed in an elated voice.
Yu Junhao, director of Fighting, admitted that there were indeed block bookings by the production company, but the whole scandal was hatched by competitors who tried to "denigrate it as a pyramid-scheme film", he insisted.
Fighting yielded a box-office gross of 13.4 million yuan in its first day of release and 42 million yuan in its first four days. When the self-purchased part－around 35 million－is discounted, that left only a few ticket-buyers who paid out of their own pockets.
When I first started to research China's film industry a decade ago, I was told by insiders that showbiz attracted all kinds of money and shady deals. People do not pursue profits in the movie industry as they would with less glamorous ventures, they maintained. One-third of investors or producers were in it for money laundering, and a second third for "meeting beautiful chicks", said some, and that left only one-third for the purpose of making movies.
Of course that claim was impossible to corroborate on a mathematical basis, but it was evident that many got into making movies for purposes other than what they would admit. That is also true of Hollywood, which used to attract investors who were in the game mainly for tax reasons. In the classic comedy The Producers, a pair of Broadway producers designed a technique by which they could profit from a surefire flop.
When people in a for-profit business do not intend to make money, it usually wreaks havoc with the whole industry. The rational way is to turn out quality products and bring in a healthy profit.每個電影公司都想大獲成功，一鳴驚人。但並不是每個電影公司都願意採用許多人認爲不合法的、荒誕的營銷和銷售策略。
《英雄之戰》是一部以中國抗日戰爭（1937-45）爲背景的拳擊擂臺賽電影。兩位年輕男演員以新硬漢形象擔任主角，據說特別吸引女粉絲，尤其是當他們脫下襯衫，顯露強健腹肌的時候。
然而，令人側目的不是演員健美的身材，而是這部電影票房得以大賣和贏得媒體關注的手段。在3月21日上映前，該影片製作公司道和集團預計其票房將達到13億人民幣（2.1億美元），在中國電影票房收入中排位第一。該影片預售人次達450萬，按照每張票35元的平均票價計算，影片上映前票房就已經達到約1.5億元。
媒體馬上就發現電影票銷售一空是因爲團體購票。儘管有人購買大量的票，但根據一些媒體報道，實際觀影人數卻很少。這結論來自於對電影院坐席表的一次抽樣調查。該調查顯示，大部分坐席都已售出。然而，對抽樣中同一觀影廳在影片開始播放後所拍的照片卻顯示，僅有一些坐席有人。
類似的情況也發生於政府單位中，他們購買某些由政府支持或投資影片的電影票，並將其送給員工作爲額外津貼。但這樣的行爲越來越鮮見了，因爲政府官員會因濫用納稅人的錢而受罰。相反，企業則會購買會員卡或是充值卡，但員工可以選擇自己想看的電影。大多數充值卡或是會員卡的截止日期都在12月，持卡人不得不在到期前刷完卡內金額，這就是年末的電影吸引大批觀影者的原因之一。
一位管理者說，該片製作公司道和集團推高票房，製造電影大賣的虛假宣傳，可能並不違法。因爲該公司並未使用非法傳銷手段。然而，據報道，該片發行方銀潤影業的副總已被有關部門帶走問話，作進一步調查。
衆所周知，一些企業暫時採用自產自銷的模式，將其產品推向熱銷榜單。反過來，這也引起大衆的廣泛關注，帶動了真正的銷量。
中國的電影公司被懷疑利用銷量作爲市場推廣手段的情形也不是第一次了。只是道和集團對此的投資尤爲大手筆。但是媒體很快就發現片方誇大了預售票房，真正的預售票房是大約100萬張，而不是450萬張。但如果作爲營銷預算，這仍然是一筆龐大的資金數額。
最另類的是該公司分配其已購電影票的方式。首先，公司提醒其員工邀請熟人、家人和朋友去看電影，並稱這是提升企業文化的一種方式。
在媒體獲得的該公司備忘錄中，記錄了公司高管們友情客串的詳細說明以及員工該如何巧妙地稱讚這部電影—不能過分稱讚以免聽起來太自以爲是。可笑的是，該部影片是一部與公司或公司產品沒有顯著聯繫的作品。但它卻在某種程度上，被用作建立客戶關係，增強員工凝聚力的企業宣傳視頻。
真正可疑的是，該電影由道和集團的子公司製作。據報道稱，其總公司參與所謂“生態產品”的多層次銷售工作。
人們需要花上萬元才能成爲不同等級的會員並且向產業下游銷售產品。例如，某人買了其價值5000元的“生態養生包”，纔有資格獲得300張《英雄之戰》的電影票。
需要提醒你的是，他們可以免費得到電影票。而理論上，該公司應該把電影票作爲附帶福利送給那些購買“生態養生包”的人。成爲最低一級的會員需要花32000元，但是如果你能夠招募12個會員，你就可以升級爲鑽石會員。如果你在此基礎上又招募了3個會員，你就可以獲得10000元。所以，雖然電影的情節和商業沒有關係，但贈票的做法似乎很好地配合完成了這個複雜的商業計劃。
一位鑽石會員說，這部電影他已經看了很多遍，但是他還得繼續看，因爲他要帶他招募的會員去看接下來放映的場次。他興奮地說：“如果我幹好了，我就有機會出現在公司以後製作的電影裏。
《英雄之戰》的導演虞軍豪承認製作公司確實進行了團體購票。但他堅稱整個醜聞是由同行競爭者一手策劃的，他們稱該影片是非法傳銷，試圖詆譭該電影。
《英雄之戰》在上映第一天就斬獲了1340萬元票房，上映頭四天票房達到4200萬元。扣除其自銷部分的3500萬票房後，只有很少購票者是自掏腰包購買電影票。
10年前，當我剛開始研究中國的電影行業時，圈內人就告訴我娛樂界吸引各種金錢和非法交易。他們認爲，比起電影業，人們更願意在那些相對沒有那麼耀眼、風險也更小的行業裏追逐利潤。有三分之一的投資者或製片人投身電影業是爲了洗錢；一些人說，另外三分之一是爲了“勾搭美女”；僅有三分之一是出於拍電影的目的而進入這一行。
當然不可能有確鑿的證據來證實這一斷言。但是很明顯，許多人拍電影的目的並不是他們所承認的那樣。好萊塢也是如此，好萊塢過去吸引的投資者主要是因爲稅收原因才進入這一行。在經典的喜劇片《金牌製片人》中，兩個百老匯製片人想出了一個斂財辦法，即通過排演一部拙劣至極的失敗劇目而獲得巨大收益。
當人們在盈利性行業內不想賺錢時，這通常會擾亂整個行業。一個合理的做法是生產出優質產品，並且帶來健康的收益。
