Author: Hoho
Source: Business People (ID: biz-leaders)
On January 13, 2022, Ye Maozhong died in Shanghai at the age of 54.
He is an important figure in the local advertising industry that cannot be ignored, and he is also a very controversial advertiser. He planned a large number of brainwashing advertising slogans such as "everyone on the earth knows" and "30-year-old people have a 60-year-old heart, a 60-year-old person has a 30-year-old heart", and then used big star endorsements to launch a big platform, saving many enterprises. However, the high amount of investment has also made many enterprises jealous, and they can only play the axe of the three plates by the industry, and paste words such as vulgarity and inferiority on him.
The debate about Ye Maozhong has not stopped, and even brought it to the academic level for discussion, which shows how influential it is. No matter how Ye discusses, his business behavior cannot be separated from the growth environment, the entire business environment and the development form of the advertising industry.
Ye Maozhong's family was not well-off, but he had a special love for painting. At that time, Taizhou ran a Zhenhua amateur school, which was divided into a drawing class and a Chinese painting class. He wanted to go to the Chinese painting class, but the tuition of the Chinese painting class was expensive, so he had to choose the sketching class. Ye Maozhong was not reconciled, and every night after the sketching class, he stood at the door of the Chinese painting class to "listen". Wu Junsheng, who studied under Fu Baoshi, was a teacher in the Chinese painting class, and when it was freezing cold, he found this student standing at the door, let him go in to listen to the lecture, and led Ye Maozhong into the door of art. Ye Maozhong, who pushed open the door, not only learned painting skills, but also realized the world view of painters in Fu Baoshi's vein.
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In the 1990s, businesses from all walks of life sprang up, followed by advertising companies that packaged their products. In 1986, the foreign investment policy was relaxed, and in 1993, the "Planning Outline on Accelerating the Development of Advertising" was promulgated to gradually regulate the advertising industry. These policies have attracted international advertising agencies such as Ogilvy and McCann, as well as advertisers from Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, France and the United States.
At this time, Ye Maozhong, who was eating with a paintbrush at The Taizhou TV Station, was thinking about the house to be allocated by the unit. At this time, a phone call from Chunlan Air Conditioning filming a film advertisement disturbed his dream of stability.
The young man, who knew nothing about advertising and film cameras, came up with an idea to score six goals in one shot, and finally finished the commercial after asking for help. The advertisement was an unprecedented success, Ye Maozhong tasted the sweetness of advertising, he threw away the paintbrush, picked up the revolver of the advertisement, and read out his own slogan: "I will fight for dignity, as long as I lose my dignity, you give me more money, I will not do it." My biggest ambition is to do a good job, and I believe that there will be a steady stream of customers coming to me. ”
4A advertising rushed to the scene, cooperated with state-owned advertising companies, and seized large enterprises such as Shanghai Volkswagen and China Mobile. Ye Maozhong thought that it would be difficult for him to come out of the crowd with one. He saw that the theory of foreign advertising works took shape, so he indulged in thousands of advertising classics to replenish ammunition, which lasted three years, compiled the "Advertising Man's Handbook", aimed at the market and fired a gun.
Ye Maozhong's shot hit those enterprises that survived in the early stage of reform, such as Heilongjiang food enterprise Xiao yudian, Zhenao nucleic acid group, Haiwang group and so on. His ads are like stimulants, giving weak businesses a brief brilliance. But his way of marketing himself is long-term, and the companies that have been saved have become his stepping stones, and he has begun to touch the ceiling of the advertising industry.
Ye Maozhong, who won the first battle, also invisibly unveiled the prelude to the confrontation between the two major routes of Chinese advertising - the product route of domestic advertising VS the user line of 4A company.
Immediately after, Ye Maozhong fired three shots in a row, "Hengyuanxiang, sheep and sheep", "everyone on the earth knows" and "men should be cruel to themselves", these three shots hit not only the hearts of consumers, but also the upstarts of 4A companies sitting in high-end office buildings in Shanghai and Beijing. Mockery and isolation followed.
Ye Maozhong sorted out the black red star hat on his head to pay tribute to Cui Jian, lit the cigar on his mouth, took a sip, and went into the studio with his back to his hand, into the paintings of Fu Baoshi, Xu Beihong, and Qi Baishi, and washed his soul in the landscape paintings.
In that bloody and rainy decade, he faced the commercial storm, turned his back on the art world, and established a world framed by precious calligraphy and paintings in Xujiahui, Shanghai, where every inch of land was scarce, like a child circled in the toy world, cutting thorns in his own paradise. The taunts and curses outside dissipated with the wind blowing the waves. But what did not drift away was a small boat behind the cigarette shell in his memory, full of childhood memories and gray days that he did not want to mention.
For a pure cowboy, the revolver in his hand will not rust. His lonely temperament inspires Ye Maozhong, who wants to stir up greater storms in the advertising world and become the fastest, most accurate and fiercest advertising gunner. So there was the legend of true kung fu, Wujiang squeezed vegetables, and the home of the sea blue, and the victory of the three wars laid the foundation for Ye Maozhong's position in the marketing circle, and local marketing workers also took a clear road.
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Soon Ye Maozhong walked through the most brilliant decade.
With the rise of the Internet, the voice of the fading Ye Maozhong is endless, and there is still a ridicule of "washing healthier" in this voice. At this time, many young talents who learned from 4A companies also threw themselves into the embrace of the Internet with artistic aesthetics and film dreams.
Just when people are about to forget Ye Maozhong's iconic brainwashing advertising words, in the 2018 World Cup, the cowboy gunner pulled the trigger again, and the Brainwashing Advertisement of Zhihu and Ma Honeycomb became the hardest hit area for spitting, but their downloads climbed rapidly. Chen Gang, founder of Mafengwo, worshiped Ye Maozhong, "Thank you Master Ye for formulating a conflict strategy for Mafengwo Tourism Network and creating a top advertising creative." "Ye Mao still has the old cowboy Eastwood's Ma Li.
The madman of the advertising industry won the praise of customers, turned around and went to the collection circle he had just touched, and snatched away Chiang Kai-shek's hand-written "Sweeping Thousand Armies" for Zhang Zhen's love for 2.3 million, creating a record of Chiang Kai-shek's calligraphy works and directly bringing about a boom in the collection of calligraphy by modern celebrities.
In 2020, when Ye Mao disappeared, Ma Xiaobo, an upstart advertising upstart who took the user route, planned the "Back Wave" speech of the B station, "Those who say 'one generation is not as good as a generation' should look at you." "It's like a badge that looks back, surpasses the majesty of its predecessors, strives to declare its own ideas, changes dynasties, and engraves itself."
But this beautiful imagination does not represent the story of the masses, and the young people complain about such claims, they no longer have the freedom and territory of Ye Maozhong's generation of pioneers, the hands of the keyboards that are tapped in the cubicle, and never touch the revolver that shoots at the future.
On January 15, Ma Xiaobo liked a Weibo post, "Ogilvy is too far away, and Teacher Ye Maozhong is very close to me." He was the first homegrown advertiser I knew. Although I didn't agree with some of his views, even though his golden age was some distance from mine. But he did show me that advertising has more possibilities in the home country. Since then, in my perception, advertising is no longer an imported product. ”
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In 2019, Ye Maozhong was diagnosed with cancer. Two years after his illness, he once told his student Wang Yugang that he did not plan to advertise anymore and would dedicate the rest of his life to calligraphy paintings. The arrogant old cowboy finally dropped the revolver on his waist, lowered his head and picked up the paintbrush, leaving the advertising industry occupied by young people.
An old friend revealed that ye Maozhong, who fought with painting in his later years, was no longer satisfied with learning from Fu Baoshi and his children, who had been admired earlier. He tried to create his own world in painting and ran to shi Tao's world.
This Shi Tao is not an idle person, a famous painter in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and also a descendant of the royal family left over from the Ming Dynasty. In order to survive, Shi Tao disguised himself with various identities and entered the aisle as a monk. From the age of fifteen to the age of fifty-five, he painted full-time in a variety of different environments. During this period he became a semi-professional painter because monkhood was his vocation.
Shi Tao transformed into a painter in his later years, and he regularly insisted on the most decorative ornaments that neither monks nor literati painters despised, because they could sell at excellent prices. Shi Tao was no longer a painter monk, but a literati entrepreneur active in the field of craftsmen and merchants.
Ye Maozhong was inspired by Shi Tao, and the old cowboy's last breath was left for painting, following the example of Fu Baoshi and Shi Tao traveling through thousands of rivers and mountains, studying painting methods, hanging his works to the art museum, and hanging propaganda advertisements on familiar airports and road signs. The result of this double meaning was the final burst of the revolver in his hand.
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Careful readers will find that he repeats the cases of ten years ago in several books, and even if it extends some of the current hot marketing cases, it is difficult to hide his late creativity. But he still tirelessly published books and lectures, actively preached, defended his views with stories from ancient and modern China and abroad, armed his theories with the words of famous masters, and the ultimate purpose was to consolidate the brand of "Ye Maozhong".
"If you can't think of an idea, you should smoke yourself and scold yourself in your heart: 'I'm so incompetent!' Since you play the role of warrior, you should defeat this role without hesitation. "Once Ye Maozhong was a man with a revolver with only one bullet, constantly pulling the trigger on his head.
In the later period, Ye Maozhong gave up extreme means such as holding urine and staying up late to refine creativity, and advocated fitness and rest in the book he wrote. He asked the staff around him to also work out. When employees travel with him on business, he asks them to do push-ups one by one in the airport lounge.
Products and works, beauty and ugliness, business and art, pragmatism and idealism, humanity and morality, Ye Maozhong squarely faced this opposition, in his eyes this is an opportunity. He gave them rich meanings and locked them in with the word "conflict", becoming his own biggest label and the code of his wealth.
Resources:
1. China Road Number of Marketing Planning, China Advertising Magazine
2. Criticize Ye Maozhong: What kind of advertising is the most effective? China Advertising Magazine, No. 9, 2018, Zhiying
3. The dispute between the two major routes of Chinese advertising, empty hands
4. 30 years of Ogilvy China: the golden age of advertising, the beauty of marketing
5. "Shi Tao: Painting and Modernity in Early Qing Dynasty China", "Beauty" Qiao Xun
*Title image purchased from Visual China