Gan Guoyang didn't stay much in Atlanta, and on the night of the 27th, he left the Coca-Cola nest city, taking with him a large contract of $1 million for two years.

Before Gan Guoyang came to Atlanta, Falke proposed a contract of 1.5 million yuan for five years for Gan Guoyang, which was a long time, but the average annual amount was only 300,000 US dollars.

In this regard, like Gan Guoyang signing a contract with Nike, do not want a long contract period, but pursue an average annual contract amount.

At this time, in the president's office at the Coca-Cola headquarters building in Atlanta, Robert Goizueta sat behind a large desk, looking a little tired.

It's no exaggeration to say he's recently called the busiest man in the world, and since April 23, when Coca-Cola announced its decision to launch a new product and stop the old production line, Goizueta and his Coca-Cola company have been the focus of the media's attention.

This idea, which had been in Goizueta's mind since 1980, was finally carried out to the world by a huge propaganda campaign after five years of preliminary research, discussion of plans, planning, research and development, product experiments, and street research.

On April 23, in addition to Gan Guoyang's strange ability to concentrate on the game and not ask about other things, according to statistics, 81 percent of TV viewers in the entire United States knew the news of Coca-Cola's change of formula, and there was nearly it

And in the new product launch product survey, 80% of the respondents believe that the new Coca-Cola taste is better than the traditional one, and these respondents are the young group that Coca-Cola wants to reach, which makes Goizueta more determined to start a new era of Coca-Cola.

But today, an NBA player who plays basketball, or a Chinese from a "socialist country who does not understand the market economy at all", has shaken Goizueta's confidence with his words.

The reason why Goizueta attaches great importance to Gan Guoyang, an NBA star, and personally went to Atlanta Airport to pick up the airport, is also because of Gan Guoyang's appeal among young people, which is the same as Nike's.

Nike has relied on the endorsements of Jordan and Gan Guoyang to successfully make their branded sneakers a big hit among young fans, and instantly became the most popular sports brand in the United States.

Therefore, Coca-Cola wanted to strike while the iron was hot when the new flavor was just released, and quickly shoot a new advertisement to continue to increase the influence of the new flavor of Coke.

But Gan Guoyang told Goizueta that it was not the young people who decided the fate of Coca-Cola, but the old customers who were not valued by Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola has a long history, in 1985, the brand has been closed with Americans for 99 years, and is about to reach its 100th century, which is one of the reasons why Goizueta chose to release "Ne-Coke" this year, to show that the old taste is outdated, he is 99 years old, almost 100 years old.

Gan's statement naturally disdains Goizueta, who fully believes in the results of his market research.

But Gan Guoyang studied sociology in the university of later generations, and in the major of social investigation, Gan Guoyang has not forgotten all the knowledge in his head, and the release of this new product of Coca-Cola is a classic case in the history of social investigation, which Gan Guoyang has repeatedly studied in college.

So he talked to Goizueta about Coca-Cola's so-called "market research" from many aspects, criticized Coca-Cola's investigation of the imprecision and uncontrollable variables, and at the same time excavated some aspects that ordinary people can't think of from the perspective of "hindsight", such as the national feelings of the United States for Coca-Cola.

Goizueta was in a cold sweat when he said this, and even Falke was amazed by Gan Guoyang's rich knowledge, and before that, he regarded Gan Guoyang as a dropout NBA player, with developed limbs and a simple mind like many athletes.

However, no matter how well Gan Guoyang said it, it is unlikely that Coca-Cola will give up the promotion of new products and restart the production line of traditional flavored cola now.

Gan Guoyang also knew that the winter of New Coke would come soon, and at that time, Goizueta couldn't push it if he wanted to continue to push new products, so Gan Guoyang still decided to sign a contract with Coca-Cola.

But Gan Guoyang also put forward conditions, first of all, he changed the length of the contract to a two-year short contract, because Gan Guoyang knew that the NBA is expected to usher in the first round of salary increases** soon, and at that time, he and the company's advertising contract will naturally have to be re-signed.

Secondly, Gan Guoyang said that he would not do "ne-coke" product promotion for Coca-Cola, saying that he did not want to endorse a failed product, and he would not endorse Coca-Cola until the traditional Coca-Cola was re-launched.

If Ne-Coke doesn't fail as Gan said, then Gan will advertise Ne-Coke for free and at no cost.

Since the other details of the contract had already been negotiated with Coca-Cola, the contract was signed very quickly, and Goizueta was also intent on making a bet with Gan Guoyang to see if Ne-Coke would really lose.

"Mr. Goizueta, there are some protesters downstairs in the company who are saying they want us to give Coca-Cola back to them...... However, there were not many of them, they were all old men, and Mr. Marcus had already gone down to deal with them, and the police had arrived. Just as Goizueta was thinking about what Gan Guoyang had said, the secretary came up and told him the bad news.

Goizueta stood up and looked downstairs through the floor-to-ceiling windows to see that there were indeed people gathered at the entrance of the building, carrying signs that read "no-coke" (no new flavors).

"Any other questions? Tell me all. ”

"Well, at the moment, there are no major problems with sales, sales are still very good, but the increase does not seem to be as rapid as a few days ago......"

"I see...... After a while, let the people from the marketing department come to the conference room, I have some questions that I need to discuss with you......"

The next few months are bound to be a scorching one for Goizueta, but for Gan, who is back in Portland, the $1 million contract doesn't make him feel better.

On the 28th, the results of the last two rounds of the first round of the Western Conference came out, Gan Guoyang's good friend Stockton, in Houston and the Utah Jazz teammates put on a good show, they narrowly defeated the Rockets by two points 98:96, and unexpectedly eliminated their opponents to enter the semifinals, and their opponents in the semifinals will be the Los Angeles Lakers.

In another game that Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers paid more attention to, the game between the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs, the Nuggets, who were at home and had better strength, did not let the Spurs play the black seven, and they defeated the Spurs 135-101 and successfully advanced to the semifinals.

This means that the Trail Blazers' next round opponent will be their nemesis in the regular season, the Nuggets.

This season's Nuggets and Trail Blazers should be said to be quite fetters, the two teams made big trades in the offseason, and the players were teammates last season, but they have become rivals this season.

The players know each other very well, and some of them have always been good friends with each other, so it's bound to be a series with a lot of elements.

For Gan Guoyang, he doesn't have so many emotional factors, anyway, he is a rookie and everyone is a first-year teammate.

From the perspective of tactical alignment, Gan Guoyang is not afraid of the Nuggets' interior line, whether it is their center, or the former Trail Blazers forward, this season's All-Star power forward Calvin Knight, Gan Guoyang is not worthy of them.

However, if he plays the Spurs, Gan Guoyang will meet the experienced Gilmore in the playoffs, and he will still be a little worried.

But this does not mean that Gan Guoyang likes to play with the Nuggets, in fact, among all the opponents in the Western Conference, Gan Guoyang would rather play with the Lakers than with the Nuggets.

Defensively speaking, the Nuggets have always focused on fast offense and jump shot-based teams, they are somewhat similar to the Trail Blazers, but the difference is that the Nuggets repeatedly use the "circle drawing tactics" to find mid-range shooting opportunities in the positional offense, and often end the offense with mid-range shots in the fast break.

This greatly increased the pressure on Gan Guoyang's defense, he did not have the task of defending one-on-one, but he had to repeatedly block and delay around the three-second zone, which was very expensive for him.

Offensively, it is difficult to say whether Gan Guoyang will be frantically encircled by the Nuggets on the offensive end, but in the regular season and the Nuggets, Gan Guoyang did not get too many scoring opportunities, because Ramsey's main strategy against the Nuggets is to fight against the opponent. Therefore, Gan Guoyang often becomes a practice of switchback running.

In fact, Gan Guoyang is not the only one who is troubled by this problem.

On the 29th, after the opponent was determined and the schedule of the game came out, the whole Trail Blazers team conducted a targeted training, mainly to arrange the tactical arrangements for the Nuggets game.

"Gan, are you scared of playing against the Nuggets? And that pack of crazy wolves. Ramsey asked as he walked up to Gan Guoyang during a break in training.

"I'm not afraid to play with the mad wolf, I'm afraid that the mad wolf won't come up and bite me." Gan Guoyang said, this actually shows what Ramsey is also worried about, what he is most afraid of is that Gan Guoyang's point will be abolished on the offensive end.

It's not that the Nuggets have a good interior defense, but in the fast attack, Gan Guoyang is a useless hero.

"And what do you think you should do to get the mad wolf to bite you?"

"Let me be the core, and then we slow down and play, but I know it's impossible, it's a dead end with grinding positions, we don't have that kind of strength."

"Haha, even you know, it looks like I should hire you as my assistant coach. But I have a solution that solves this problem as best as possible, and I think we should talk about it. ”

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