New Marketing Tactics

Rainer knocked on the door and happened to see Charlotte finishing a painting, stretching lazily to relax.

Because the air was stuffy and hot, Charlotte had taken off her apprentice robe. Beneath it, she wore a soft-fabric blouse and long skirt. As she stretched, her light clothing revealed the budding curves of her developing body. Her silver hair seemed to scatter particles of light beneath the sunlight, leaving Rainer unsure where to look.

"Mr. Rainer."

Charlotte quickly noticed Rainer's arrival. Smiling, she handed him several drawings from the table.

"I drew these according to your ideas. I'm not sure whether they're suitable."

Rainer cleared his throat and accepted Charlotte's drawings.

They depicted an elderly mage with a bushy beard, a monocle, and a robe adorned with stars and moons. It wasn't a realistic sketch, but more like a comic—an exaggerated style that emphasized distinctive features. It felt vaguely familiar to Rainer.

He looked through the other sheets. They were mostly different mage designs: some cute young women, others stern-faced men. Each had their own distinct traits and could be recognized at a glance.

"These are fantastic, Charlotte. You're truly a genius."

Rainer said with a smile. Counting them, there were already nearly thirty different drawings. The number was still somewhat small, but it was enough to put into use.

"I just like observing things."

Girls Charlotte's age couldn't calmly accept praise yet. She answered somewhat shyly before raising a question.

"But Mr. Rainer, can these paintings really help Cola?"

These figures were all great mages who had already passed away, appearing only in magic history textbooks and legends. Following Rainer's instructions, Charlotte had transformed their portraits into this exaggerated style and colored them with broad blocks of color. As a result, each painting took only two or three hours to produce, making the process extremely efficient.

"Of course, Charlotte. Let me ask you something."

After thinking for a moment, Rainer gave a simple example.

"If there were a series of books, and the third book was missing out of ten, would you want to find it and complete the set?"

"Um, I probably would."

Charlotte nodded, though she still couldn't understand Rainer's train of thought.

"Then what about these portraits of great mages? If several were missing, wouldn't that also make people want to collect them all?"

Rainer patiently guided her, slowly explaining the collector's mentality.

"For most people, the only thing stopping them from collecting is often the cost. If the cost is low, many people will try to complete a collection. And when the only way to collect all these portraits is to buy bottles of Cola for three copper coins each, everything becomes simple."

That was right. The promotion Rainer was preparing to implement next was a buy-Cola-get-cards scheme.

For just three copper coins, one could buy a bottle of Cola and use the hidden number on the back of its label to request a card featuring an ancient mage from the shopkeeper. The front of the card displayed Charlotte's drawing, with a brief account of the mage's life beneath the portrait. The back bore a signature spell for verification.

This seemingly unprofitable arrangement was actually a marketing scheme that took extreme advantage of human weakness.

Rainer remembered that the crispy noodles he ate as a child had contained cards like these. In order to complete his collection, he had made plenty of deals with the snack shop owner. When he came across rare cards, he had even fought fiercely with classmates for them.

After growing up, a certain gaming platform had launched a similar mechanism where players earned cards by playing games, and it had also become extremely popular.

Even the holiday events on certain apps, where people collected characters to share prize money, had become topics people never tired of discussing.

Just as Rainer said, when the cost of collecting appeared low, people would instinctively begin collecting. Yet the price they ultimately paid might far exceed their initial expectations. A slow and steady approach was the most effective way to pry open the wallets of people without spending habits.

Charlotte's drawings would be reproduced in bulk. At the same time, Rainer would control the distribution ratios of each card, making some into "rare" cards while others became common cards found everywhere.

On one hand, this would increase the difficulty of collecting them. On the other, it would stir up discussion.

After all, collecting wasn't driven solely by personal inclination. People often changed their behavior because of those around them. Put simply, they followed the crowd.

When everyone around you was spending money to collect something, as one of them, you would inevitably begin to accept it in order to fit in—and then start spending money as well. That was the influence of the environment.

In Rainer's memories, this behavior was called encouraging spending.

Of course, these cards weren't merely for entertainment. The text descriptions on them could also serve as educational material, allowing people to learn about these mages.

For this reason, Rainer had selected only deceased Lords who were no longer among the living, avoiding potential disputes. Although this world had yet to develop laws such as portrait rights, Rainer didn't dare risk offending living high-ranking mage Lords and being subjected to precise prophecies and long-range attacks.

"But why aren't these numbers consecutive?"

Charlotte picked up one of the drawings. It was the original card art for Vandal-Aman, master of the Transmutation School. This high-ranking mage, proficient in four animal transformations, stood atop a cliff surrounded by the four beasts whose forms he had mastered. In the upper-right corner of the card was the symbol for number twenty-three.

Yet as far as Charlotte remembered, there were no cards numbered twenty-two or twenty-four.

"There are two reasons. First, we need to put these on the market as soon as possible, and obviously, I can't ask you to work day and night until you've drawn every single card. So we'll release part of them first, then release a second batch later."

Rainer looked at Charlotte. Calluses had already formed on the girl's hands. Though Rainer had never forced her to paint, Charlotte had indeed spent all her spare time painting these past few days. In her words, she was drawing out all the ideas she had accumulated over ten years.

"The second reason is to create an illusion. People will think these nonexistent cards are actually extremely rare cards, prompting them to scramble to collect them."

Charlotte froze for a moment when she heard Rainer's words. She hadn't expected him to turn a scheduling problem caused by objective limitations into another method of attracting buyers.

Rainer's marketing plan, which exploited public psychology, was truly unprecedented in this world. No wonder Pilam, despite his immense capital, found it difficult to keep up with Rainer. By the time Pilam saw through Rainer's methods, Rainer's arrangements had already advanced three steps beyond that.

Though she had thought this more than once, Charlotte still couldn't help but marvel. The principal of the Ian Gray Family was indeed a business genius unlike any the world had ever seen.