The conference room door was violently shoved open from the outside, slamming heavily against the wall. With a massive BANG, the entire planning team jumped out of their skins. Director Walker stood in the doorway, his face livid. His gaze swept over everyone in the room before deadlocking onto Felix Carter. Veins bulged on the back of his hand as he clenched a printed public opinion report.
"Who told you to delete those comments?" he began, his voice suppressing a boiling rage. Every word seemed squeezed through his gritted teeth. "Who gave you the nerve to mass-report the videos?"
Director Walker took a few long strides to the conference table and violently slammed the stack of papers down, sending pages flying across the floor with a loud SWISH.
"You’re never this competent normally, are you? You got us on three trending lists all at once!
"You are fucking geniuses!
"If you could be this effective on a regular basis, I’d request double year-end bonuses for every single one of you!"
Felix Carter’s face instantly turned ashen. He stood up, his lips trembling slightly. "Director Walker, I—"
"’I’ what?" Director Walker cursed, pointing directly at his nose. "I told you to suppress the public outcry, and you decided to fan the flames instead? What the hell is wrong with your brain? Is it full of shit?
"Now the entire internet is saying Jubilee Festival can’t take a joke and is using toxic fandom tactics! Seventy-two percent of Jubilee Festival’s consumers are young people between twenty and thirty. Thanks to this stunt of yours, you’ve completely shattered Jubilee Festival’s foundational user base!"
At that moment, a stampede of a million curses raced through Felix’s mind. If the man in front of him wasn’t his direct superior, he would have loved nothing more than to punch that fat face in. Director Walker was the one who originally slapped his forehead and came up with the copy on a whim. Now that the copy had backfired, it somehow became the fault of their entire team.
Felix’s heart turned entirely cold. He realized that Director Walker was setting their entire group up to be the scapegoats. After all, this marketing campaign had resulted in such a massive blunder that the company’s direct financial losses would hit at least six figures. Furthermore, judging by how things were developing, Jubilee Festival’s overall business would inevitably take a severe hit. It was a given that the client would subsequently demand compensation and shift the blame onto Titan Engine to minimize their own ongoing losses. This could easily be classified as a major annual incident, which meant someone had to take the fall.
Taking a page out of Director Walker’s book, Felix’s first thought was to save his own skin at the expense of others. Perhaps he could do exactly what the director was doing and pass the buck. However, after only a moment of thought, he despairingly abandoned the tempting idea. He was the only P5 level employee in the entire team; the rest were all P3s and P4s. An incident of this magnitude wasn’t something a bunch of low-level grunts could shoulder. While Director Walker could use his connections and relationships to extract himself from the mess, Felix, as the project lead, would almost certainly become the primary party held responsible.
He thought about how he was going to lose his job with an annual salary of over three hundred thousand, all while carrying a massive black mark on his record. Finding another job in the same industry would be virtually impossible. Terrified by the consequences, Felix’s brain went into overdrive. He immediately proposed a new strategy.
"Director Walker, I have a solution!" he exclaimed. "We can take a three-pronged approach. First, we pin the blame on the newly hired intern.
"Then, we issue a public apology and pull the ads!
"After taking down the ads, we’ll contact headquarters to help suppress the trending topics!
"Netizens these days are very forgetful. As long as we give it the cold treatment for a while, they’ll soon forget about it entirely.
"Once this blows over, we can figure out a way to re-market for Jubilee Festival."
Truth be told, this strategy of Felix’s was actually quite feasible. Throwing an intern under the bus would divert the public’s fury from the brand itself onto an individual. Moreover, immediately admitting fault would curtail the spread of negative public opinion. Finally, the third step was the most crucial part of this three-pronged approach. After all, Titan Engine was backed by ByteDance. As the largest short-video platform in Cygnus, its inherent web traffic was terrifying. If Director Walker was willing to pull some strings, he could certainly find someone to help suppress the trending topics in the short term. Once the heat died down, new hot topics would quickly emerge on the internet. Naturally, everyone would forget about this trivial matter.
Felix looked at Director Walker with a face full of anticipation. As long as the man was willing to throw him a bone, his ultimate outcome could shift from being fired to being demoted but kept on board. Although a demotion would mean a significant pay cut, it was far better than ending up unemployed.
Director Walker’s eyes darted as he instantly saw through Felix’s intentions. Suppressing the trending topics in the short term was indeed something he had the connections to pull off, but doing so would cost him favors and personal capital. If it succeeded, it held almost zero benefit for him. If it failed, he would not only waste his favors but also catch a lot of heat. Wasting a precious favor for a practically worthless subordinate was just a terrible deal.
Director Walker gave a cold snort. "Find an intern to take the fall? I can’t believe you came up with such a rotten idea!
"That tactic has been beaten to death by the government and other corporations.
"Using that excuse will only make the netizens curse at us even harder.
"Stop deleting videos and comments. That will only provoke them further.
"From this moment on, we give it the cold treatment!
"All you can do now is pray that some super-trending topic suddenly pops up online to suck away all the traffic, so no one pays attention to you anymore.
"Alright, that’s it. I have a meeting to attend."
Without another word, he spun around and left, ignoring Felix, whose face looked worse than death. The conference room door slowly clicked shut. Felix slumped in his seat, ghastly pale, his forehead beaded with fine sweat. His usual aura as a P5 team leader had vanished without a trace, leaving him looking like a defeated rooster. He knew that he was thoroughly finished this time.
A full ten minutes passed before someone cautiously approached Felix. "Felix, what should we do now?"
Felix waved his hand weakly. "Just give it the cold treatment like Director Walker said."
A conflicted look appeared on the man’s face. "Is... is that a good idea? Quite a few of our peers in the industry have already jumped into the fray.
"If we give it the cold treatment, those rival businesses will definitely gang up on us."
How could Felix not know that? However, as far as he was concerned, the current situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. Having created such a massive blunder, he was definitely going to be fired. Louis XV said it best: After me, the deluge. Felix knew he was already dead meat, so whatever happened next was no longer of any importance to him.
Seeing that the man still wanted to speak, Felix interrupted impatiently, "Things have already reached this point, so what’s the use in struggling?
"Just wait to receive your termination notices at the end of the month."