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中国互联网巨人背后的"安静女孩"(王昕)

(2008-08-22 18:21:00)
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杂谈

http://1813.img.pp.sohu.com.cn/images/blog/2008/8/22/18/20/11c9061e22dg214.jpg

      (搜狐联席总裁、首席营销官王昕,在外媒眼里,是互联网巨人背后的一位“安静女孩”。)

转发:中国互联网巨人背后的"安静女孩"

    在经过数个月的筹备之后,搜狐联席总裁兼首席营销官王昕正在看见奥运官方赞助商身份给公司带来的丰厚回报。

  王昕是一个谜一样的人物。即使在中国互联网这个关系紧密的小圈子内,这位搜狐的二号人物也不为公司以外人士所熟悉。这不仅是由于她一直被搜狐创始人张朝阳的"阴影"所笼罩,也是因为中国互联网行业很少出现女性高管。

  不过,所有人都不应该低估王昕的作用。作为搜狐联席总裁兼首席营销官,王昕在搜狐的成功中扮演了十分关键的角色。这也使王昕成为当前万众瞩目的焦点。

  对于搜狐来说,今年是重要的一年。二季度,搜狐营收达1.02亿美元,同比上升162%。在中国互联网上市公司中,此前只有百度和腾讯的季度营收能够突破1亿美元。二季度,搜狐广告营收同比增长53%,这主要是受益于奥运官方赞助商的身份。搜狐已经证明,对奥运迷来说,搜狐是最关键的互联网网站。

  在个人生活中,王昕认为自己是"安静的女孩",相对于繁忙的工作更喜欢家庭生活。当她谈到自己一岁的女儿悦悦时,她露出了笑容。她动情的说:"她就是我的欢乐。"

  然而在工作中,王昕并不是一个安静的人,一名同事将王昕称作"积极的职业女性"。1999年,张朝阳对王昕谈到关于建立互联网门户的设想。在经过十年之后,王昕表示,她不后悔跟随张朝阳的步伐一同创业。她表示:"跟随张朝阳创业时并不会特别担忧,我们认为他是一个能够获得成功的人。搜狐很像一个大家庭,我们一起奋斗。"

  自2000年上线以来,搜狐逐步提供了搜索、娱乐等服务。与其它中国门户网站一样,搜狐也进军了充满吸引力的网游市场。然而,王昕的关注重点仍是奥运会合作伙伴关系。搜狐此次投入了超过1450万美元用于打造品牌,将搜狐塑造成"奥运会选择的门户网站"。搜狐还表示,通过奥运相关的广告收入,这些投资已经收回。

  在充斥着大量重复信息的互联网上,搜狐在此次奥运报道中提供许多独家的原创内容。例如,在所有门户网站中,只有搜狐记者能够乘坐专机接近圣火,而搜狐网站上的比分信息也比其他门户网站更快。此外,搜狐记者能够在赛后直接采访金牌获得者,搜狐网站则能够独家使用北京奥运会标志、吉祥物和会歌。

  然而,搜狐取得这些成就的过程并非一帆风顺。王昕表示,此前数个月的准备工作花费了大量精力。尽管王昕非常喜欢旅游,并且已经计划好前往法国、德国和意大利,但是为了筹备奥运,她不得不推迟自己的旅游计划。(金童)

 

附录原文:The 'quiet girl' behind China's online giant

21 August 2008   Media

 After months of planning, Belinda Wang is watching Sohu's partnership with the Olympics come to fruition. By Anita Davis

 Belinda Wang is something of a mystery. Even in China's close-knit internet community, the second-in-command at online giant Sohu is not well known outside of work. That may partly be because her career has developed in the shadow of Sohu's charismatic founder Charles Zhang. It may also be because, in a very male industry, she is a rare example of a female senior executive.

 

Yet she should not be underestimated. As co-president and chief marketing officer at Sohu, she is one of the key executives behind one of China's most successful online businesses. And as the driver of Sohu's Olympics sponsorship deal, she is very much in the spotlight at the moment.

It's been a big year for the portal. In the second quarter it posted US$102 million in revenue, up 162 per cent year on year (of China's listed internet firms, only Tencent and Baidu have also managed quarterly revenues above $100 million). Ad revenues rose 53 per cent in the period, largely on the back of its Olympics sponsorship, signed for an undisclosed (though doubtless hefty) sum in 2005. Sohu has been able to present itself to advertisers as the key online destination for Chinese Olympic fans.

 

In person, Wang admits she is a "quiet girl", preferring home life to the world of work. A business-like demeanour only breaks into an animated smile when she talks about her one-year-old daughter Yue-Yue (happiness in Mandarin). "She is my happiness," she gushes.

 

Yet when it comes to her job, she's hardly a wallflower - one colleague describes her as a "proactive career woman". Her big break came in 1999, when Zhang, a former colleague at Internet Securities, told her he had a promising idea for an internet portal. After nearly a decade of climbing the ladder, Wang admits she followed him without regrets. "I was not so nervous following Charles, as he is a person who we thought would achieve success," she said. "Sometimes we call ourselves jeung yo (comrades) because we fight together. At Sohu, it's very close, like a family."

 

Since the portal launched in 2000, it has grown to provide search, networking and entertainment resources. Like many Chinese portals, it has expanded into the lucrative gaming sector. But the focus for Wang has been the Olympic partnership. Sohu has invested more than $14.5 million into broadening awareness of Sohu.com as "the portal of choice for the Olympic games", and the company claims to have made back its investment already in Olympics-related adspend.

 

Sohu has gone to great lengths to provide original material at a time when exclusive information on the internet is hard to find. For example, Sohu's reporters were the only ones on board the Olympic helicopter bearing the torch, and it is the only online source to issue results real-time at the Games ("60 seconds faster than other websites," a Sohu presentation boasts). Its reporters can interview gold medallists straight after their triumph, and the portal has exclusive access to the Olympic 2008 logo, mascots and anthem.

 

It has not, however, been plain sailing. On a personal level, Wang admits the months of planning have taken their toll. One of her passions is travel - France, Germany and Italy are her favourite destinations - yet she has postponed her trips to focus on work.

 

There have been major issues for Sohu too. Earlier this year, it emerged its Olympics deal did not cover online video, a sector that has boomed since the contract was signed. The portal recently had to purchase separate rights from CCTV to broadcast online footage from the Games. "We had the confidence in ourselves [that CCTV would choose Sohu as a partner] and, historically, we have had a very good strategic partnership with CCTV," Wang says.

 

Where she will not comment is on attempts by Sohu's rivals to outflank it. CCTV has been selling online video rights to anyone willing to pay, and portals Sina, NetEase and Tencent have combined to offer their own Olympics viewing services. The prize for all these portals is traffic against which they can sell ads to Olympic audiences. With an estimated 32 million Chinese consumers watching the opening ceremony online, the rewards for the portals that get it right should be significant.

 

Many in China's media industry believe the wide availability of online footage has undermined the value of Sohu's status as official internet partner. One of the key marketing lessons from the Beijing Games has been how hard it is to prevent ambush marketing on the internet. Wang admits that guarding online rights and paying for exclusivity may become obsolete by 2010, when the Winter Games go to Vancouver. But she is unrepentant about Sohu's involvement this time. "We cherish the opportunity we have now," she adds. "Based on our 2008 experiences, we have a lot to offer in future Olympics."

 

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