Chapter 317 Shared Thought

Chapter 317  Shared Thought

We entered the war room to find Julianna and her entire team there. From the dark circles and large bags under their eyes and the fact that everyone was still wearing the same outfit, it was clear that they really did spend the entire night in the war room. I was impressed at their dedication but more impressed at how high their team morale seemed to be despite all they had gone through.

“You sound excited…” Ace commented without much emotion.

Julianna turned with a smile on hers lips before she started giggling a little evilly to herself. Something good must have happened for her to have a reaction like that. She looked like she was the verge of exploding to tell us the good news.

“Did something good happen?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know but I really hope so,” she replied before winking at me.

“What does that mean?” I asked as my curiosity started taking over.

“She probably did something and is still waiting for the numbers to roll in,” Ace replied without any excitement.

I watched as he walked past Julianna to his seat at the head of the long meeting table. Julianna continued to giggle like a kid who had a very naughty story to tell. If this wasn’t a working environment, I would have thought that she had successfully pulled a prank on someone.

“Did everything go well last night?” I asked hopefully.

“Yup. We managed to finish everything plus a few extra things. Everything is done, the graphics and all the set up of social media advertising placements. Everything is done!” Julianna declared excitedly.

“We didn’t get any sleep but she’s right. It’s done,” one of her team members spoke up before closing his eyes and sighing loudly.

“We did everything we could. The donations better start rolling in,” another added.

“It will. I have a feeling that we’ve got it right this time around. Things will work out,” Julianna told her teammates with confidence.

“Karina, come over here. You want to see what they’ve done, right?” Jeremy asked as he waved me over to his side.

Julianna was too busy laughing with her team members to show me anything, but it was alright. I didn’t want to bother her or any of her team members after the all-nighter that they had just pulled. I walked over and sat down next to Jeremy as I waited for him to pull up what he wanted to show me on his laptop screen. My eyes wandered to land on Ace, and I realized that he had not shown much interest in what Julianna and her team had done although they had put so much effort into their work.

“Ace…” I called out to him before I realized what I was doing.

“What is it?” he replied flatly.

“Do you want to see? I mean, the advertising work on social media…” I asked before smiling a little over at him.

Ace closed his eyes and let out a soft sigh before he slowly got out of his seat. To my surprise, Ace headed over to where Jeremy and I were sitting and sat down next to me. Jeremy turned his laptop screen toward us so that we could see.

“These are the main graphics that are being displayed to social media users right now. These are the placements which I think covers pretty much everything. Oh, you two should watch this mini clip. It’s the edited version of the commercial to make it shorter and more appropriate for social media,” Jeremy explained excitedly.

“Wow…they managed to edit so well in such a very short time,” I mumbled admiringly as my eyes stared at the shorter version of our commercial.

The commercial was visibly shorter and got the main point much faster than the original version. It felt very rushed and the various options that the audience could choose from to make their donations were clearly made visible right at the end of the commercial. The commercial’s essence was still preserved but I felt that some of the artistic beauty and various touching moments had been lost.

“It’s a little different from the original, don’t you think?” Ace murmured to me as if he could read my mind.

Ace probably thought the same thing when he saw the shortened version of our commercial. I wouldn’t say that the change was a bad one and I fully understood that the changes made were necessary.

“I was just thinking the same thing…” I replied as I stared at Ace’s face.

“I guess this is what has to be done to grab the audience’s attention on social media. It’s not a bad adaptation given the constraints of how short the entire clip is supposed to be,” Ace commented.

“The donations options are much clearer now too so hopefully that will help move the needle on the donation amount,” I added thoughtfully.

“We’ll know soon enough whether this will work or not,” Ace replied.

He did not sound concerned at all, and I wondered if that was because he was certain that this would work out. For me, I was so on edge even though I had decided to believe in Julianna and her team. Their work was outstanding and how they managed to operate under pressure was even more impressive. I could definitely learn a thing or two from Julianna on team management and handling pressure.

“We’ll keep monitoring the numbers. The first report with anything meaningful after the change should be coming in soon,” Jeremy informed us with a smile.

“Can’t we view the donation amount live?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, because the donation is being made directly to the foundation, we have to wait for them to announce the numbers. They announce the report to every company participating in the contest at the same time,” Jeremy explained.

“Oh, I see. That’s too bad…” I muttered in disappointment.

“Well, the foundation isn’t a professional marketing company so don’t expect them to have live reports like we do on every single metrics,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah…” I mumbled in reply.

--To be continued…