哈囉 – here you’ll find posts related to Hong Kong. That includes the territory, the culture, business, creativity and history. I lived and travelled to Hong Kong a number of times, so sometimes the content can be quite random.
In addition, I have long loved Cantonese culture and cuisine, so these might make more appearances on this category. I am saddened by the decline in the film and music production sectors.
I tend to avoid discussing local politics, and the external influence of China’s interference in said politics beyond how it relates to business and consumer behaviour in its broadest context.
Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Apple Daily launched a new ad format that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in branding as well as Hong Kong.
If there are subjects that you think would fit with this category of the blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.
Ben Liebrand has been a name for as long as I have been buying records. According to Discogs; he has remixes that have appeared on over 800 albums, compilations and singles. This tells you a lot about the quality and longevity of his remixes. Dutch YouTuber Twan scored an interview with Ben Liebrand where he talks about his career.
Lunar new year adverts
WPP showcased work that had been done across their network for Chinese new year 2021. There was a mix of work there, some of it felt like WPP was having to do the creative equivalent of looking under the sofa cushions for change. For instance, Superunion showcased a browser game that they had built as a corporate greetings card for lunar new year. WaveMaker did a transport media buy branding a train interior for a hard candy brand. This could have been executed better. Yes it makes sense to drive awareness in high footfall areas, but shopping for lunar new year presents is usually done before travelling. Secondly, COVID meant that travelling home was discouraged; what was WaveMaker’s plan B for this scenario. Finally, the dressing of the train could have been done more creatively and involved more of a festive feeling.
The highlight was a Mercedes Benz advert by Ogilvy shot by Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar wai – the film taps into the emotion that surrounds Chinese New Year. This mirrors the emotive brief that Mercedes Benz pursued in their US Christmas ad campaigns over the past few years.
Ogilvy’s work for KFC China taps into the increasing interest in winter sports that is driven by the forthcoming winter olympics in Beijing.
I was surprised that there was no Ogilvy work showcased from outside China, for instance Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan or Hong Kong.
Machine learning stagnation
Despite all the technology hype around deep learning, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors that conceals what innovation is happening in the field. The essay shows current machine learning development culture. The original essay is here and a video review of the Machine Learning Stagnation essay. Despite the title its a bit more uplifting than it implies.
Retro Japan footage
Yet more great stock footage from Japan in the 1980s. The first one is set to ambient music and shows everyday live in the town and country, alongside TV and film footage. Some of the footage seems to be near a US base. The significance of US cars in the footage is that they used to be popular with the yakuza – Japan’s native organised crime families.
Fremantle Media have Thames TV’s complete archives including this b-roll of Japanese signage. They claim its Tokyo but some of it looks more like Osaka. It is a symphony of neon that Japan still does the best. It is worthwhile going through Fremantle’s b-roll archive if you’re an art director because of the variety of material that they have.
China and the UK test HSBC Bank divided loyalties in Hong Kong — Quartz – If HSBC Bank were to spin off its China operations, it wouldn’t be the first bank to reconfigure its ties due to a changed political situation. In the 1980s, the British banks Barclays and Standard Chartered pulled out of direct operations in South Africa amid global pressure against the apartheid regime. The bank’s actions “highlighted…the fact that financial institutions were not unassailable when faced with public pressure on ethical issues. HSBC Bank is betting that the screwing China will give it is still better than the west, more from the FT here: HSBC Bank shifts ‘heart of business’ to Asia in latest strategy revamp | Financial Times
Book Review: Rural Youth Key to China’s Human Capital Crisis – Caixin Global – Rural China is so systematically neglected that it has become nearly invisible not only to most outside observers but even to urban elites within China. But this “invisible” part of China will determine its economic future. Instead of sitting in an ivory tower advising Chinese officials what to do, the authors and their team at Stanford University’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP) have been helping China’s rural youth on the ground in practical and realistic ways
Exclusive: Scientists at top British universities worked with Chinese nuclear weapons researchers – Scientists at Britain’s leading universities – including Cambridge, Edinburgh and Manchester – have worked on a string of projects with researchers at China’s nuclear weapons research institution – it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were helping the Chinese build a new generation of warheads but its not a good look
Consumer behaviour
Cultural Differences May Affect The Outcome Of A Pandemic: New Research : Goats and Soda : NPR – Tight cultures tend to have had a lot of threat in their histories from Mother Nature, like disasters, famine and pathogen outbreaks, and non-natural threats such as invasions on their territory. And the idea is when you have a lot of collective threat you need strict rules. They help people coordinate and predict each other’s behavior. So, in a sense, you can think about it from an evolutionary perspective that following rules helps us to survive chaos and crisis
Notice, Shift, and Rewire: Starting the Journey to Dismantle White Supremacy | by Anna Madill | Feb, 2021 | B The Change – interesting read. What struck me is how much this goes against efficiency and effectiveness in terms of everything one would have been taught in business management, to focus on what I’d call internal quality. It is predicated on a sufficiently slow rate of environmental change / client demands in order to allow this to happen. It is an ideal work environment (and I don’t mean that in the terms that they define it) but in a more general sense. It goes against the grain of the observations of James Gleick in his work Faster
Nexta media operation and its role in the Belarus protests was the main article in this weekend’s FT magazine.
FT magazine on Nexta
A few things about the article. The old maxim of ‘hearts and minds‘ is still true despite technology. Secondly, Belarus seems to view media and propaganda as a tactic rather than something strategic. This surprised me given that Belarus has always been authoritarian in nature and Soviet in terms of the way it operated. It is at odds with the way countries like Vietnam and China operate.
Finally, the irony that the smartphone is the instrument of protest. Nexta seem surprisingly well organised in a way that wasn’t seen with voices around the Hong Kong protests.
YouTube has a lot of digitised archive footage. First up is unused footage shot in 1962 filmed for a Pathé film This is Hong Kong.
The next reel was shot six years later. Again it was footage that ended up on the cutting room floor of Pathé. The footage was shot for one of its Colour Pictorial episodes. These were film magazines that screened prior to the main feature film in a cinema. Television would be soon squeezing cinema as the main form of video based news and documentaries.
Some of this footage was familiar to me from my times going and living in Hong Kong, whilst other aspects of it were unrecognisable. Both of these films reminded me of Miroslav Sasek’s book This is Hong Kong.
Japan
This footage is said to be taken in Tokyo, Osaka and the countryside in Japan during the 1980s. Though the airplane through bamboo scaffolding footage from 0.23 – 0.25 seems to have been taken on the run in to Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport. Some of it is beautifully shot.
It is underpinned by a an ambient track that works really well.
ASICS have put together a film to promote the shoe.
Berocca integration of radio and voice services
Finally Berocca did an innovative radio advert to take advantage of voice services as part of its radio advertising campaign. Alexa has a well documented API stack for building skills, which is what Berocca is encouraging consumers to use. I could see this happening more as Alexa is rolled out in automotive environments.
How Klarna’s pastel pink exterior began to crack | Dazed – Klarna isn’t new technology, its unsecured financing. Once you scratch beneath Klarna’s technology veneer you realise that Klarna is like pre-internet business like a shopkeepers lay away or the catalogue agents who used to work for Freemans and Littlewoods. Previously the catalogue companies were vertically integrated with retailing and consumer finance. Now Klarna does the unsecured consumer finance, de-risking the retail business. But this business model leaves Klarna with all the risks. Klarna also has age-old problems regarding fraud. I am also concerned about the consumer debt risk that Klarna represents.
Ex-officials, academics call for US to work with Europe to counter China | South China Morning Post – “A road map for US-Europe cooperation on China”, published by the Paul Tsai China Centre at Yale Law School on Wednesday, the experts said steps needed to be taken as an “urgent priority” in six key areas: trade, technology, human rights, climate, pandemic plans, and reform of international institutions
Dead poet rekindles cultural feud between South Korea and China ｜ Apple Daily – “There is general consensus that Yun is Korean and it is not in dispute,” he said, adding that “the Chinese hegemony is imposing its values on South Koreans.” – first trying to steal kimchi, now trying to steal Korean patriots; the Chinese government has no shame
The China challenge | Financial Times – the interesting thing is the way China is co-opting Goldman Sachs and others as a fifth columnist hook into the US until they have their digital currency ready to challenge the dollar as global reserve currency
Is The Role of Digital Becoming Obsolete Within Luxury Companies? – recent changes at the top level management at LVMH may signal a wider move within the luxury industry to move away from “digital transformation” and a shift towards a “total immersion” in their business.
Adam Curtis knows why we all keep falling for conspiracy theories | WIRED UK best read with The China model has come to America – Asia Times – Far too few Americans grasp the implications of such a view taking root among their own elite. Though more and more Americans are awakening to the challenges inherent in China’s growing economic, technological, and military capabilities, few understand the threat that China’s governing philosophy and structures pose to the US. – assumes that US philosophy will stand on its own merits, or in other words magical thinking or a blind spot
1 in 12 Irish people access radio on digital devices | RTÉ – About 8% of the population, or 330,000 people, listen each day using a digital device, the report found. Just under 5% listen via a mobile device, 2% on a PC and around 1.5% on a Smart Speaker and the remainder on a TV set or DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting). – 77% on FM. This makes sense given high car ownership, poor mobile coverage and slow progress of DAB head units in cars
China eyes ‘virtual production’ technique used in The Mandalorian to help local film industry catch up to Hollywood in visual effects | South China Morning Post – the scenes were not shot on location, on a movie set, or using a green screen. They were filmed in front of a giant LED wall display that could project an imaginary world as one that appears real to the audience. Known as “virtual production”, the digital background are generated in real time by a powerful computing game engine, allowing filmmakers to combine live-action footage with visual effects in real time. The technology could revolutionise filmmaking because real world settings can be replaced. China, with more than 20 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) of box office revenue in 2020, is known for its theme parks across the country that double as locations for film shoots. In the town of Hengdian in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, for instance, the so-called “movie city” built a replica of the Forbidden City for filmmaking
Facebook Meets Apple in Clash of the Tech Titans—‘We Need to Inflict Pain’ – WSJ – The war of words and ideas will ultimately play out in court, regulatory agencies and user decisions as both companies defend themselves against antitrust investigations. The potential regulatory settlements and legal decisions are likely to affect hundreds of millions of consumers’ phones in coming years. A Facebook spokeswoman, Dani Lever, said the choice between personalized services and privacy was a “false trade-off,” and that Facebook provides both. “This is not about two companies. This is about the future of the free internet,” she said, asserting that small businesses, app developers and consumers lose out under Apple’s new rules. “Apple claims this is about privacy, but it’s about profit, and we’re joining others to point out their self-preferencing, anticompetitive behavior.” – spoken like a true sociopath
February 12, is CNY 2021 (Chinese new year 2021); based on the lunar calendar. It is the year of the ox, the second animal in the Chinese zodiac cycle. It is celebrated by people of Chinese heritage around the world.
Some of the best creative in Asia comes out of the new year campaigns. Here are some of this years.
China spring festival adverts
I find it hard to find many good CNY 2021 adverts this year. Two consistent top performers are adidas and Apple.
adidas has an advert that’s part of an app-driven multi-channel experience. Hence why the call to action at the end of the ad is the app. App driven e-commerce by the big sports leisure apparel brands. Nike has the ‘Nike’ app and SNKRS aimed at streetwear fans. Some of the more exclusive shoes are only available to purchase on SNKRS.
adidas seems to be taking a similar line in China. The clothing presented is sports fashion in nature. adidas is also clever in the way it taps into Chinese culture with this app.
adidas used gamification tactics to improve digital engagement and strengthen the brand salience with target segments, especially sports and street culture fans.
The campaign consumer insights were:
Going beyond the Chinese New Year tradition of sharing wishes for good luck and good fortune. The brand took this in an engaging direction by showing audiences how they could honour their blessings and make wishes come true through their actions. This is something that that many Chinese take for granted
Many Chinese move back from the big city to smaller towns, the visuals of the ad draw on visual elements and atmosphere of a small town Chinese new year.
https://youtu.be/HDyx2_MS8SE
Apple has released a ‘Shot on an iPhone’ Chinese new year themed advert this year. This follows on from similar mini-movies that it has done in previous years by partnering with well known film makers. This year Apple turned to Chinese film maker Lulu Wang to reinterpret an old Chinese folk tale with a modern twist. The folk tale is related to Chinese new year celebrations.
https://youtu.be/t-9YuIg7R1I
Lulu Wang for Apple Inc. – Nian
And there is a making of the film here
https://youtu.be/9pHO5hpgj7k
Apple Inc.
Chinese video platform Kuaishou decided to make a Chinese new year film. (Kuaishou is a direct competitor to Douyin – the China specific version of TikTok.) The story was based on the real stories shared by Kuaishou users. The worked with film maker Jia Zhangke who had worked with Apple two years earlier on their Chinese new year film.
For those that would be normally travelling home at this time of year, the film given added poignancy, given China’s restrictions on travel over the Chinese new year period to try and combat resurgent COVID-19 outbreaks.
A honourable mention to H&M which I haven’t been able to find in a format to share online.
Hong Kong CNY 2021 adverts
The CNY 2021 themed ads are symptomatic of a couple of things:
Masks have established themselves as strong consumer brands. This has manifested itself in both retail presence and advertising
Budgets have been constrained by two years of economic declines, which explains some of ads low production values
Chinese new year revolves around food and indulgence rather like Thanksgiving or Christmas in the west. On Kee Dry Seafood Co., Ltd sell abalone and other delicacies. Given that Hong Kong has been in a recession even before COVID-19 – discretionary spend is under pressure.
On Kee Dry Seafood Co., Ltd
What surprised me about this advert how much it looked as if it has been shot in a studio (look at the ‘retail product range’ shots around the 14 second mark to see what I mean. But any firm that is investing in its brand during a recession deserves the respect of marketers.
Sun Shun Fuk Food Co. Ltd are a competitor to On Kee and have managed to come up with a shorter 15 second spot, but with higher production values. 15 second ads are hard, trying to get creative to land the messages in the creative and still have time for the brand compulsory pack shot and strap line on the end. I think they’ve done a good job with this.
Sun Shun Fuk Food Co. Ltd
HealthMe Plus put together a sub-30 second spot for its seasonal children’s masks. If you had asked me if this would have happened 12 months ago, I’d have said absolutely not. The effect of major brands like Solvay and 3M to meet consumer demand has allowed local champion mask brands to spring up.
The music takes me back to hearing The Chieftains in China album as a child. And more recently, when I’ve visited or lived in Hong Kong, the local supermarket muzak during the run up to Chinese new year.
McDonald’s Hong Kong innovate a lot more than their UK counterparts. A case in point being their Chinese new year menu with special burgers and curly fries. The Chinese new year menu features a Hello Kitty tie-in on packaging (and likely a soft toy giveaway, if you collect enough tokens). The 15-second spot isn’t anything special unless you’re a diehard Hello Kitty fan.
McDonald’s Hong Kong
McDonald’s Hong Kong
McDonald’s Hong Kong
I particularly like the seasonal ‘red envelopes’ that celebrate the different aspects of the McDonald’s Chinese new year menu.
Malaysia Chinese new year adverts
Malaysia is impressive for the quality of the ads, particularly given the country’s economic performance before and during COVID-19.
The most impressive set of adverts for me so far have been done by Malaysian power company Tenaga Nasional Berhad. It is based on the same folk tale that Apple China adapted for their advert. There is a five minute film, a ten second and 30 second trailer to maximise impact. It feels like a mini Stephen Chow film.
TENAGA
Grab is similar to Uber, it does transport, food ordering and food delivery. Grab like Singapore’s Singtel builds on successful ads from last year. It mixes Chinese New Year with the tropes of a kung fu movie like the Grab book of Tai Chi. The production values on it are very high.
Grab Malaysia
Traditional Chinese medicine brand focuses on family in their engaging minute film.
Eu Yan Sang
Yakult is a six minute drama that is very now. A mother misses her daughter who is coming apart at the seams working in a challenging environment at a hospital. In the end they come together over food virtually.
Yakult – Miles apart, but close at heart
Mercedes-Benz went with telling a heart-warming story rather than trying to have a product hero. At 1 minute, the film seems extravagant compared to some of the ones I have been looking at this year. It plays on the mix of happiness and awkwardness that happens during family gatherings like Christmas or Thanksgiving in the west. The overlapping family banter is done really well and the code switching feels very natural.
Mercedes-Benz
Samsung Malaysia came out with Chinese New Year story for the COVID era, that is as much about relating with the audience as it is pushing product – although technology helps stave off the worst of a dystopian present.
Lego created an ad with local online personality Danny Ahboy as the protagonist. It was interesting that they focused on nostalgia and had an all-adult ensemble, apart from the flashback scenes.
https://youtu.be/Iqv_EKlWKaA
The Lego Group
Malaysian mobile phone carrier Celcom went with an uplifting message and artfully crafted b-roll, to show how Malaysians in the past faced adversity together with the bonds strengthened by Chinese new year festivities.
Celcom
It’s not necessarily the most memorable campaign, but it wins points for not putting the brand front and centre in the creative, and instead is a hymn to their stakeholders.
The biggest surprise for me was Coca-Cola who have down a relatively safe route with their Have a little celebration with big meanings together, but its a 15 second spot which creatively very restrictive. I found this especially surprising, given how long Coca-Cola stopped its media spend for in 2020. I would have thought that they would need to spend on brand salience at this time.
The Coca-Cola Company
Singapore CNY 2021 adverts
Singapore telecoms carrier Singtel has consistently done great Chinese new year themed adverts. This is a sequel to their CNY 2020 campaign. This year the hero product is 5G connectivity. It’s a mini cinematic production clocking in at 6 minutes. But it pays the audience back for their attention with drama, comedy and a heart warming ending.
Singtel
Mobile e-commerce platform Shopee came up with an ad to target shopping for CNY gift giving. It is the kind of ear worm song that is likely to stick with you from childhood, well into adult life and trigger nostalgia down the road. So a potentially great brand building vehicle.
Shopee Singapore
Uniqlo Singapore goes after COVID-19 head on, it treats this brand tribute to the spirit of Chinese new year as a look book. Check out the dancing Grandma. The staging of it makes clear that it’s an everyman tale. The story plays out in a well maintained HDB flat.
Fast Retailing
CNY 2021 advert conclusions
For CNY 2021, across all the countries that I looked at, there were signs that advertisers budgets seem to be hurting. I have looked at this for a few years and never seen as many spots done on just a 15-second execution before. Especially given the opportunity that Chinese new year gives to get consumer spend and built brand salience.
Imagine the John Lewis Christmas ad, or the Coca-Cola holidays are coming creative treatments as just 15 second spots?
The Coca-Cola Company
Storytelling becomes much harder. The planner has to craft a tighter brief and the creatives have to work harder to just get a good result, let alone a great result.
A friend of mine once said that there might be a correlation between the amount of presents featured in a John Lewis Christmas ad and the likely retail performance during the holiday. I think we can draw a similar heuristic between 15 second spots and likely business performance.
More information on past Chinese new year celebrations
