Category: hong kong | 香港 | 홍콩 | 香港

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.

BMW NEXTGen & things that made the week
BMW NEXTGen event included a concept car the BMW Vision M Next. What I found most interesting about this is how BMW whilst looking forward with the i8 and the M Next; is still stuck with designs resembling the Giorgetto Giugiaro designed M1(E26) of the late 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a pre-teen my ideal car would have looked like the BASF sponsored M1 track car with the spiral paint work. It would have been nextgen for my pre-teen self, in the same way that the future also looked like a Star Trek communicator. Though our current smartphones would look nextgen to the original Star Trek set and prop designers.

Here’s what the M Next looks like (© Copyright BMW AG, München, Deutschland.)

Which raise an interesting question. From a branding perspective does iconic legacy design make it harder to draw a line under one technology as you transition to another? We have various bias’ in our expectations, some of which BMW have tried to challenge with the sonic experience in their cars. I’d argue that they need to think about this outside the vehicles as well. From a safety perspective and because part of driving a BMW is being ‘seen’ to drive the marque.

I think that there’s still work to be done by BMW and other manufacturers on getting their arms about the future of performance from a brand perspective, for a post-ICE (internal combustion engine) age.

Abacus (a tech media publication from the South China Morning Post) has channeled the Pixel Boys to come up with a way of trying to make the Chinese tech sector make sense to foreigners. China Tech City | Abacus is well worth checking out.

In an era when there is a chance that Jeremy Corbin could be a prime minster in waiting should a general election come along, And I speak with people who profess to be MacBook totting communists. I am surprised that Marxman haven’t seen a resurgence in popularity. I randomly came across this great interview of them by a French TV programme around about the time their first album broke.

Hong Kong’s leaderless movement against the Chinese extradition law (or their CIA paymasters if you believe the Chinese government) have been doing some really nice creative to rally internal and international audiences to their cause. There were print ads that ran in the newspapers of many G20 countries and video content. Taking the politics to one side for a moment, just look at the craft in this video. At the time I have written this has been dubbed into:
- Taiwanese variant of Chinese
- Dutch
- English
- French
- German
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Italian
- Japanese
- Nepali
- Norwegian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Tagalog
It makes Led By Donkeys look a poor effort in comparison.

Bubble tea shops are opening around London outside of the usual China town locations. It’s success is in a sharp contrast to the likes of Jamies and Patisserie Valerie chains recent closures. Bubble tea actually came out of Taiwan in the late 1980s and London has been way behind in adopting the drink. Asian Boss tracked down the Taiwanese inventor of bubble tea Lin Hsiu Hui (of Chun Shui Tang) and the interview is great.
June 29, 2019
John Shaft & things that made last week

Samuel L Jackson has a second go at playing re-conned blaxploitation private investigator John Shaft. This time it seems to be a bit more self conscious and ironic in tonality. Think Jackson’s first outing as John Shaft mixed with Snakes on a Plane

Gillette Spain comes up with an advert that looks at masculinity without offending their customer base with heavy handed patronising messaging or ‘brandsplaining’ as I like to think of it.

https://youtu.be/A5PHG9AHdhk

A couple of weeks ago I showed the controversal advert featuring William Chan to promote Chanel’s J12 watch. There are parodies across the web of Chan’s Chinglish and general weirdness of the ad. This is my favourite one.

Singapore newspaper TODAYonline | In Hong Kong, foreign maids are racing to reclaim their voices – foreign domestic helpers live outside society and at worst they are horribly mistreated, suffer from loneliness or are victimised with scams and MLM schemes. It’s great to see a positive story about this community managing to do fantastic achievements on their own terms.

What we’d know as Eid in the UK, is known in Malaysia and Singapore as Hari Raya. You get seasonal tentpole ad campaigns. Here are some of the ones that I liked the most.

Happy Hari Raya!

June 7, 2019
Swatch and Brexit + more
Swatch and Brexit

Swatch have been doing some interesting things around personalisation of watch design, but Swatch and Brexit feels like a leap too far. They’ve got a really nice user experience in the web interface, which makes this a disappointing post to make. I do wonder about who they think Swatch and Brexit is actually aimed at? What other fashion or luxury brand has looked to exploit Brexit like a tawdry souvenir seller?

More Beyond campaign

Cathay Pacific – Move Beyond campaign might have passed by without a mention for me for a number of reasons.
- It doesn’t say anything new, but reaffirms the Cathay Pacific that I’ve known and loved to fly with
- It’s very much a campaign designed to top up brand awareness and consideration for the airline which has taken some brand knocks at home and declining awareness abroad
- It’s about brand purpose, which seems to be a hygiene factor at the moment. More on that from Mark Ritson. I am not sure that Cathay Pacific’s brand purpose passes Ritson’s test of being prepared to stick with the brand purpose, even when it costs money – like when they moved away from having the Mandarin Oriental handling lounge catering…
Creatively its nice. A generic, safe looking brand film with catalogue corporate video backing track. I know Jack Scott shot it and some of the cinematography is nice (that word again), the colouring of the film is on point for money well spent. As an audience member it is pleasant enough to watch drift by, but not necessarily enough to spike a change

In fact, if it wasn’t for the MTR (Hong Kong’s equivalent of London Underground and Overground) and Hong Kong International Airport outdoor advertising it would be utterly forgettable. One of the print posters has a couple of clothed men holding hands running on a beach. An ideal compromise between a socially conservative society and western virtue signalling.

The poster wasn’t initially allowed to run on the MTR or in Hong Kong International. I heard some murmurings of China’s dark shadow casting a censoring hand on the posters – by westerners on social media. To be honest, they’d be more concerned about dealing with free speech, Falun Gong supporters, the Hong Kong independence movement rather than homosexuals being encouraged to walk on a beach in business smart suits.

Instead the reality is more mundane. A minority of Hong Kongers: Taoists, Buddhists, the non-religious and Christians alike are a bit ‘mid western American’ about the gay community. There is an obvious tension between deeply-held beliefs, the longevity of the family through children and grandchildren. Thankfully, the LGBT community and straight supporters managed to have the ban reconsidered.

William Chan Chinglish

I am guessing that Chanel has insights to show that women buy its J12 watches, whether as a gift for someone else or themselves. William Chan is an interesting brand ambassador choice in this video. There is criticism in the YouTube comments on his pronunciation and ‘Chinglish’. It also feels a bit too ‘sweet’ to me. At least he’s a good boy who loves his Mum.

Royyal Dog

Asian Boss put together this great documentary on Royyal Dog – Korea’s top graffiti artist.

Sony

Lastly I found this amazing corporate film by Sony of their corporate history that I guess was shot in the early-to-mid-1970s. The manufacturing process, in particular test and measurement being so labour intensive is fascinating. The 5 inch micro-TV set is a beautiful piece of product design, as is the early Trinitron TV set. The hi-fi equipment is achingly beautiful. Well worth watching it from start-to-finish. More Sony content here.
May 26, 2019
Protect Hong Kong heritage + more

Officials in unprecedented move to protect Hong Kong’s heritage by creating new system to save modern buildings from developers’ wrecking ball | South China Morning Post – potentially big move, it would be interesting to see how this goes down with the developers. Protect Hong Kong heritage as a concept has picked up momentum over past few years. A point of inflection was the demolition of Queen’s Pier in 2007 as part of land reclamation work in Central. The bigger issue is that the support to protect Hong Kong heritage would be seen by the mainland authorities as an inherently political movement looking to cling to old colonial ways. More on Hong Kong here.

Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club upended the shaving industry — then conglomerates snapped them up – Axios – former Treasury secretary Larry Summers quotes on Twitter were very interesting. They reflect on a challenge that European tech start ups have faced for decades: “This article is as vivid an example as I have seen of the need for an overhaul of US antitrust. If this can be happening in shaving industry, problems may be pervasive even outside technology. The interesting question is how much of the problem is failed enforcement of existing law and how much is that existing law needs to be altered. I suspect the former. You do not have to have a broad new theory of antitrust to be appalled by these developments. They look terrible for consumer welfare.”

Google may decide to charge for Google My Business listings – Search Engine Land – you have to wonder about this. Google for years beat up Yahoo!, Kelkoo etc over paid inclusion

Analysis: Edelman ‘Undaunted’ Amid Perfect Storm | Holmes Report – interesting read, if a rather naive view of what ad agencies do now

Planning tool: 100 Ideas On Tiny Budgets – Planning Dirty – something that I helped out on. Handy for planners (Google Slides)

A Mysterious Hacker Group Is On a Supply Chain Hijacking Spree | WIRED – surprised that this hasn’t happened more often

Opinion | Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby – The New York Times – of course Nike hates women, look at their manufacturing practices, this sponsorship story should be no surprise as it fits into a wider narrative. But they love female consumers who buy Nike

A History of Competition: The Impact of Antitrust on Hong Kong’s Telecommunications Markets | Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal – I’ve only got part way through this but interesting reading for anyone working on clients in the Hong Kong mobile provider market (PDF)

K-pop’s rise in China is fueling fears of a masculinity crisis | Quartz – I suspect that a lot of this is government agenda driven. A bit like the notion of ‘leftover women’. ‘Masculine’ hiphop culture also poses a problem

SoundCloud » Share new music on SoundCloud directly to Instagram Stories – this makes a lot of sense when you think about how music marketing has become much more data centric and meme driven. Old Town Road: The Best Entertainment Case Study of 2019 Lil Nas X being the poster child of this

May 17, 2019
Cathay ticketing error + more things

Cathay ticketing error … again: first-class fares at tenth of original price – Is there problems in Cathay’s Pacific backend algorithm that is causing the Cathay ticketing error? This is the second time that a Cathay ticketing error has happened recently. More related posts here.

NGT48 pop idol Maho Yamaguchi’s apology for home assault sparks outrage at Japanese victim-blaming | South China Morning Post – A Japanese girl group pop star gets assaulted in her own home by a crazed fan. She is then made to apologise by her management company for the whole incident. So reading between the lines management are likely to be scum bags, possibility connected to the criminal underworld, if not a yakuza family. The yakuza historically have had strong links to the entertainment industry. Periodically there is a scandal where photos of entertainers mingling with Yakuza appear in the media

2019 Predictions | The Daily | Gartner L2 – no surprise on the Amazon predictions. Amazon has little incentive to buy legacy retailers as its advantages comes from the lack of legacy infrastructure and people. Amazon’s increase in value makes sense due to its cloud computing market share, and increase in share of basket and performance advertising.

Qualcomm CEO defends chip licensing business in FTC trial – CNET – Qualcomm’s “no license, no chips” policy is at the heart of the FTC’s case against Qualcomm, which lawyers are arguing before Judge Lucy Koh in US District Court in San Jose this month. Mollenkopf was among the witnesses who testified on Friday. Under the policy, companies must license Qualcomm’s patents before it will sell them chips. Qualcomm customers, such as Apple, don’t like that one bit.

Hong Kong-based online travel agent Zuji, now without a licence, unable to operate | South China Morning Post – just wow, I remember when Zuji was a hot start-up. Like European countries Hong Kong startups have challenges when they are up against competitors with scale.

January 15, 2019