Ged Carroll

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.

  • Montblanc + more things

    Montblanc

    Montblanc launches connected pen and paper | Luxury Daily – interesting move by Montblanc. The technology for connected pens similar to what Montblanc is doing has been around for a while. However it is interesting seeing a luxury brand like Montblanc enter the field. Montblanc has also done interesting things in wearables as well.

    Business

    Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert – WSJ

    Culture

    A great documentary on the (little known in the UK) early 1990s US rave scene that blossomed on the west coast and gave us the likes of Hawke, The God Within aka Scott Hardkiss, Onionz and the like.

    Design

    The last day of hot metal press printing at the New York Times

    Media

    WeChat and Brands | WeChat Blog: Chatterbox – Caesars Entertainment and interesting concierge bot trial

    Evolving App Store Business Models – David Smith – move to ads from payments or subscription pricing

    Security

    Cisco’s Network Bugs Are Front and Center in Bankruptcy Fight – Bloomberg – and there is the opportunity for other vendors to get in

    Now for a more disturbing piece of technology, that my colleague Matt shared with me: OfferMoments looks like a privacy nightmare a la Minority Report. I found this a disturbing 90 seconds of viewing as marketing walks all over privacy in an unprompted very intrusive manner.

    Software

    Instagram lawyers tell owner of anti-litter app to change its name | The Guardian – interesting move, will this open the door for them to go after the likes of Telegram (messaging app) later on

    Wireless

    Un-carrier Network List of Firsts | TelecomTV Tracker – summary of T-Mobile US rollouts

    Apple Plug – neatly skewers the iPhone 7

  • Frankfurt + more things

    I spent a good bit of time in Frankfurt this week, working with one of our clients on demystifying analytics and trying to put in frameworks out which they could get actionable insights. Being in Frankfurt was more exciting than the previous sentence makes it sound and great to meet people in person that I had only dealt with by phone or email.

    Untitled

    Japan-ized Cities: Surrealistic “Worldwide Tokyo-lization Project” – it gives you a good idea of how information-rich the urban landscapes of Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo are in comparison. More on Japan related issues here.

    I love this video: Salute – Storm

    Clint and Scott Eastwood: No Holds Barred in Their First Interview Together | Esquire – Clint Eastwood’s interview split people along political lines, but the sense you get of him not being beholden to anyone is something to admire.

    Eastwood is probably the last generation to really think about physical expansion. California didn’t really come into its own until a post war migration to it as GIs demobbed. In some ways he is a connection to the cowboys that he ended up portraying in the southern Spanish deserts of Almería, villages in Sardinia or just outside Rome.

    The Designers Republic Remembered – Creative Review – TDR didn’t necessarily do great graphic design, in reality it was more like art. As art, I think that their work ranks highly. It is hard to imagine the cultural impact that TDR had on UK design through to the early 2000s. You saw it in night club flyers, record sleeves, merchandise, video and web 1.0 design.

  • The QRcode post

    A few years ago, I was involved in a project that used a QRcode across OOH (out of home) activity for a retail launch. We had it on advertising hoardings and on the back of public transport.  QRcode scanners varied in performance. In addition you had to think about:

    • Contrast – did the code stand out?
    • Relative aspect – would it be too big or too small for the audience to scan?

    In the UK, the QRcode is seen by marketers as old hat (but then marketers and consumers in Europe didn’t ‘get’ them in the same way that their peers in Asia did). Many people don’t really understand how to use them.

    Early adopters downloaded QRcode readers. But now, due to the uptake in Asian usage we will see QRcode reader function build into the phone operating system instead.
    QRcode 101
    Above is the picture of the local cafe around the corner from my office. The QRcode contrast is just ok, but the glyph is too disjointed. I am not too sure if this is by design, or due to a poorly maintained inkjet printer.  The image is too blurred for devices to read. I asked a member of staff about it and he told me that he thought it was some type of logo…

    More on QRcodes here.

  • June 2016 research slides

    Here is a copy of the slides that I pull together (when I have the time) of publicly available data that would be of use. This is the June 2016 research slides.

    Google search volumes

    This month I have some new data around search which came from disclosures at Google I/O in terms of search volumes. We talk about social as if search has gone out of style but its growth is still staggering. This is now driven by mobile device penetration and adoption as computing devices on the go. It also speaks to the wider number of questions that search now answers. It used to be that search answered with ‘facts’ found online. It then became more contextual with shortcuts that gave you the weather forecast or a foreign exchange rate. Mobile moved this on further to items like local recommendations.

    Partly through the search box, but also by more meta detail about the device doing the searching and its location to within a few metres due to GPS and cell tower triangulation. Voice interaction has also started to impact search volume. Image driven search still seems to be an area that could drive much more potential search volume, that would be valuable for commerce.
    Google global search volume
    Looking at global search revenue over time, Google’s monopoly position becomes immediately apparent. It is amazing how Bing and Yahoo! haven’t managed to grow market share but just transfer value from one to the other. In the Chinese market, Sohu has been obliterated with Baidu search. But one does have to wonder about the value of web search, when so much internet usage now happens in the WeChat eco-system.
    Global Search Revenues
    More details about me here.
    Slide20

    Full presentation

    Full presentation available for download as a PDF on Slideshare and you can find more research related posts here.

  • Hong Kong Strong

    Brandon Li put his short film Hong Kong Strong on Vimeo last week. The video sprang up all over my Facebook feed as proud Hong Kongers shared the video. There were a number of things happening. The Hong Kong Tourist Board was having its strategy and spend challenged by some of the public and Wan Chai was shut down as a senior Chinese official arrived in the city for a three-day inspection.

    Why does Li’s Hong Kong Strong work? Its a beautiful piece of film in its own right and its cleverly edited. But you can see films with similar production values to Hong Kong Strong all over YouTube and Vimeo. 

    I think that the answer lies in the strong sense of place that it provides the viewer. In this respect it reminded me of Hollywood director John Ford’s The Quiet Man. Ford’s real name was Feeney and he was a first generation Irish American. His parents were from the west of Ireland (Galway and the Arran Islands respectively).

    As with great art Ford poured some of himself and his sense of place into the mawkish comedy. That lack of irony and love the old country saw the film become a touchstone for many Irish Americans. 

    Hong Kong is a largely thriving city but the sense of itself is under attack as the city state is absorbed by mainland China, that process has caused a dissonance in Hong Kongers which is why a film with a strong sense of place resonated so much. Hong Kong Strong captures not only what Hong Kong looks like, but also the energy and vitality of what Hong Kong is. 

    Brandon accompanied the video with a description of how it was made. The film was boiled down from over 1.7TB of rushes.

    For more Hong Kong related commentary click here.