CAN HONG KONG EVER BE COOL AND RELEVANT?

The above question depends on how well you know Hong Kong, and also how little you know the city.

I personally think extremely few know either. 

Is Hong Kong a cool city to visit or live in today? I don’t think it is. But does it matter? Was it ever cool? 

Did it and does it need to be? 

I would think so. It’s what we in advertising call a product or brand personality.

When Hong Kong was quickly finding its feet from being a barren rock to become something truly unique, there was only one international hotel in the city- the Hong Kong Hilton. 

My dad worked there in Banqueting, Mr Ken Moss was the General Manager, and having the Hilton brand in the city suddenly started attracting many of the legends of Hollywood in the Sixties and paved the way for Hong Kong to enter the Seventies and be part of the disco boom of the naughty Eighties. 

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It’s hard to believe that us school kids in Hong Kong got to see the Chairman of the Board performing at the City Hall for HK $1. He also visited the city’s oldest orphanage Po Leung Kuk and spent time with the kids. Frank Sinatra was an amazing human being.

They met up by chance in June of 1977 when John was on his way to Japan and Bowie was performing in Hong Kong. I remember that John was staying at the Mandarin Oriental and booked in as Dr Winston O’ Boogie, one of his most used pseudonyms. There’s quite a well known story of a certain music executive seeing someone very familiar walking around Tsimshatsui East wearing a John Lennon t-shirt. He’s supposed to have walked up and asked, “Are you John Lennon?” to which Dr Winston O’Boogie replied with something like “I get that all the time”.

Steve McQueen spent quite a bit of time in Hong Kong and always stayed at the Hong Kong Hilton where my Dad worked. They became friends whereas the actor became a fan, friend and student of the great Bruce Lee.

Have always wondered who these girls were and where they are now. This was when the Beatles performed in Hong Kong with Jimmy Nicol deputising for Ringo who was recuperating after having had his tonsils removed. The Beatles performed for about half an hour and were okay. Opening act Sounds Incorporated were GREAT!!!

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So, if someone has experienced the vibe of Hong Kong in the Sixties, leading into the Eighties, everything hip, and cool was happening here.

Reminding and educating this story through the marketing and advertising of all this is so important to the ongoing Hong Kong story though those who weren’t part of it will think otherwise.

Hong Kong today? Well, it’s hardly seen as being “cool”, but more of a middle aged safety net that’s predictable and perhaps better than living in most other cities. 

Then again, Cool and the Rebirth of Cool is a state of mind, and it really is about life choices and where you are the most comfortable- and with whom and what.  

Forget about me and my generation who have seen and been around 3-4 decades of Coolness, and are now staring down a barrel of being much older and quasi cool blandness. 

As I have often said and written, people make a city what it is, and they give it a brand personality. 

Something like a true brand personality is not going to come from the government or business leaders like Alan Zeman, below with Eric Trump, or the “transformation” of the Hong Kong Jockey Club and its budding bromance and united partnership with X1X Entertainment that I brought together. 

This brand personality mentioned really isn’t going to happen from any of these entities because it’s the usual rigid and fluffy Corporate Speak and ideas for a different generation coming from a generation that might have already had its time in the sun and are sunburned.

What all of the above will most likely bring to the table will be events- very nice, but will this be more chop suey that’s here today and fried rice tomorrow?

When creating the Happy Wednesday brand for the HKJC with support from the Club’s CEO, well that was almost 14 years ago, and it’s a minor miracle that it succeeded for well over a decade when thinking about the team inherited.

Then again, it was a different Hong Kong back then and we made the pieces fit with a very limited marketing budget. 

Money never buys ideas, and what we made happen was thanks especially to the young and entrepreneurial European community living in Sheung Wan who brought a newness to an old background, became Happy Wednesday regulars and, in many ways, were our street marketing teams.

Was Happy Wednesday “cool”? 

Not to me and my friends, but a Happy Wednesday night was a happy place that brought horse racing and people together. 

Personally speaking, what was really cool were being with EMI Music and working with my music producer friend Morton Wilson at Schtung Music, below and remixing tracks by everyone from David Bowie, Robbie Williams and the brilliant Placebo to the Gorillaz and the wonderful Shanghai Divas and giving this work a distinct Made In Hong Kong sound. 

Hong Kong and EMI both lost a huge marketing opportunity to bring something truly cool and creative to the city and move the chess pieces and mahjong tiles from here to wherever they needed to go. 

At the time, I was spending quite a bit of time in London, where my then girlfriend was working, and making the time to visit the management of Gorillaz, and with plenty of discussions about marketing the alternative and edgy character Noodle in Hong Kong and China. 

With Hong Kong Pop culture always drawn towards cutting edge animation and the team behind the Gorillaz very much drawn to Chinese creativity, this could have been a groundbreaking East/West marriage in Cool.

Despite Damon Albarn writing and recording a track called “Hong Kong”, which had nothing to do with Hong Kong other than having been written after a night out with some of the regional EMI team and Damon and illustrator Jamie Hewlett, we didn’t capitalise on this nor the concerts out here by the the extremely popular Damon Albarn led projects that were Blur and Gorillaz.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we really should have pushed harder to have Gorillaz and the art of Jamie Hewlett part of creating a new Hong Kong. 

Imagine how, instead of more singing, dancing and leaping around by ageing local celebrities and appearing in rather cheesy commercials advertising Hong Kong, these greetings came from the Gorillaz family?

Imagine Gorillaz at the Hong Kong races instead of the baffling and barking order to “Love Racing”. 

What does this even mean, Kemo Sabay?

For myself, advertising and marketing and contributing to a complex product like Hong Kong has been a huge adventure that entered my personal life and took me where I should not have gone, but I did. 

It’s no doubt why I still go back and watch the “Mad Men” series and all those characters led by Don Draper who are all too familiar to many of us who were more married to advertising than we were to our wives and partners. 

Advertising is a weird and tossed salad career choice- highly addictive and often about enjoying living on the edge. 

And then there’s that incredible dopamine rush when stumbling on an idea that works for what’s needed, but leads one through another door with no hint of what might be there.

It’s just making sure that it’s not a trap door. 

If it is, you just fall through it and see where it leads and how and where you land.

This is also where Hong Kong needs a new and independent creative hub that functions under its own steam and using the right mediums for the message and with Django unchained.

Competition is healthy.

Following orders is boring.

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You go to sleep and

say a prayer to yourself

That when you wake up

You’ll still be you

But somewhere else

And this is because of

another drone attack

The bores are still there

And attacking you

from all sides

and from everywhere

The conversations are

limp and flaccid

They are rather

wrinkly and creaky

And don’t go anywhere

It’s raining down

full time stupidity

and lips are flapping

All you can do

is just stare

Where’s it all going?

You think to yourself

As you stare into another

salamander dish

that wasn’t just there

You wish there

were some candles

So that you can

make a wish

To take you somewhere

And far far away

from all theeees

Music I hear today

have no harmonies

And there’s no beat

to keep things alive

Papa needs another

brand new bag

And songs need

new wings

Before things

nosedive and sag

Artificial Intelligence

is really not

something new

It’s just another buzzword

to mix into the stew

It’s something

for the boffins

On Rue Morgue Avenue

To show social media

That they know something

that’s trending

but not very new

Don’t follow leaders

And watch your

parking meters

Because we’re all

running out of time

Bob Dylan saw the

Masters of war

And the Hard rain

of stupidity

Falling all around

I see big fish swimming

in a very small pond

They’re like fish

outta water

Making squealing

and squawking sounds

These are the times

We need Alfred

Hitchcock again

To help us meet

new strangers

on a train

Those around us

are empty vessels

And they make the

most noise

What they’re saying is

Junkyard blues

And they can really

rhubarb up your voice

I don’t believe in

Wikipedia wisdom

And Google can only

take you someplace else

Everyone is busy networking

Trying to be seen

as being better

They’re looking exhausted

Methinks they need a rest

But they still doing

and don’t have anything

to show from all the glitz

They haven’t yet even

left their nests

There are cuffs

around their wrists

Birds of a feather

flock together

And they just drop

all the usual names

But no one cares

what you did yesterday

Because it’s boring

And all the same

We want to be like

John and Yoko

And change the world

the best ways we can

We don’t wanna just

keep on keeping on

Without getting on by

banging a gong

We might not be

Children of the revolution

But we’re not

dead flowers too

Where’s the peace and love

Where’s the evolution

Where are those

with a different point of view?

Copyright ©️ Hans Ebert