KA YING RISING AND GIVING HONG KONG A NEW BRAND PERSONALITY.

As someone who grew up, down and sideways in Hong Kong and took in the races at Happy Valley racecourse before “graduating” to see the start of horse racing at Shatin, what I have always wanted to see is a greater “fusion” between the sport and the city, and a more mainstream audience.

Being in marketing for as long as I have and having lived and breathed advertising and creating product awareness, what has still not happened is this marriage between Hong Kong racing and Hong Kong, the city.

With the win of Ka Ying Rising last Saturday in the Everest race at Randwick in Sydney and despite this news making the front page of some of the local newspapers, one wonders why a Hong Kong success story like this isn’t used to promote the city as an international tourist destination?

And in case anyone thinks I’ve gone barking mad, I’m not talking about turning Ka Ying Rising into a talking horse like Mr Ed.

There’s such an interesting story here and with so much of everything else to create something ongoing and sustainable and leading to the return of Ka Ying Rising for the Longines Hong Kong International Races in December.

Here is a Hong Kong owned horse who travelled to Australia and won the world’s richest horse race by beating the best sprinters from that country with a team comprising the Australian trainer-jockey team of David Hayes and Zac Purton and a great support team of Hong Kong Belongers. 

What better advertisement for Hong Kong can there be, my little dim sums?

Over the past few years, the government has produced advertising campaigns to attract international tourism featuring singing and dancing local celebrities with themes like “Hello, Hong Kong” and “Thank you, Hong Kong” which have done nothing for the brand personality of Hong Kong.

Does the city even have a brand personality?

The exciting Ka Ying Rising, the galloper’s ownership group led by Mr Leung Shek-Kong, jockey Zac Purton plus trainer David Hayes and their support group scream out everything to do with winning and more winning and rising to the occasion by scaling the Everest race in Australia and beating the competition down under.

And this same team will be back to defend their title next year.

One of the first things, I learned when in advertising was to Break The Pattern.

Having Hong Kong’s champion galloper and the world’s best sprinter plus the team around him being part of a campaign to market Hong Kong to the world is not only timely, it gets away from the type of formulaic advertising that often has the impact of a dim sum and then some and silently whizzes past that important mainstream audience.

This type of Big Picture success requires Big Picture thinking and not something that gets lost in the clutter of it all.

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