All the singing and dancing and jive talking aside, along with the 700,000 free travel tickets for tourists to Hong Kong, might make some, especially in the service sector, happy in the short term, but the $64 thousand question is about sustainability and how long and loudly the “Hello Hong Kong” Revival Show runs and goes beyond fluffy first base.
To those who see a quick return in what is apparently phase one of the promotional campaign, they’re happy to take what they can and see what perhaps happens next.
For those of us in marketing and advertising and understanding the need for things like memorability and sustainability and results based in the proof of the sago pudding, there’s more than a lingering feeling that “Hello Hong Kong” might turn into “Hello Goodbye”.
So, as Hong Kong Belongers who don’t just sit back and watch while waiting to point and say, “I told you so”, below are some FREE ideas for the government and their advertisers to chew the cud over.
If nothing else, we’re giving people.
Perhaps there’s even something to take on board, remembering that there’s always some method to our madness.
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* Persuade international film makers to use Hong Kong as the backdrop to at least one of their upcoming projects.
Surely, this will give Hong Kong more positive PR than any Hello Kitty song and dance show about everything and nothing with 700,000 air tickets given away in a begging bowl to attract tourism.
This might also inspire young filmmakers to maybe revive the moribund Hong Kong film industry and recreate something new by embracing the streaming of content- but with creativity instead of just haplessly following the streaming sheep swimming upstream.
Gawd knows Hong Kong needs an injection of creativity. Maybe even a Creativec vaccine.
Wait: Delete that last line.
A question: Remember all that ruckus about Actress Nicole Kidman being given preferential treatment permission to film a television series in Hong Kong during those mandatory quarantine days and then leaving town in the middle of production but promising to return and finish filming?
Whatever happened to that return visit? And the television series?
* There was a recent Letter To The Editor in the South China Morning Post wanting to see “real people” from all walks of life on, er, “social media” welcoming tourists to Hong Kong with a “Wei, Har-lo”.
Sorry, but one would need Tarantino to pull this off with any credibility.
If not, the odds are that these “real people” will be “directed” with the end result being another Limp Dick Production.
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* Though understanding the reticence by the government to be seen as supporting horse racing in Hong Kong because of its association with gambling, but how it’s fine to take betting taxes, it’s kinda stupid not to somehow feature Hong Kong’s favourite pastime in the promotion of the city.
And here, there’s a need for the Hong Kong Jockey Club and its habit of constantly moving the goalposts to up the creative quotient in their racing product as this is looking wrinkly and as dated as Madonna looks today.
Perhaps a good starting point is for the Club to wake up to the fact that nothing is what it was.
With this in mind, forget about once again showing jockeys exercising and rolling out bubbles and more meandering quotes.
Instead allow someone like Trainer Caspar Fownes, who’s spent most of his life in Hong Kong, has a great sense of humour plus being a very good mimic, show those overseas “My Hong Kong”.
It’s time to lighten things up after the hell that Hong Kong has been put through because of the birdie num num “leadership” of others.
* This might be stating the obvious, but all too often, the obvious is not that obvious to the city’s village elders.
In this respect, have Hong Kong-born personalities talk about “My Hong Kong”- personalities like world champion swimmer Siobhan Haughey, below, and celebrity chefs Margaret Xu Yuan and Hon Cheong Chan.
Just to confuse the hell outta everyone, use animation to turn Champion Hong Kong galloper Golden Sixty into a Talking Horse like television’s Mr Ed and have HIM talk about HIS Hong Kong.
Let’s just give the human dancing machine that’s Aaron “Blue Steel” Kwok, a well-deserved break from appearing in almost every commercial promoting Hong Kong.
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Finally, because we’re kinda tired, we’d like to leave you with the following quote from Marlon Brando that we somehow believe to be a fitting Thought For The Day...
"We are meant to become disappointed in people, just as we are meant to become disappointed in mediocre plays and books and paintings. Child-like things. Toxic things. Things that disrespect us. It is how we learn discernment. We are never cruel, but we are always moving, in smaller and smaller circles. It is painful but necessary. Loss always, for me, precedes growth."
--Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom #thelakeofthemind
