‘Cheap and tacky’: advertising experts say ‘Hello Hong Kong’ tourism campaign fails to highlight city’s uniqueness
- ‘If you have the opportunity to feature the chief executive in your video, you need to think of a world-class approach that does justice to his presence,’ veteran advertising expert says
- Hong Kong’s all-out promotional drive to attract travellers with 700,000 airline tickets features videos with city leader John Lee and local stars Aaron Kwok, Kelly Chen and Sammi Cheng
Hong Kong’s all-out global promotional drive to entice visitors with free air tickets has been lauded by the travel industry as a strong boost for tourism, but advertising experts have said the campaign was poorly executed and fails to highlight the city’s uniqueness.
Launched by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Thursday, the “Hello Hong Kong” campaign – which will cost about HK$100 million (US$12.8 million) in its first phase – involves spending vouchers, special events and plans to give away 700,000 airline tickets.
Those in the travel and catering industries were quick to praise the campaign, saying they hoped the return of visitors would trigger a multiplier effect in the city battered by tough Covid-19 curbs over the past three years.
Chris Kyme, co-founder and creative director of local creative agency Kymechow, whose clients include Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and Link Reit, said he very much agreed with the objectives of the campaign as he believed the city had a lot to offer and its stories should be told to the world.
Despite being “a believer in Hong Kong”, the veteran advertising expert said he thought the campaign, which the city needed badly, lacked a proper strategy.
“‘Hello Hong Kong’ is not an idea. It’s just a welcome, which is very expected,” he said. “In order to get the right strategy, we would need to look at how the outside world perceives Hong Kong right now, and think of a strategy to address that.”
Kyme said the world has had a negative perception of Hong Kong in recent years, with media reports saying the city was losing its status and facing an emigration wave. Such concerns should be addressed with a good strategy that would truly attract visitors to the city, he added.
Among the features of the mega campaign are separate videos with city leader Lee, representatives from several chambers of commerce and three local celebrities introducing the city in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
According to Dane Cheng Ting-yat, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, a commercial featuring local pop singers Aaron Kwok Fu-shing, Kelly Chen Wai-lam and Sammi Cheng Sau-man will be played on more than 3,000 platforms globally and is expected to reach about 200 million people.
More than 250 videos will also be produced featuring celebrities, influencers and business leaders to promote the city, including K-pop artist Rain and award-winning Japanese film composer Yusuke Hatano.
But Kyme said a video featuring Lee extending his “warmest welcome” to the world was “embarrassingly bad in execution” and looked “cheap and tacky”.
“If you have the opportunity to feature the chief executive in your video, you need to think of a world-class approach that does justice to his presence,” Kyme said. “I would stop running it immediately because it would only do damage.”
He said while a video featuring celebrities was better filmed and crafted, he still found it to be “typical” and “lacking an idea”, adding that the choice of celebrities would only appeal to a local audience, not an international one.
Kyme said the city had some world-class talent in advertising, including strategy gurus, creative directors, photographers and filmmakers, who should have been consulted for the promotion drive.
Rudi Leung Chi-sing, director of local advertising agency Hungry Digital, said the campaign tried to showcase everything Hong Kong had to offer, but lacked emotional appeal.
“Anyone can tell it is a tough job because there are many boxes to check in a 30-second commercial,” he said, referring to the videos featured. “Even if we checked all the boxes to tell the world that Hong Kong has everything, what is the X-factor defining our uniqueness?”
He noted that the greeting “Hello” was used in an advertisement for Apple’s MacIntosh computer in 1984 to give the product a human touch. While the slogan was a friendly way to engage international audiences, Leung said it sounded overused and lacked substance.
He added that modern day travellers preferred authentic content about a destination, rather than paid material produced with high-profile celebrities and influencers. The authorities should instead encourage everyone who loved Hong Kong to use social media to tell good stories about the city, he argued.
Another veteran brand strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the campaign as “terrible, vapid and empty” compared with the efforts of other cities.
‘World’s biggest welcome ever’: Hong Kong launches all-out drive for visitors
“When New York said ‘I Love NY’ – it was about pride. When Amsterdam said ‘I Amsterdam’ – it was about creativity,” he said. “‘Hello Hong Kong’ has no meaning – and will get ignored.”
He said in a worse scenario the concept could get twisted, as it could simply be put next to “a bad story” and create terrible imagery.
