When we work with businesses that look to rebrand, often the first question we ask is – what problem do you think a rebrand exercise can solve? Similarly here, it feels like we have been busy coming up with ideas to rebuild something for the sake of improvements.
What people love about Hong Kong is still here, the hardware has not changed for the worse. We still have all the ingredients, but we may have been cooking the wrong dishes with them.
We are a city full of mystery, exoticness, and surprises.
Instead of looking positively at what we are as a city and creatively positioning them into something charming, we’ve been trying to correct ourselves into something we aren’t. We promote our city to match competing cities, when we should highlight our uniqueness.
We aren’t Japan or Thailand, the gestures of friendliness and smiles are not in our DNA, so why a campaign to pretend we are. We should embrace our version of friendliness.
We have great individuals and businesses trying to push for Hong Kong cultures, we should proudly support them.
Hong Kong needs business people, creatives, and sectors to come together, to be confident with what we have, and reprioritise our strengths.
We will discuss more in detail during our panel on day 2 – “How Can Marketing & Communications Professionals Contribute to Rebuilding Hong Kong’s Global Reputation?”