WHY BRAND HONG KONG NEEDS A DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES…FROM HONG KONG.
We hadn’t seen each other for over ten years and much can happen in this time, something you don’t deep dive and find on social media- and how we only really reconnect by meeting people face to face, and making up for lost time with eye contact and words and not emojis.
Evie is someone unique- a Mandarin and Hindi speaking Scandinavian with a brilliant mind who saw Roger Ailes win over Rupert Murdoch and create Fox News who is now in her early fifties, knows the worlds of politics and entertainment, which she believes have become one and which is not a good combination for the world to be starring in as bit players.
For her age, Evie has seen much, always has an opinion and she doesn’t hold back.
We also spoke about the present and future of a Hong Kong she loves, and absolutely believes the city needs an Executive Director of Creative Services.
She speaks fondly of her friendship with the late Sir David Tang and how he had the vision to create the Shanghai Tang brand and the fabulous China Club and should be running tourism and investors and the entrepreneurial spirit of Hong Kong.
Evie had met David Bowie at the China Club with me and wondered why Hong Kong seems to be ignoring an international marketing campaign with so much experience in dealing with the good, the bad and the ugly and that’s staring it in the face- a campaign that showcases the city’s brilliant creative past, which is probably lost on two generations and needs to be re-energised.
The team to do this- and we both believe this- MUST be from Hong Kong or the region and who have lived and loved Asia and experienced the road less travelled.
As she says, Hong Kong has very good history for its creative art and culture that should never be allowed to fade away, or get into the wrong hands, because it’s part of Hong Kong’s rich tapestry of life.
It’s an invaluable inheritance for the generations to come and must be respected.
Evie remembered the series of Remixes produced by Schtung Music and my friend Morton Wilson that was released by EMI when Norman Cheng and I were running the Regional Office.
Morton had found the original recordings by the greatest Shanghainese divas recorded on EMI’s Pathe label and worked with his team to create a brand. She was sad to hear that Morton had passed away earlier this year.
She had been with me at his studio in Kennedy Road and heard the Asian influenced remixes being producing using the original vocal recordings by Bowie, Robbie Williams and Placebo and was hardly surprised that EMI had done nothing to promote those tracks.
“Those people are pencil pushers and wouldn’t have had a clue how heavily those tracks were played in the most popular clubs in Paris”, she said, adding, “It’s no difference to the slipshod way Hong Kong markets things that are not personal favourites of the usual fat cats with their expat packages.
She adds: “But THESE fat cats have no idea about creativity and strategic marketing and communications because, even if Chinese, they see themselves as highly privileged colonial expats!”
Told you that she has an opinion- and it’s well worth listening to and being like the Nike theme line and Just Do It.
I mentioned a few other projects initiated by Morton and asked whether she remembered his wife Margaret who was a creative director- and a very good one- with ad agency J Walter Thompson.
She had been to the now closed Yin Yang Coastal and remembered what a fabulous dinner she and her friends had there.
Evie then asked, “Why isn’t someone like Margaret and other ‘Made in Hong Kong’ talent- and you who run rings around almost all of them-being featured in the recently launched “Only In Hong Kong” campaign?
“Isn’t this campaign being put together to promote this city by those who really know it and understand what attracts tourism with spending power, and more importantly, entrepreneurs and investors?”
Good question.
It made me realise that Hong Kong doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. The wheel is already here. It just needs people with with the vision and the oil and the passion to see how it can stay as it is while continuing to evolve and become a truly Hong Kong owned creative property that is so uniquely international.
It’s really about making Hong Kong a retrospective meeting place where the creative gardeners are Hong Kong talent with the marketing chutzpah and international branding skills that are able to create and nurture Brand Hong Kong.
This is more than food for thought. It’s creative sustenance built around Hong Kong Chinese storytelling.
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