Having worked in advertising and marketing and also having worked on the client and supplier/slave side, keeping the customer satisfied is a 24/7 job. Rest on your laurels and those laurels can grow thorns and bite you on your arse.
The worst thing about many, especially, PR and ad agencies and others who have signed on to “servicing” clients and a contract of servitude- is complacency: Many times, it’s all about winning the business, promising much, delivering the expected and thinking this is enough. Enough is never enough. It’s all about delivering more than what the client expects and always being pro-active as opposite to only being re-active through knee-jerk reactions when the client’s whips are cracked and the relationship is in tatters.
It’s always how to continually push the creative envelope and constantly keep improving and enhancing the creative product.
We were thinking about all of this while at Sunday’s Longines Hong Kong International Races at Shatin and asking ourselves, how do all parties involved follow this act which attracted a crowd of over 70 thousand and a turnover of close to HK$1.3 BILLION. What next?
This was the first time that Longines had sponsored this event, though, in the very competitive world of branding, the luxury watch company has bought itself a very major prime piece of sponsorship retail by marrying their brand to horse racing. As a brand, it “owns” horse racing and Longines branding can be seen in race courses around the world and with their brand ambassadors like Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Aaron Kwok etc adding to all the glamour.
And, my, how racing fans enjoy being surrounded by glamour and being part of a Happy Wednesday and, even more so, a Stylish Shatin Sunday. Anyone who doesn’t see this is probably named Tommy and is a deaf, dumb and blind wombat who sure plays a mean cornball.
So, apart from the racing and the marketing of Longines-sponsored events, what more can racing clubs bring to the party- and in particular, the HKJC which, for good reason is seen as the worldwide leader of racing and bringing the sport to those who wouldn’t otherwise care. The obvious answer is expanding the consumer base and creating something that makes news- not just news on the racing pages of newspapers read by a captive market- but also having the event seen on the Main News on television, the front pages of newspapers, the covers of magazines like Vogue, Elle, Esquire and Rolling Stone and clever use of social media.
Now, we come to the irony of marketing a sport being hindered by the word “racing” and which automatically stops some in their tracks. This is why, we need interviews of legendary actor Omar Sharif who was in Hong Kong to watch his horse Don Bosco run being interviewed for non-racing magazines, for features pages and with the focus being on his movies and which dovetails into his interest in horse racing. It is key to look beyond the square and open things up. Was there even one feature on Mr Sharif, also one of the world’s greatest bridge players? We doubt it.
Another area that can always be improved is the atmosphere at Happy Valley and where almost 6000 people showed up for cross-betting. Though the Main Event is at Shatin, this 6000 attendance is there to grow through a one-off Happy Sunday. Think about it. Enhance the experience as that cross-betting audience is a very big growth area and which many either forget about or don’t even realize it exists. Plus, those Diamond Vision Screens hold hundreds of yet-untapped ideas.
We can go through a laundry list of Do’s and Dont’s, but looking at the Big Picture, we hear this word called “carnival” bandied about around the racing world. What “carnival”??? There is no “carnival” except for those clowns that pop up at every race meeting everywhere in the world.
But there CAN be a true, blue racing carnival and with horse racing being the main attraction and surrounded by glamour and the entertainment value of, for example, a Victoria Beckham Fashion Show, one night of music headlined by a real headline act like Coldplay, Robbie, or even Katy Perry or Kylie and not trying to cut corners and making do with Okay- not on an International Day or International Carnival like this.
Budgets? Who’s gonna show the money and join in? For starters, by working with the HKTA, someone like Alan Zeman, true decision makers and not gophers and those who can really make all the outlets in Lan Kwai Fong, Soho and now Sheung Wan and Cochrane Street which have suddenly become the new cool areas of Hong Kong, all be part of this carnival and not promoted in some messy tinpot way, and work to create a total Hong Kong experience, courtesy of Longines and the HKJC.
Also, and as we have mentioned before, this Carnival being positioned as a real HONG KONG event and not with only the HKJC holding the money bag, but having those totally useless government organizations that are InvestHK and CreateHK which the public subsidizes, having their arms twisted to loosen their purse strings and actually DO something for Hong Kong instead of being two fat cat white elephants sitting there and conning the public.
They really are useless knobs and we point directly in the way of the government’s Duncan Pescod who blew his trumpet about what CreateHK will bring to Hong Kong- and which has been bugger all. Come on you, big Dunlin Donut, speak up instead of being a girlie man? Forget going after those with so-called “illegal structures.” Go after those who promise Hong Kong much and deliver bollocks.
Dunkin Donut: Major Knob.
As for the What’s Next from Longines and the HKJC- and Hong Kong- we’ll have a good punt on an all-Hong Kong Racing Carnival. As it was said in one of our favorite movies of all time- Field Of Dreams- build it and they will come.
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