Most of us know why it does not happen, but it’s still worth revisiting to at least try and change the narrative though knowing this is probably a futile exercise...Probably.
This week, Hong Kong handed out awards to the city’s top athletes led by the quite wonderful and marketable double Olympic silver medalist in swimmer Siobhan Haughey, below.
Understandably, the 24 year old has been positioned as a role model for younger kids.
Nowhere on this list was even one Hong Kong born jockey- no Derek Leung, Matthew Chadwick, Jerry Chau or Vincent Ho.
One would think they would, especially when considering the popularity of horse racing in Hong Kong and where, whether right or wrong or all about the money, jockeys are seen as celebrities.
Then again, we should know by now why they’re not on these lists. It has to do with horse racing’s association with gambling and possible “undesirables”. It could mean opening up a can of worms.
One could say that this is the case with every other sport, especially football, Australian football and basketball- recently, even golf, but time doesn’t heal all wounds and firmly locked mindsets don’t bring about change.
Despite the marketing efforts made by the Hong Kong Jockey Club over the past few years to showcase what makes a jockey a superbly fit athlete and able to ride a thousand pound animal in the most competitive and dangerous sport, horse racing, to many, is not considered a sport per se.
Perhaps this is why, what are very much racing radio channels in Australia, being referred to as “sports and racing channels”, meaning that even one of the country’s most supportive media outlets for horse racing has to walk that thin line on eggshells.
A couple of years ago, I was speaking to a friend who happens to be a leading Formula 1 driver and was holidaying in Hong Kong.
Explained to him was the idea of a line I was playing it- “When horsepower meets horsepower”- and whether he would be alright to pose with two of the top jockeys in Hong Kong.
Yes, he might be able to do it, but not in any commercial or professional capacity.
With all his multi million dollar sponsorship deals, any association with a pastime like horse racing would see these disappear. It would be considered bad for his brand.
He would be happy to have photographs taken with the jockeys, but these would have to be purely for PR purposes- and with highly complicated contracts signed. It wasn’t worth the hassle. We were heading in different directions.
The only time, horse racing came even close to being part of the bigger world of entertainment and mainstream acceptance was during those Happy Wednesday nights.
Happy Wednesday was a brand that became a global game changer by mainly bringing ‘live’ music- and giving very many Hong Kong based musicians new and big and pretty cool new venues- and bigger money than anyone else in Hong Kong for their talent and paid immediately- into the equation.
Some people have very short memories.
Every Wednesday evening, thousands of young people of all nationalities would make the journey to Happy Valley Racecourse and be regulars at the Beer Garden.
Here, they would meet up with friends and like-minded people and take in the music, the racing, got to know the jockeys, and added much to all those themed nights.
All this was packaged and marketed, and its popularity travelled all the way to TripAdvisor which recommended it as a Must See Hong Kong tourist attraction.
These Happy Wednesday nights continued for almost eight years and offering many years of opportunities to various musicians until derailed by the social unrest of 2019 that brought the entire city to a standstill.
Despite some stops and starts by still trying to make something outta nothing, the Happy Wednesday brand is pretty much in its shell these days like most of everything else in Hong Kong.
Looking forward and thinking positively of the time when those running Hong Kong possibly come to their senses and realise that the longer nothing drags on, nothing happens and people leave the party, the Hong Kong Jockey Club needs to also be honest with itself and realise its own killjoy factor.
This is something that keeps creative thinking and the marketing of horse racing reined in and saddled with muchos red tape, too many corporate nervous nellies happy in their boxes and drinking from half empty glasses.
Maybe this is the reason for advertising of horse racing that continues to almost always be some badly photoshopped visuals featuring horses racing against an isosceles type design.
It’s work that hardly oozes anything close to the Just Do It corporate ethos and breaking bad creativity of Nike.
What do these communications say? Nothing. It’s creative by committee with a mighty big safety valve attached and with nothing of anything to give a new generation of consumers something even close to an emotional attachment.
Until being involved in creating the Happy Wednesday brand, it’s why, when in advertising and then with Universal Music and EMI Music, we were never interested in working with the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
We had wasted enough time with some of the Club’s executives and found them to be kinda arrogantly goofy and suffering from terminal creative menopause.
We wanted to win awards like the Clio in New York and the Palme D’Or in Cannes.
Them? Guess many were just try to safeguard their turf and wear sharp suits?
Thankfully, working directly on what became the Happy Wednesday brand with a CEO who understood what horses for courses meant and supported and respected strategic thinking meant everything.
He welcomed how honest-to-goodness Don Draper type original advertising and marketing could enhance the the ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of the racing product.
This paved the way for what we were able to accomplish.
It’s a book on successful marketing well worth revisiting.
It could even lead to answers instead of sitting there waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Bottom line: Forget about jockeys winning awards in Hong Kong for being the superb athletes that they are. It will never happen.
Instead, take a leaf out of the Happy Wednesday book of successes and market these personalities directly to audiences with music.
Also, allow creative ideas into the mix instead of locking these out and falling back on clichés and what those with little or no experience in marketing thinking is advertising.
It’s not. It’s the equivalent of Muzak.
Let’s call it Adzak, and which is probably related to the aardvark.
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