ANALYSIS: Branding - A new brand, or just a new logo? How much effect will Hong Kong's recent rebranding really have? The jury's still out, says Richard Lord

<p>If you live in Hong Kong and possess a pulse, it probably won't </p><p>have escaped your attention that the city has been rebranded. The new </p><p>logo and slogan, sorry, visual identity and brand platform, were lauched </p><p>two weeks ago at the Fortune Global Forum in the city by the chief </p><p>executive, Tung Chee Hwa. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The slogan, "Hong Kong - Asia's World City", and the visual - a dragon </p><p>containing the letters "HK" and the city's name in Chinese characters - </p><p>have come in for the usual pasting that expensive rebrandings get in the </p><p>press. Designers have been wheeled out to slag off the logo as generic </p><p>and literal-minded, and an email campaign has even been organised to try </p><p>to persuade Tung to ditch what's already become known as the dollars 9 </p><p>million dragon. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But according to the Hong Kong Government, this isn't the whole story: </p><p>the dragon and the slogan are just the tip of an iceberg. They're part </p><p>of a broader communications programme that has been simmering for years, </p><p>and will be used to promote the city well into the future, according to </p><p>Kerry McGlynn, deputy director of the Government's Information Services </p><p>Department. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"It dates back to the post-hand- over period, when Hong Kong was taking </p><p>a hammering," he says. "Tourism fell, we had a virulent outbreak of </p><p>avian flu, and the Asian financial downturn meant that we had the first </p><p>recession in our history. It was very difficult in the midst of all that </p><p>to get positive messages out. So we did work behind the scenes on how we </p><p>could brand Hong Kong." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>McGlynn adds that the Government plans to use the new identity "for the </p><p>rest of Hong Kong's life as a Special Administrative Region of </p><p>China". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The project evolved from a February 2000 Commission for Strategic </p><p>Development report on the future of the SAR, which recommended the </p><p>'world city' positioning. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The upshot was the one-year, dollars 9m rebranding, co-ordinated by PR </p><p>consultancy Burson-Marsteller. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The first concrete result is a massive publicity blitz within Hong Kong, </p><p>taking in TV commercials, ads on buses, trams, the MTR and KCR and </p><p>government poster sites, as well as exhibitions in shopping centres and </p><p>a Central Policy Unit seminar on the culture of world cities in July. </p><p>There's also a website (www.brandhk.gov.hk), containing the background </p><p>to the rebranding, and all the brand guidelines and marketing </p><p>templates. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Although the Government is keen to stress the long-term, global-branding </p><p>implications of the project, McGlynn admits that so far, most of what's </p><p>been done internationally has been built onto its existing PR </p><p>function. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"We've retooled a lot of the stuff we already do," he says. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The rebranding kicked off with a qualitative research project, through </p><p>Wirthlin Worldwide, which targeted politicians, business leaders and the </p><p>media. It was supplemented with quantitative research, through Wirthlin, </p><p>and through Young & Rubicam's BrandAsset Valuator tool. It culminated in </p><p>focus groups and interviews within Hong Kong to decide between the </p><p>shortlisted visuals. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>David Jenkinson, regional stategy planning director, Y&R Australia, </p><p>says: "There was consistency in the way people thought: in the </p><p>positives, and in where it could be enhanced. People saw a lot of </p><p>positives, but didn't necessarily feel the direct benefits to them." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Being seen as the gateway to China and Asia is a big advantage," adds </p><p>Vincent Breglio, managing director of Wirthlin Worldwide Asia. "But the </p><p>city had to do better at communicating how good it is, and at dealing </p><p>with issues like pollution." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Hong Kong was also benchmarked against other cities, and in particular </p><p>against their rebranding efforts. "We could only find a very few </p><p>examples of this kind of complete branding exercise," comments Ian </p><p>McCabe, managing director of Burson-Marsteller's Asia-Pacific public </p><p>affairs practice. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"There were campaigns, but not complete rebrandings, and tended to be </p><p>tourism-focused." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The essence of the new initiative, according to the Government's </p><p>McGlynn, is that it's holistic: it's about the whole city as a brand, </p><p>not any single element of it. Perhaps the reason that there have been so </p><p>few similar programmes from other cities is because it's so difficult to </p><p>create a coherent location-based brand which serves across the board </p><p>like this. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>McGlynn admits that if there's a focus to the new brand, it's business: </p><p>inward investment through government agency Invest Hong Kong is a big </p><p>priority. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>However, Steve Mullinger, managing partner of recruitment firm TMP </p><p>executive search, doubts that the new brand will have much impact on his </p><p>job of promoting the city as a place to work. "I don't know if it'll </p><p>have much weight from a business perspective, but I think they've done a </p><p>pretty good job from a tourism perspective," he says. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The problem for the Government is that it takes time for the success or </p><p>failure of a rebranding to become evident. For the time being, all </p><p>anyone has to go on is the logo and brand line. The Chief Secretary for </p><p>Administration, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, is on record as saying that "our </p><p>brand is as important to us as the swoosh is to Nike and the golden </p><p>arches are to McDonald's". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Confident words, but they haven't stopped the logo in particular being </p><p>criticised. Part of this is just new identity fatigue: over recent years </p><p>Hong Kongers have also had to swallow several other, mostly tourism-led </p><p>slogans like "Hong Kong - City of Life" and the slightly unfortunate </p><p>"Hong Kong Is It" (try saying it fast). </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Michael Ip, the Asia-Pacific managing director of Landor Associates, </p><p>which produced the identity, says: "The dragon has been a symbol of </p><p>China for thousands of years, standing for strength, vitality, energy </p><p>and dynamism. This dragon is a unique symbol." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Then there's the brand line. Hong Kong is undoubtedly a world city, and </p><p>it's in Asia, but is that really the best it can claim? Richard Pinder, </p><p>regional managing director of Leo Burnett, believes that it undersells </p><p>the territory. "If you truly believe that China is the future centre of </p><p>the world, which I think it is, and Hong Kong is seeking to place a </p><p>claim as the gateway to that, does this capture it? No, not at all," he </p><p>comments. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"In world terms, and certainly in Europe, Asia's not really that </p><p>important a place - it accounts for 15 per cent of the turnover of the </p><p>average multinational. Hong Kong is a lot more important than that." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>According to Wirthlin's Breglio, the Government was conscious of not </p><p>over-claiming when it came up with the line. "There's a very fine line </p><p>between a brand line with a sense of pride and one which is overly </p><p>boastful, and we had to guard against stepping over it," he says. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>There's scepticism, though, about its ability to mark Hong Kong out from </p><p>the crowd. Kevin Ramsey, Asia-Pacific chief operating officer for J </p><p>Walter Thompson, comments: "The logo shouldn't be viewed in isolation </p><p>from the rest of the stuff that's being done, but my view is that it's </p><p>too obscure to say anything really specific about the city. The brand </p><p>line is generic, and doesn't really differentiate the place at all: you </p><p>could make the same claim about Shanghai, Singapore, or pretty much any </p><p>commercial capital in the region." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>According to McCabe, that's not an issue, because the territory's </p><p>pre-eminence is a fait accompli: "Hong Kong's competition is the world. </p><p>It's not about just competing with Shanghai and Singapore. The </p><p>positioning as the region's leading business centre is established </p><p>already." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Ultimately, the success or failure of the rebranding may depend less on </p><p>its ability to sell Hong Kong overseas, and more on its ability to </p><p>energise the territory's own population. "There is an historical </p><p>identity issue here - a real Hong Kong identity has grown up - and one </p><p>of the more important elements of this is to help Hong Kong focus on its </p><p>own identity," says McGlynn. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Perhaps it's this - its ability to change the perception of the place </p><p>from the bottom up as well as the top down - that will determine whether </p><p>this is really an invigorating new identity, or just another picture of </p><p>a dragon. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>