What has Hong Kong's pork war got in common with a New York perfume brand? Much more common ground than first meets the eye.
They are just two examples of how companies and brands are successfully exploiting strategies and a multitude of platforms to cut through clutter and reach consumers as they live faster lifestyles, have shorter attention spans, are savvier and more mobile than ever before.
Using its immense buying clout, supermarket chain, ParkNShop, took on the wet markets by sparking a pork price war in Hong Kong to demonstrate its brand promise of offering the freshest foods at the most reasonable prices.
Perfume brand, Sui Love, from New York-based fashion designer and cosmetic retailer Anna Sui's line turned a commuter train into a 'Love Train' to stand out in Asia's cluttered fragrance market.
"Above-the-line still has fundamental importance, but the main point is how to allocate the budget, says M&C Saatchi Hong Kong chief executive officer Ian Thubron. "In this sense, a mixture of channels with audience relevance in mind is perhaps the best way we are moving into the future.
"And once a measurement system is put into place, channels which don't work are cut out while those that do work are continued with, Thubron adds.
For Sui Love's launch in Asia, M&C kept to print and outdoor and tied the campaign together with a 'Love Train' that ran in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei. The train featured love messages for a month, and the brand also distributed 250,000 love ribbons, 20,000 fresh roses and 200,000 fragranced postcards around the region. An SMS campaign was also organised in conjunction with Sui Love's road shows.
Hence, the marketing push wasn't limited to only raising awareness about Sui Love, but allowing people to experience the brand and the fragrance.
Says Thubron: "In a marketplace where people receive thousands of advertising messages everyday, you've got to be very competitive. Things like distributing roses to unsuspecting ladies in the streets are actions that people will remember, but this is one part of the whole; everything has to fit together."
Similarly, ParkNShop - followed by its chief rival Wellcome - raised the stakes in the supermarket turf battle, using a pork price war to demonstrate that its products were as fresh and reasonably-priced as the popular wet markets, commonly perceived by Hong Kong shoppers to offer both qualities.
Amid vociferous protests from wet market retailers - which undoubtedly provided ParkNShop more bang for its buck - marketing director, David Durnford, claimed ParkNShop was merely following up on its promise to "help Hong Kong shoppers feed their families for less".
At a time when Hong Kong faces serious economic pain, rising unemployment and uncertainty, this populist move no doubt won the brand additional brownie points.
Admittedly, a price war isn't a novel tactic among companies battling for market share. But what was novel about this fray was that it had been developed to exploit an opportunity created by the company to fit its brand promise.
ParkNShop's advertising agency, DDB, created and aired a TV commercial every day for about a week to dispel the belief that only the wet markets offered the freshest pork in town.
"Each evening, we would decide with ParkNShop what the key message for the next day would be. Our copywriters would then write the script in the evening and have it approved by the client that night, recounts DDB Hong Kong general manager, Mark Crouch.
"The next morning, we would be on location with a production crew from TVB. The ads were shot live to camera ... we would include some reference to the events of the day before, or the day itself, so that viewers would know that the ads were literally 'fresh' for that day," Crouch adds.
But it takes a savvy client who is clear about the overall strategy and developmental stage of the brand to take the less-travelled route and break out of the genre favoured by a particular category. There also needs to be an appreciation that each market has to be treated differently for many brands and products.
International insurance and wealth management group, AXA is one of the stronger examples of a corporation that eschews the category norm of showing people at various stages of their lives and ending up enjoying their retirement because they had signed up with one company plan or another.
In Hong Kong, for instance, the approach is both direct - 'Go Ahead' and the more recent 'Rethink Money' ads - and different from campaigns which the group runs in other parts of the world.
"If we had a product that is similar or consumed in a similar way worldwide, then a global campaign would be logical, says AXA Paris-based head of external communications and marketing, Pierre-Yves Durand.
"Also we have passed the awareness-building stage, which means we need to develop relevant content, and for each market the content is going to vary because of different needs based on environmental factors, such as the Mandatory Provident Fund in Hong Kong, and the competition."
As such, the group does not have a single global campaign because the complexities of the products and services it offers vary from market to market based on a market's maturity and needs.
Its deeper penetration in the US market is reflected in a wider and more complicated product range than what is available in Hong Kong.
And although AXA is developing at a fast clip in China, again it's penetration there is well below Hong Kong. As such, life and health products remain the group's mainstay on the mainland, although investment-linked products are increasingly being rolled out.
Though they may differ in tone and message, Durand says AXA campaigns around the world have one similarity: "They underline our commitment to the customer and their needs but we have to ensure the delivery of the promise in the products and services being offered, wherever we are."
In a nutshell, it's AXA's strategy of integrating multiple communications platforms and ensuring that they perform in unison to give the appearance that the campaigns are fresh and new.
The integrated marketing communications concept has been around for some time, but is now gaining greater importance in Asia in the way advertisers attempt to convey a message to their target audience.
Translated, that means segregating a budget into many different areas, says M&C Saatchi's Thubron.
