Leo Burnett rolls out humorous TVC for eBay kijiji classified site launch

www.kijiji.com.hk is a bilingual free posting and trading ‘neighourbood’ site, which began operations this month. Its main coverage incudes job classifieds, real estate and personal goods. 

Leo Burnett Hong Kong won the regional campaign for ebay classified in July.

After Singapore, where the site is named Gumtree, Hong Kong is the second market in the region outside of Australia to have an eBay classified site.

UM is the media agency partner. The first campaign includes three TVC spots, with two versions (personal goods & real estate) launched on 17 September and a third to be aired later this year. The Hong Kong creative content will be used for the Singapore market.

Pamela Wan, management supervisor of the agency told Campaign Asia-Pacific: "The campaign aims to build a community in Hong Kong to trade any unused items online in return for money and a happy buyer."

To build the traffic and awareness of the new site, she said the agency wanted to drum that message home by making the TVC more humorous.

Leo Burnett has enlisted award-winning Thai creative director Nutchanun Chiaphanumas (winner of Cannes Gold Lion for his Bangkok Insurance TVC ), who worked closely with award-winning director Suthon Petchsuwan (winner of a Cannes Gold Lion for his Worm TVC ) to produce the campaign. 

One of the TV spots features a tong lau — an old-style Hong Kong residential building, which often do not have lifts. The TVC takes to the extreme the fact that most people don’t like the idea of climbing the stairs by saying the tong lau is the perfect home for a pole jumper.

 "We decide to use humour to tap into the multicultural diversity of Asia. It's the quickest way to introduce the brand as well as this business category," says Chiaphanumas, creative director of Leo Burnett Hong Kong. 

Wan added that once the traffic to this Kijiji site grows, there will be more marketing opportunities for advertisers.