5 times MIRROR caused a buzz in our HK newsroom

Undoubtedly MIRROR has won many Hongkongers' hearts as brands rushed to collaborate with them and drive awareness throughout the year. According to a study conducted by Wisers, Keung To, Anson Lo and Edan Lui have been voted as the most popular members of MIRROR. However, when it comes to the best interaction among netizens, there were 20,318 posts about Anson Lo on the internet from January to August. On average, every post attracted more than 500 interactions among netizens. There were 38,686 posts about Keung To, but every post on average had only about 280 interactions. 

In the MARKETING-INTERACTIVE newsroom, we saw some impressive campaigns featuring MIRROR this year. And our readers were absolutely loving it! As part of our year end roundup, we’ve decided to unveil the top five MIRROR related campaigns that got our readers excited.

1. McDonald's HK overhauls store decor to reflect MIRROR tie-up
In October, McDonald's Hong Kong went all out for its campaign collaboration with boy band MIRROR to promote its “Crispy Thighs” on the menu. As part of the “Famous Order” initiative, the month-long campaign saw McDonald’s stores being redecorated to feature one of the members of MIRROR. Meanwhile, the store located at Admiralty also saw a makeover, allowing fans of MIRROR to immerse in the celebration in the themed “McDonald’s x MIRROR” store. The "Famous Order" campaign includes both online and offline touchpoints and boasts a series of ASMR TVCs featuring MIRROR members enjoying the crispy thigh products. McDonald's Hong Kong also rolled out an AR filter, allowing customers to enjoy the Crispy Thighs with members of MIRROR via AR.

2. McDonald's Hong Kong celebrates upgraded app with video featuring members of MIRROR

Once again, McDonald's Hong Kong tapped into MIRROR to promote its upgraded mobile app in April this year. The upgrade saw the addition of mobile ordering and payment features, and the boys promoted the upgrade with a new video. The five-minute video, developed by DDB Group Hong Kong, featured Hong Kong boy band MIRROR's Keung To, Edan Lui and Anson Lo, sharing an office "love story" among themselves. Keung is seen as a new employee at the company in the video and instantly catches Lui's eye when he is being introduced. However, Lui is in a relationship with Lo, but he could hardly stop his affections for Keung. At the end of the video, Keung eventually wins Lui's heart with a Big Mac ordered by the upgraded McDonald's app. The video is now showing on social media channels.

3. MIRROR's Anson Lo and Ian Chan spotlight HK's unexplored areas in new tourism push

Hong Kong Tourism board worked with two of MIRROR's members, Anson Lo and Ian Chan to spotlight local attractions around the city which might not be as well known to citizens. Chan, for example, introduced the Shek O area on Instagram which he lauded for its European vibe in Hong Kong. "In fact, if you explore carefully, there are a lot of places that exude an exotic ambience in Hong Kong," he wrote. He then proceeded to invite his fans to share their favourite attractions in Hong Kong.  Fellow band member Lo introduced ONE Artlane located at Sai Ying Pun as his favourite place to relax and take a stroll. "The street that we are familiar with can offer you a new perspective if we explore it with a new composition of the image," he said. Lo too also invited his fans to tell him places that they want him to take good pictures.

4. HK husbands plead for brands to stop featuring boyband MIRROR in ads

This one is a little unconventional. As MIRROR took over the streets and hearts of Hong Kong, a Facebook group titled "My wife married MIRROR and left my marriage in ruins" was created by distressed husbands and boyfriends of MIRROR fans. Members of the Facebook group claimed that the 12-member boyband had stolen the hearts of their wives and at times their sisters and mothers. One of the members even pleaded for companies not to use MIRROR in their marketing in the lead up to the Mid-Autumn Festival in September in fear that the husbands will not be able to consume all of their wives' purchase. Haagen-Dazs Hong Kong, for example, was one of the brands that launched an ice cream mooncake featuring one of the band members. The comment had 14k reactions, 421 comments and 138 shares at the time of writing, and some husbands even joked and said MIRROR should promote products such as the PlayStation 5 as well as the iPhone.

5. LG partners popular FB group created by HK husbands upset with wives' MIRROR obsession

Seeing the success of the Facebook group "My wife married MIRROR and left my marriage in ruins", Electronics company LG ran a social activation with the group to tap on to their engaged audience. LG partnered with Hong Kong actor Joey Leung to save the “ruined marriage” caused by wives who loved boyband MIRROR. The execution was one of the first advertising campaigns with the Facebook group which had gone viral and LG has invited Joey Leung as a marriage counsellor to help “former” wives and husbands rekindle the “broken relationship”. The campaign asked “exes” to share their most “unacceptable” incident caused by the other half’s obsession towards MIRROR that had now left the marriage in a difficult position. LG then selected two pairs of couples and helped them recover their happiness by presenting them products they felt men would love from their brand.

Very clever indeed! 

Tell us, what was your favourite MIRROR related ad this year? Email me at simony@marketing-interactive.com

Photo courtesy: Sino Group 

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