The Hong Kong Jockey Club continues to make great strides at Marketing Events Awards

Following The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC)’s success at MARKETING INTERACTIVE’s Loyalty and Engagement Awards 2022 held earlier this year which saw the Club win the highly coveted top accolade Best of Show – Brand, HKJC has once again achieved stellar results at MARKETING INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Events Awards 2022 to take home six awards for its racing events.

At a time where events marketing was rife with disruption, the Club’s continued success is a recognition of its efforts in navigating this challenging landscape and pushing the boundaries to not just set but reinvent industry standards for best-in-class events.

For example, the Club deftly navigated the challenges of holding a global sporting event – the LONGINES Hong Kong International Races which attracts racing talent, press and fans from around the globe – by tapping into state-of-the-art technology and communications innovations. 

This saw the Club adopt an innovative hybrid event format wherein all key event happenings were not only seamlessly broadcasted in real-time to all audiences regardless of their physical location, but racing connections and publications were empowered to cover the event with relative ease and deliver timely broadcast-ready exclusive content. 

Furthermore, the Club also pioneered the use of extended reality to power the newsroom and on-course effects, allowing audiences to engage in an all-new immersive and engaging viewing experience. The campaign set a new standard for how brands can leverage technology to navigate the challenges and logistical difficulties of global events, wherein it won three awards including two golds for Best Innovative Transition – Physical and Virtual and Best Use of Event Technology and a bronze award for Best Hybrid Event.

The Club also recognises that disruption lies not only in the physical restrictions of event attendance but also in the way that people engage with events. Under a COVID environment, audiences have grown accustomed to digital means to engage with the sport and have different expectations towards entertainment, so the Club changed how it engaged audiences for the Season Opening Raceday by reinventing its conventional means of engagement. 

This saw the Club take a revitalised and digitised approach such as giving the iconic William Tell Overture beat a refreshed twist and developing a racing beat game to draw renewed engagement for the Raceday, which resulted in a record-high turnover and fully booked attendance. 

The campaign won a gold award for Best Event – Arts, Culture and Entertainment wherein the success of the campaign is a great example of how brands should always be considering different ways to portray distinctive brand assets in contemporary contexts to better resonate with audiences.

The Club’s iconic racing events are also home to many time-honoured traditions such as the Gentlemen’s Bow Tie Walk of the stylish Gentlemen’s Bow Tie Raceday, jointly hosted by HKJC and the Oriental Watch Company. However, due to a two-year absence and restrictions in carrying out the tradition in its conventional form, the Club turned to new innovative means to bring this tradition to life to announce the comeback of the Gentlemen’s Bow Tie Raceday. 

This saw the Club create a pre-heat for the Gentlemen's Bow Tie Walk and gave it a virtual upgrade at Hysan Place in form of an augmented reality (AR) phygital experience. Through a new interpretation of the tradition and amplification of the experience through the social circles of key campaign ambassadors, lifestyle influencer and the wider public, the Club was able to generate excitement and anticipation for this long absent tradition and event whilst also reinvigorating the Raceday with a new level of sophistication and style, setting the standard of excellence for a phygital experience. The campaign won a silver award for Best Event – Fashion & Beauty and a bronze award for Best Use of Influencer.

As the events marketing landscape continues to evolve, inviting new challenges and opportunities, the Club looks forward to striding head-on and create more unmissable brand experiences for its iconic racing events.

This article is sponsored by HKJC.