5 brands in HK on top of their content marketing game

Content marketing is focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. Ultimately in the long run, this can help brands drive profitable customer action.

According to a 2021 research studying B2C content marketing conducted by Content Marketing Institute, 73% of respondents said their organisation had a content marketing strategy. Of those, 42% have a documented strategy. To help themselves implement content marketing strategy, 52% said their organisation had a small, or even a one-person, content marketing team serving the entire business.

Moreover, 48% of respondents said their business had established an online community. The survey defined an online community as a space where businesses' audiences can engage with each other and the brand in the form of discussions, posts and surveys.

Meanwhile, on the B2B front, 77% of respondents said their organisation had a content marketing strategy. Of those, 58% said their strategy was moderately or slightly different now versus pre-pandemic. While most content marketers said their organisation valued creativity and craft in content creation and production, 29% of respondents said their organisation was extremely or very successful with content marketing in the last 12 months. The top contributing factor was the value their content provides.

In light of the importance of content marketing, we turned to our Marketing Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2021 results to find out who our judges thought were the five best brands in Hong Kong. We've listed our top 5 winners alphabetically. Our list of agencies below won over our independent panel of high-calibre, client-side marketers not only by displaying the work they have done for clients, but also through their desire to nurture talent and create proprietary products for the execution of world class campaigns.

Carlsberg Brewery Hong Kong

Many brands in Hong Kong leveraged the popularity of boybands MIRROR and ERROR. Although collaborating with celebrities has been a useful way to successfully engage audiences, Carlsberg Brewery Hong Kong took a slightly different path by working with singer Alfred Hui and artiste Johhny Hui - both of whom are widely celebrated by many Hongkongers thanks to their impressive performance on ViuTV's reality show King Maker IV. Both of them formed a limited-time smooth boy band “Beeroar".

The company produced a music video capturing both Alfred Hui and Johnny Hui playing instruments, singing, and dancing, offering the audience an unexpected experience to show another side of them. After which, in response to the audience's positive response, Carlsberg Brewery Hong Kong partnered with KKBox to host the first Carlsberg Smooth Draught Virtual Concert on Facebook. The company also produced a theme song DeliverSmooth for the campaign, leveraging an attribute of its products — smoothness to create a catchy jingle.

To further engage the audience, Carlsberg Brewery Hong Kong also rolled out a behind-the-scenes video along with fun edits of its music video. Lastly, the company hosted a "Beeroar" live music concert in partnership with KKBox. The concert was live-streamed on KKBox's Facebook.

Coca-Cola China

In its campaign "City Can: We Can!", the company redesigned the cans and bottles of its iconic Coca-Cola. Designed by globally well-known artist Noma Bar, each of the nine designs carries a shared memory and story to remind everyone of the local core qualities and spirits. The graphics were inspired by public transport, local dishes, weather icons, TV commercials and iconic scenery. The design was aimed at showcasing the city on the cans and bottles with Coca-Cola's essences. Uplifting messages on the cans and bottles were all inspired by Internet lingo.

Contextual messages were developed to make the lingo both occasion-relevant and location-specific, uplifting Hongkongers in both the physical and digital world. Ads could be seen at MTR stations, bus exteriors and the entrance of the Western Harbour Tunnel. A set of WhatsApp stickers were also created, adding more fun to people's daily life. Lastly, Coca-Cola China also worked with MIRROR's Keung To and Alton Wong, as well as ERROR's DeeGor, featuring them in a live-streaming event to engage and uplift fans.

K11 Art Mall and 9GAG

K11 Art Mall worked with world-renowned meme platform 9GAG to launch an online-to-offline meme Museum, showcasing some of the most viral and humorous memes of all time at the shopping centre located at Tsim Sha Tsui. In this collaboration, K11 Art Mall and 9GAG chose more than 100 viral memes from Hong Kong and around the globe, bringing them to the physical world to amuse visitors.

The meme museum consisted of seven themed zones, each showcasing famed memes from different periods in various forms such as imagery, 3D figures and even scent, allowing visitors to review some of the most humorous memes. from the classic Saltbae to Swole Doge. The museum also featureed AR technology. Popular memes such as Confused Nick Young and Side Eyeing Chloe could be realised on digital devices.

The museum also offered a limited-edition Meme Yes!Cards. As Yes!Card celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, K11 Art Mall reinvented the iconic pop culture by transforming Yes!Cards into meme Cards. Lastly, with non-fungible tokens (NTF) gaining traction, K11 Art Mall launched in collaboration with 9GAG the world’s first meme NFT artwork, titled In Meme We Love.

Olympian City

The shopping mall collaborated with Hong Kong Creates to launch the “Alien Planet Christmas Party” campaign. The venue featured a giant spacecraft and eight colourful planets hanging above to draw participants' attention and serve as photo spots. Other offline touchpoints include on-site games consisting of five zones, offering multiple experiences as participants can crack riddles, to name a few.

In addition to the offline experience, the mall leveraged its app S+ Rewards to attract participants to complete subsequent missions. The app also offered members privileges and gifts, encouraging more participants to join the loyalty programme. To enrich the experience, space-themed STEM workshops organised by OC STEM Lab and storytelling sessions held in collaboration with eslite bookshop was launched where audiences could watch the workshops and sessions via Facebook too.

One of the highlights of the campaign was the “Hello Alien!” design competition. It invited children to exercise their imagination and create their aliens. To generate more publicity, Olympian City invited renowned DJ Chu Fan, who is also a mother, to join a competition via Facebook Live to promote the Alien Planet board game.

TamJai SamGor

TamJai SamGor's campaign "A Taste of Memories" leveraged the biggest dilemma among Hongkongers right now: staying or leaving the city. The brand created a story centred on memories. The brand said, " While the environment could be different, the bonds between people will never change."

MIRROR's Ian Chan was the main character of the campaign video. He went to TamJai SamGor to have rice noodles when he was a student. When returning to Hong Kong after living abroad for several years, he decided to visit the store again and a bowl of rice noodles recalled his memories of the good old days.

The video was launched online, aired on ViuTv, in addition to OOH touchpoints. User-generated Instagram filters, animations, YouTube videos and creative posts can be found online.

(Photo courtesy:123rf)

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