Ad watch - MMHK April

Sean Seah, general manager, Zuji

HOT

Hong Kong Social Welfare Department 4 stars

It's not very often that a community message gets my attention and even more difficult as it is in a language that I cannot understand, yet this one stood out because of it's simplicity and universal application. We all know that abuse happens in our community and often we ignore it and stop looking. What is good about this TVC is it challenges and inspires us to do something about it without making us feel guilty. The message is transformational as it calls me to care for my community in a very specific way, that is for me to act. The call to action is authentic, as everyone who sees the ad can actually do something about it. A philosopher once said ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing'. This message rings true in this ad, and is an example of how the advertising industry can really make a difference.

NOT

Evergrande Realestate

1 star

Property companies often come up with out of the box ideas when it comes to marketing their properties. Most of them attempt to infuse its brand with some sort of personality and voice to make it different from the competition. This unfortunately was not the case with the recent campaign by Evergrande Realestate. The repetitive creative promoting different properties (noticeable only if you carefully read it) in consecutive pages of the same publication (without the desire to translate the words into the relevant language) made me wonder if there was a misprint in the newspaper. I have no doubt that they are a leading property company in China and this burst was in anticipation of their IPO in Hong Kong. Alas it is a pity that its advertising did not effectively communicate any of its key attributes at such a vital time. That said they get one star for making the effort to place print advertising almost everywhere.