A Pitch to Remember - MMHK September 2008

What was the brief? To organise a media conference and a blogger event to launch Google Maps Hong Kong. The aim was to promote Google Maps' local features and highlight the company's collaboration with local partners.

What made the pitch so interesting? Other than the opportunity to work with Google, the top web property across all major global markets, the fact that Google Maps is already an established and very popular product made it both interesting and challenging for us. We needed to bring to the table something new and exciting about Google Maps that will get the media and the users excited about the Hong Kong version of Google Maps.

How did you pull off the event/process? The magic ingredient of the event's success was the close collaboration of all key parties involved. On top of the support of Google's PR and marketing team, their product engineering team was also very much hands-on during the planning stage. Tackling the plan from three different perspectives allowed us to define strategies and tactics that effectively addressed the PR, marketing and technical objectives of the event.

Who was there? Three broadcast media attended the event, along with a majority of the top-tier dailies, business, technology and lifestyle press. We also have some of Hong Kong's influential bloggers during the blogger dinner. From the client side, we had Dr Lee-Feng Chien, engineering director, research & development Center of Google Taiwan and Hong Kong. Some of Google's local partners, such as Filmplay.com, HKEdCity.net, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, OpenRice.com and PCCW were there to lend support as well.

How did you create the buzz? We wanted Google Maps to appeal to consumers, so at the launch we presented a skit depicting how its tools and features can be applied in daily life. Google's partners were also there to demonstrate how they used Google Maps to add value to their web sites and benefit their users.

What were the client's metrics on success? From the very start of the project, Google made it clear that they wanted a broad coverage including lifestyle media and TV. At the same time, they expected that a majority of the attending journalists are from the consumer and lifestyle media.

What were the results? Attendance at the two events far exceeded our expectations. Compared to our initial target, the number of journalists and bloggers who attended grew by 53% and 55%, respectively. We also secured three TV interviews for Google, along with full-page press coverage from some of the leading dailies and magazines.

Cathy Yu
Senior Account Executive
The Hoffman Agency