AD WATCH: Hungry Digital founder's most/least favourite ads

AD WATCH features marketing industry figures providing their opinions on what they think is some of the most inspiring and disappointing work they've seen. As long as it's not their own!

In this edition:

Rudi Leung

Founder and director

Hungry Digital

HOT: Sony Playstation | PS5 Product Seeding

Want to make the most popular internet celebrities in town get booed by their fans? Give them a PS5 and let them show it off on social media.

PS5 is not just the coolest and most sought-after gadget, it’s a trophy and a symbol of status — even the richest and famous want one. However, Sony already announced that PS5 only has a “limited quantity” in the first year. Only real fans, or existing users with a PSN ID, can order online.

With many fans unable to purchase one, it might seem pointless to over-promote the PS5 during launch. But as a marketer, you cannot just sit on your marketing budget and do nothing. Therefore, I think it was such a brilliant social media move for PlayStation to seed PS5s to a handful of KOLs. Most of them are not even gamers.

And it’s not just gaming fans that are getting jealous of the KOLs who received a console; I also noticed that KOLs who couldn’t get one also expressing their jealousy as well. A gang of KOL comic writers even created comic strips to tease Cuson Lo, who is the only person receiving a PS5 among the peers. All of this “negative” content was harmless and mostly comical. It turned out to be a social media sensation for people to talk about the shortages of PS5 in town.

NOT: TamJai SamGor Yunnan Rice Noodles | There is a taste that makes you miss about Hong Kong

This video ad caught my eye because it gained 1.1 million views as the top branded video on Facebook in October, according to a newsletter from admanGo.

Then I searched out the video on the brand’s Facebook Page. The three minute micro-drama, titled There is a taste that makes you miss about Hong Kong, is about a young lady who left Hong Kong to pursue her dream job in Japan. However, she misses the “taste” of Hong Kong - TamJai SamGor - so much that she gives up her career and ran back home.

The storyline is a bit of a stretch. We all know how much Hong Kong young people admire Japanese culture. I could also argue whether or not Yunnan Rice Noodles are the taste that makes Hongkongers feel homesick. Isn’t everything too good to be true for the brand? At someone points out, I thought that I was watching one of these low-budget and cliché TVB dramas in the 1980s.

However, the number of views tells me that this video might work, at least among the fans of TamJai SamGor. It does bother me a bit, but I have to accept that it is perhaps the way how social media works these days.

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