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Out to lunch with: Eugene Wong, CEO of Sunny Idea

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Eugene Wong, CEO and founder of Sunny Idea, is not a marketer as such, but an e-commerce entrepreneur. But after building a successful business in the USA in the mid-2000s, he moved back to the city of his birth.“I love Hong Kong,” Wong simply said with a smile when prompted about why he moved back. He acknowledges freely that Hong Kong can be challenging, but that’s part of the fun.Some three years ago, Wong founded Sunny Idea - originally an entertainment business that has since grown into an entire ecosystem, with partners including Jerry Keung and Chan Wing-Him representing entertainment, and Goretti Yau on content production.Keung is the co-founder of Sunny Idea, and through him, the agency received many concert organising opportunities to further strengthen their footprint in the entertainment industry. Chan is an award-winning lyricist, his expertise is using words and music to express his thoughts and resonate with the audience. Both of them grant Sunny Idea access to new networks, creativity, and expertise for more collaboration and creative opportunities. Gorretti Yau, on the other hand, is a seasoned TV and film production professional, who led a post production house in Beijing prior to joining Sunny Idea. Gorretti helped to build a team of production experts which significantly upgraded the quality standard of their video production services.“At Sunny Idea, we designed our working model by building a unique ecosystem around consumers based on three key pillars; advertising, content production, and entertainment,” Wong said.“By embedding communication in people's daily lives, we are creating the best possible experience for consumers; combined with 18 years of e-commerce experience, and we have the insights to provide revolutionary solutions and access to our brand and marketing partners.”When the team started out in 2015 with a single artist signed – JW, or Joey Wong - they set about applying what they’d learned in selling products on e-commerce platforms to promoting their newly signed artist - first off, by building a YouTube channel to generate sponsors and product placements - making her one of the first artists in Hong Kong to gain fame solely through digital promotion.Her first ‘viral’ song earned its name - in the first month, it had generated 1 million views. In a year, that would become 15 million. And it was no accident either - the first song was built from the ground up in a similar way to how great ads are created; with an insight.And that overlap between what works in entertainment, and what works for marketers, is what ultimately led to Sunny Idea’s expansion into the advertising business and its unique offering. In 2017, Wong hired Adrian Li, Leung Chung, and Vincent Tse from 4As agencies to head up the advertising team to strengthen its creative solutions offering.“When you look at entertainment and advertising companies, they pretty much still act like a silo. When you look at it from the consumers’ point of view, however, entertainment and advertising are so blended already. So we have to fundamentally change our business nature. Or else we are going to be lagging behind. We need a new approach to provide marketing solutions for nowadays marketers,” Wong said.Li added, “You need to think about ‘how does this start a conversation?’ When you combine brand building skills and the shorter-term ‘viral effect’ focus from entertainment, you end up in an interesting place.“When you start thinking about a campaign, you don’t start by thinking about the channel! You start with understanding consumer behaviour - your insight. The problem is that often, there is no integration at all - and you can’t maximise your capabilities.”The key then, is to collaborate across department and across disciplines - it’s about drawing on the insights and talents all around you, according to Sunny Idea. And Wong believes that it’s all about leading by example, and sharing experience. The founder and CEO is more than happy to jump into the metaphorical mud and get his hands dirty with the rest of the staff - whether it’s making a Facebook ad or doing the media buy for a whole campaign.“Our flexibility lies in the fact that we work together - if entertainment has a project, they’ll ask advertising to help out. And vice versa,” Leung Chung, Head of Creative said.And while the agency prides itself on its vast KOL network, it cautions that the use of a popular face is not a cure-all.“Maybe 80% of campaigns nowadays use KOLs,” Chung said with a laugh. “But not many of them will go viral. Only those that relate their KOL with the target audience and the brand can make it. And you don’t necessarily need a big-name KOL either.”For a sanitary pad campaign the team did, for example, they had the insight that customers tend to stick with one brand - until they go to university. At university, they tend to borrow pads from peers and get exposed to different brands that way. After, they usually remain customers for life.So the team played into that and got student-age smaller KOLs that appeal to the target audience to promote the brand alongside content tailored to the tastes of the target audience - a trifecta of factors that ultimately led to business results.

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