The Impossible Rebranding Campaign

Hong Kong is a beautiful city, but is mired in political issues

A few days before the national security law was in force, there was an announcement that the Hong Kong government had hired a top British public relations firm to help "Relaunch Hong Kong".

Good luck with that.

The one-year contract worth US$6.2 million (HK$48 million) expects Consulum to come up with a communications strategy, as well as marketing and advertising plan to help "rebuild confidence in Hong Kong as a place to invest, do business, work and live".

Images like this were seen last year globally

The company will also come up with a strategy to change global perceptions of the city following last year's anti-government protests.

And now with the national security law in place, one aspect of which says anyone who criticizes the Hong Kong or Chinese government overseas and lands in the city even for transiting, could be arrested, rebranding the metropolis' image is going to be even harder.

How do you change people's perceptions worldwide about a draconian law that has decided the heaviest sentence of life in prison for those convicted of secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion?

Move along, folks, nothing to see here! How about some shopping?

One can't even begin to imagine what a mammoth undertaking this is and how to change people's minds after seeing the images of police firing tear gas at people, beating them senselessly, and arresting children?

Protesters try to get away from the tear gas

This is the ultimate challenge in window dressing, when really the Hong Kong government missed many opportunities, particularly early on in the protests to politically solve the issue of the extradition bill.

In addition, the choice of Consulum, based in London also raised eyebrows, not just for getting the job that many firms turned down to even pitch for, but also for its track record.

Consulum collapsed in 2017 after running a racist campaign in South Africa, highlighting the power of white-owned businesses to stir up anger about "white monopoly capital", and "economic apartheid".

It also had Saudi Arabia as a client to fix its image following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 in the country's consulate in Turkey. Saudi officials claim the murder was killed in a "rogue operation".

Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Arabian consulate

Hong Kong PR experts are wondering why the government is hiring a PR company now, and wasting taxpayer money on what will be a fruitless exercise.

Andy Ho On-tat, who was a senior aide who worked in the Donald Tsang Yam-kuen administration, says with the hiring of Consulum, Hong Kong will be forever associated with Saudi Arabia. Also he thinks the timing of the PR offensive is wrong.

"We don't need to pay so much for a foreign firm to do studies to know that Hong Kong's negative image is largely due to political problems," he said a week ago.

"Now we are going to have a national security law and the US has threatened sanctions and China has also threatened to impose visa restrictions on US individuals. How can you persuade people overseas that Hong Kong is a free and welcoming city against this backdrop?"

Indeed.

Hong Kong the Hot Potato

We all love Hong Kong, but how can it be saved by PR?

The Hong Kong government can't seem to get the help it desperately needs to tell the world the city is open for business thanks to all the bad publicity from the anti-government protests last year and now the impending national security law.

Last fall the government asked eight public relations companies to pitch -- six declined.

Seven PR companies pitched the HK government

This time around there were seven bids, and eventually Edelman, the largest PR firm in the world, was chosen just days before the news of the national security law came from Beijing.

The campaign is supposed to be called "Relaunch Hong Kong", a relaunch of a relaunch back in September during the height of the anti-government protests.

But alas on Friday Edelman pulled out of the assignment, citing "changes to the global issues environment", the second PR firm to do so following MSL, citing concerns of local employees.

The "changes to the global issues environment" not only include the national security law, but the fallout from it, including US President Donald Trump threatening sanctions, which would make handling Hong Kong's image very difficult without wading into the murky realm of politics.

How do you counteract an image like this?

"Anyone can see, at this stage, that it would be impossible to run that kind of campaign," said an industry source familiar with the situation. "The product has changed."

That's too bad, as the Hong Kong government had earmarked a whopping HK$226.6 million (US$29 million) for the campaign, at 53.5 percent increase from its 2019 budget on global campaigns.

One senior executive at a global PR firm has said the Hong Kong government is a "controversial client", and maybe it's harder because the firm with the winning bid would have to placate Beijing more than Hong Kong.

Public affairs consultant Any Ho On-tat, says many local employees of Hong Kong offices of global PR firms did not want to be involved in the campaign.

Images of tear gas went around the world last year

"It's nearly mission impossible to salvage Hong Kong's tattered image no matter how beautiful the PR materials a global firm produces," Ho said. "It's also unwise to draw the attention of an international audience amid the consternation arising from the national security law."

So even though Hong Kong desperately needs a reboot, it continues to be a political hot potato no one wants to touch...

HK Police Behavour Continues to Spiral

A protester throws back a canister of tear gas back at the police

Although we are not in Hong Kong, we're watching events as closely as possible and the behaviour of the police continue to deteriorate, arresting anyone in their way who haven't even committed a crime. How is this rule of law? It's just creating an administrative nightmare for the legal system.

Tens of thousands marched peacefully in the streets in Sunday

We are mortified to see a young man having lunch with his father in Amoy Gardens in Kowloon Bay and the former is suddenly arrested for what? His father is angry and scared, following the police taking his son away. What did his son do?

Meanwhile another proposed march by the Civil Human Rights Front was banned on Sunday from Causeway Bay to Chater Garden, and yet tens of thousands of people came out anyway, angry about too many things. However, an illegal march just gives the police any reason to arrest anyone or inflict more violence on protesters in the area.

Meanwhile tonight in North Point an unmasked man punched two journalists -- one I know -- and yet the police right there don't even arrest the man who provoked the violence. What is going on?

Congress MUST pass🇭🇰Human Rights & Democracy Act to hold Carry Lam & her entire Executive Council accountable for this kind of injustice & human rights abuse. https://t.co/QPKs2JMnnD

— Solomon Yue (@SolomonYue) September 15, 2019

How does Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor sleep at night?

Oh wait she doesn't consider young people to have a stake in society because they haven't contributed to the development of Hong Kong.

How does Carrie Lam think she can make things fine in HK?

The Hong Kong government is so desperate to tell the outside world that the city is still open for business and yet its call to top global public relations companies to help restore its reputation has gone unheeded.

None of the top four PR firms even offered to put in a bid for the job.

That's how low the Hong Kong government has fallen -- these PR experts think the government's reputation is unsalvageable.

How does Lam think she will ever have control over the city? How does she think she can gain the confidence of investors again? More importantly how does she think she will ever gain the trust of Hongkongers to have honest, mutual dialogue?

Cracks in Heung Yee Kuk?

Heung Yee Kuk chairman Kenneth Lau will be sworn in as a lawmaker...

Are we seeing weakness in the notorious rural force known as Heung Yee Kuk?

Its chairman, Kenneth Lau Ip-leung was elected uncontested last month in the Legislative Council elections, and he will take the oath of office on Wednesday.

It was suggested in their internal meeting that 10,000 rural villagers show up to Legco to demonstrate their support for Lau, but now that has drastically been scaled back to a few hundred at most.

While Li Yiu-ban, a kuk ex-officio executive councillor who is helping to organize the rally, says it's better to have less people at Tamar because it "may cause inconvenience to others", others say Lau isn't taking a strong enough stance on rural issues like his father, Lau Wong-fat, who stepped down for health reasons after running the kuk for 35 years.

... and so will Eddie Chu (left) who exposed the kuk's violations

The rally was also meant to protest against incoming legislator Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, who has single handedly exposed kuk members bullying the Hong Kong government in the Wang Chau development in Yuen Long.

The Wang Chau site is a brownfield site the government had wanted to take back to build some 17,000 flats, but some kuk members are using it -- and profiting from it -- and refuse to hand it back, forcing the authorities to retreat and instead develop a green-belt area nearby and evict residents of three villages.

This whole fiasco has made the kuk realize they need to revamp their image and plan to hire a public relations firm to help them.

While the Basic Law protects the traditional rights of indigenous rural residents, rural leaders says it should include hillside burials, the right to build small houses and exemption from government rent.

Perhaps the strongman days of Lau Wong-fat are over?

At the same time there is no official figure on the number of indigenous residents in Hong Kong who can trace their male ancestry back to residents of the New Territories in 1898, though some rural leaders estimate it could be at least 300,000 of them.

So while the Heung Yee Kuk wants to put a positive spin on its image, who is going to believe it?

Peter Lam Yuk-wah, a public relations consultant, said rural leaders should give up the idea of a PR campaign to get people to accept their views and instead be prepared to make compromises.

"A campaign is more than forcing your views on others. There will be feedback. And how are you going to deal with that feedback is more important. Otherwise, you can make things worse," Lam said.

Perhaps members of the kuk need to realize Lau Wong-fat's strongman days are long gone and the only way to repair the PR damage is to do the right thing and return the land to the government...