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The GolinHarris team in Hong Kong worked with the hotel to put together a vibrant and entertaining launch event combining an aerial silk dance performance and traditional Chinese lion dancers. More than 300 guests, including 60 international and local media, witnessed the official handover of the property by owner Pansy Ho, managing director of Shun Tak Holdings Limited, to Craig Smith, senior vice president for Asia Pacific of Marriott International. Officiating guests also included Margaret Fong, tourism commissioner for the Hong Kong Government SAR, Anthony Lau, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, and Stanley Hui Hon-chung, chief executive officer of the Airport Authority Hong Kong. The 658-room hotel property, only a 28-minute train ride from Hong Kong's Central district, is conveniently located at Hong Kong International Airport and connected to AsiaWorld-Expo, the international exhibition and convention center. The hotel's amenities include Marriott's signature Quan Spa, four dining and entertainment outlets, the city's largest executive lounge and access to an adjacent nine-hole golf course.
The main theme was, "The government hands out red packets; Yahoo!Kimo chips in to offer 5 +1 incentives." With the approaching Chinese Lunar New Year, GH combined elements of the holiday, such as red packets, firecrackers and the God of Wealth, with a launch event. Representatives of the Yahoo!Kimo Shopping Center and 12 companies announced they would offer a selection of specially priced products for purchase with consumption vouchers. The significance was that consumers were getting a big red packet. A total of 40 media outlets and 60 journalists joined the event, resulting in 100 exposures. Estimated advertising value reached NT$7,466,015 (US$219,847), achieving a 37-fold return on investment and an 80% rate for use of key messages in the exposures.
Filipino domestic helpers are the backbone of many Hong Kong families, but many of them cannot afford to go home to see their loved ones during the holidays. With the installation of the Cisco TelePresence facility at its Manila office in January, Cisco acted to help reunite Filipino workers in Hong Kong with their families via the company's advanced technology that creates live"face-to-face" meeting experiences over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. GH invited the leading local broadcaster, TVB, and a popular local media organization to cover two TelePresence meetings held on Valentine's Day. On that day, Cisco reunited Anette Villegas with her husband, whom she had not seen for over a year, and Hassel Lanza with her two young children in Manila. The story ran on TVB's evening news.
Recent changes in the Bahamas Embassy in Beijing, which issues visas to Chinese travelers, was a key driver of the delegation visit, which shared the news with a range of stakeholders including trade, travel and lifestyle media; local tour operators; and airlines. This was also an opportune time to gather updates on China, a rapidly changing outbound tourism market. GolinHarris worked together with BMOT to arrange a series of press events and trade meetings, positioning the Bahamas as the "Treasure of the Caribbean” to distinguish the Bahamas from other destinations and to capture media and trade attention. The packed schedule consisted of media activities, a visit to the China International Travel Mart, and meetings with trade and tour agencies. These meetings provided valuable insights into the needs of Chinese tourists, confirmed BMOT's tourism promotional plans, established timelines and next steps for future promotional efforts, and led to immediate cooperative opportunities with air carriers and tour operators. The results were outstanding, with a total of 61 media and 36 trade representatives attending two media events. Six media conducted group or one-on-one interviews, generating outstanding coverage for the Bahamas.
The two-day conference was spearheaded by Victor Fung, chairman of ICC and group chairman of Li & Fung, a longtime client of GolinHarris. It involved more than 150 CEOs and senior executives from major corporations across 10 countries in the region as well as ICC directors from around the world. Together, they urged Asian business leaders to play a greater role in addressing the current financial crisis and called on the global business community to make itself heard on issues of international finance, regulation, trade and improved governance. The timing of the conference also coincided with the opening of the first Asian office of ICC's International Court of Arbitration, in Hong Kong. The move was made in recognition of the growing importance of Asia Pacific to the International Court of Arbitration and the increasing demand for arbitration services in the region. With news of the financial tsunami in the background, GH secured strong interest from local and international media and both events received extensive coverage highlighting ICC's call for an immediate response to the financial meltdown by unlocking liquidity and getting trade flowing again.
The GH campaign was designed to spread professional knowledge and common sense. Doctors would speak on the causes and treatment of cardiac arrhythmia, and dietitians would share knowledge on good eating habits and cardiac health. Consultants used newspapers and radio to build publicity for the events while also cooperating with local representatives to encourage public participation. Nearly 800 people joined the three events held. In a survey, 99% of the respondents said they gained useful knowledge, and 100% said they would seek medical assistance in the event of cardiac arrhythmia. Most importantly, Medtronic was pleased with the results and is continuing the project with GH this year to let more people participate.
Sichuan province—famed for its spicy cuisine—is one of the most important food markets in China. In order to reinforce UFS's leading position in innovative Sichuan cuisine, the company needed a creative approach to influence restaurant owners, diners and chefs. GH proposed an unconventional way to promote Sichuan cuisine through social media. Consultants planned a month-long online "Innovation Sichuan Cuisine” food tasting competition in partnership with two influential F&B websites, Poco.cn and 52ch.net. Six leading local restaurants (and UFS clients) were selected to host the tasting event. GH set up attractive web banners on the website's front pages to introduce each restaurant and recruit diners to join the tasting and publish online reviews. The online food tasting competition proved to be very popular with diners, and the websites generated more than 100 reports with great photos and 962,745 page views. The campaign also provided unique opportunities for restaurants to directly interact with their customers. Each restaurant received around 20 reports and more than 140,000 views. More than 80% of comments were very positive, and more than 200 diners expressed online that they wanted to try the innovative Sichuan cuisine after seeing the reports. GH also invited broadcast media such as Sichuan TV to report on the events, which achieved significant online and traditional coverage. Though the digital campaign represented a departure for UFS, which used to concentrate on traditional media, the activities helped UFS generate top-of-mind awareness and brand preference in the world of Sichuan cuisine.
With New Year galas already on many media's event calendars, the communication challenge was promoting the "Nude Look”—subtly hiding imperfections and bringing out one's best features—which is the basis for Natural Beauty. Also, a photo studio was set up at the launch, and photographers were asked to take a facial close-up of the beauty editors, providing contrasting versions with and without the soft-focus lens to explain soft-focus technology, a new feature of Beyond Natural that highlights women's best features. GH consultants arranged two media workshops and created a natural, cozy atmosphere for in-depth conversation and interaction among media. More than 42 beauty editors from magazines, TV, newspapers and websites attended the launch.
The Shanghai office of GolinHarris organized a visit to the Shanghai Xuhui Elderly Community on the last day of February 2009. The program consisted of promoting healthy living, and GH even introduced the participants to some of its clients' healthy products such as ZESPRI kiwi fruit, Unilever's Lipton tea and Lee Kum Kee's ketchup. GHers entertained over 60 elders with songs and music, as well as teaching them to make origami. This spirit of giving back and volunteer is part of the overall GH culture.
GolinHarris has been selected to provide strategic counsel for the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Government's campaign to promote core family values. The aim of the campaign is to foster a greater sense of unity among the Hong Kong community and remind people of the importance of family—especially in an era of increased technological communications and dwindling face-to-face interaction. The six-month project, which started in October 2008, has so far involved developing and creating a campaign logo, which GH officially launched. Consultants will continue to work with the Home Affairs Bureau to produce two 30-second TV commercials. Stay tuned for more news!
With more than two decades of communications experience in both PR and the media, Wei Hsiang, newly appointed executive vice president of GolinHarris in Taiwan, recently provided media training to major clients such as 3M and Underwriters Laboratories®(UL). "Media training is a vital part of the external communications of a corporation,” Wei said. "Spokespeople who are unprepared are like actors taking the stage without rehearsing.” Wei expressed her appreciation for clients who recognize the importance of media training that addresses recent changes within the media. The news media's characteristics and coverage have changed rapidly and the speed of reporting has become faster than ever, Wei noted. As a media strategist, she urges clients to think of the media as a communications channel, key influencer and advocate among the various stakeholders in a company. Through media training, Wei aims to help executives and spokespersons convey key messages through good media relations that leverage influence on target audiences. In the past eight years, Wei has provided media training as well as issue and crisis management courses for clients on local and regional levels. |
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