Living in an international city, there are these brands I grew up with that are just there, like you were born with an elder sister or brother, your parent’s dog or that relative you’ve been seeing since…you can’t even remember; they are just there. I can’t remember my first Happy Meal, the first time I had a Coke…Compared to other things like the first time my small unc. (youngest uncle on my mother’s side) pulled out a Laser Disc and showed me OG Ultraman, my first pair of Reeboks or the first time I touched a basketball. But there are these other ones which my attachment to them is plain awkward, it’s almost like it was planted in my DNA.
I couldn’t return to my parents house for the exact photograph, but I remember that one picture taken in 1990. I was 3 and the picture had my mom, dad and elder sister in it at Hong Kong’s signature theme park: Ocean Park, seated in front of a water fountain with smiling faces. Further in the background are kiosks which surround the plaza we where in, and I can still remember 29 years later: A big, red umbrella with the white swirling letters, beaming for attention still in a 29 year old photograph.
I have been fascinated by logos since I was around 12. Back when the NBA was still infused with a certain hip-hop flavour and did not contain as much censorship against images like bombs or weapons, the colours combination of each team logo stood against one another with opposing intent, as a kid that could not follow the 90 something games every year I still was absorbed in to their branding and the imagery, how it was applied to their jerseys and spawning products from sneakers to fridge magnets.
So I guess that’s where my passion for character design came from (thx ninja turtles and NBA!). It was later on when I grew older though, my thoughts went to more of the brand logos that need no introduction in my life. As told previously, I don’t remember not having to go discover them; they just happen to be there all along, including: McDonalds, MTR (Hong Kong subway) and Coca Cola. I guess I started seeing simplicity and how well it is practiced with these big time brands, and the power and the mesmerising affect they have on the world fascinates me.
But I see it now. As message senders that have been spreading their influence for over 5 decades, they must’ve gotten pretty freakin’ good at doing so, even on a global scale; the red umbrella stuck to my mind much more than any other detail in that photograph for a reason. So proves the might of mass marketing.
For a period of time, I did not believe in the effects of mass marketing. One of my first realisations on my path to becoming a designer is when I worked a summer internship and found out products are not worth as much as they are sold most of the time, before that I couldn’t link a pair of Air Jordans to an assembly line, mass orders of fabrics and a bunch of low paid workers in China, so I became pretty careful with what I buy in my early teens because I weighed the value of everything, I thought many people must have the same view and advertising is just….there. I was proven so wrong with the emergence of Facebook.
Before the internet gotten big with the smartphone, TV ads had all sorts of ways in sending out messages for different brands and products, the better ones usually got shown a lot: The bigger the brand was the “better” the commercial the more run-time they got. So thinking back I guess that was fair right? A good product with awesome commercials and magazine articles to inform me bout it’s time to head to the mall. Now though (in Hong Kong), dry humoured YouTubers, floppy $5K (around 500 pounds) budget commercials…..eh yuck! But it proves a point: spend the “right” money, LOTs of exposure, get the right person or group (boy band), people will pay. Hong Kong businesses have generally stopped trying to look like they got any taste, as long as people pay. It’s just that kind of a place.
Driving my thoughts back, I think looking at the long lasting examples of brand establishment is really important as a designer in Hong Kong. I ain’t sure what the thousands of small business owners are thinking; but when I own a brand of my own I darn wanna make it last longer than I live!
So was Coca Cola’s deep set roots in Hong Kong a total plot? I personally do not think so, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time, who would’ve thought practicing a set of management not common here in Hong Kong in the 60s could lead to a positive word of mouth and having accomplished it’s influence over a city for many years to come. I chose this example for week 11 for I think this scale of influence is impossible to replicate in this time and age.
A great product or service is indeed a must, but for a logo to stick in people’s hearts it probably takes more than money and the sheer number of influence, there is the human feeling factor which cannot be calculated which could impact any design the most. The thing is all that could be designed is done to establish a good product, give it the packaging it deserves and sell it as the amazing spectacle that it is, but the ultimate goal is to have the receivers get and to buy in to what ever that is sent out.
So I think Coca Cola has done way more than us here in Hong Kong a couple of sodas; they (intentionally or not) have rooted in to our lives, continue to make the right moves and have successfully captured our hearts to grab the red can instead of the blue.
ps: I purchased my first 4 blue cans in like over a decade JUST for the Gundam collab…so that’s how well the red cans have worked on me.
ANDY was here
ANDY was here 🤓 