A co-creation project between TamJai YunNan Mixian and a pair of popular local Hong Kong rappers. Everybody was having fun in the music video. We were trying news things, getting out of ruts to incorporate the current social situration into the song. Additionally, the featuring of TamJai JeiJei, the hero staffs of the brand, were giving the spark to the video. Make dream comes true! Successfully gained 600k views on YouTube!
To quickly respond to the market needs, a popular dish “Duck Blood Mixian” was re-launched. The campaign made use of a trendy icon, Tyson Yoshi to create a cool feeling while also establishing an emotional bond with the youngers.
Miss Hong Kong 2013, Grace Chan has been appointed to be the spokesperson of Proven Probiotics. She quickly grasped a rather complicated role to present three different functions of the product in this 360 campaign which covered both online and offline media.
Recently, we conducted a market research for a food company. The purpose of the survey was to find out how much Japanese food ingredients are available in Hong Kong when introducing recipes for Japanese dishes. If we accept a degree of alternatives*, it turns out that quite a few of the 20 of recipes could be easily prepared in Hong Kong. (*Alternatives mean, for example, that cucumbers and eggplants are available, even if they are different from those in the original recipe.
For both Hong Kong as an importer (consumer) and Japan as an exporter of ingredients of Japanese dishes, the fact that it takes only about four hours to fly to and from Hong Kong is an advantage. A sushi chef here, who has a restaurant which is so popular that it is booked up to six months in advance, told me that Hong Kong is just far enough away that they can deliver what they get in the morning at the Japanese market on the same day.
On a daily life level, in Hong Kong, you can satisfactorily get Japanese food for daily meals at affordable prices at Japanese food supermarkets** such as “YATA”. Looking back, it seems like a far different life from just 15 years ago, when people used to bring rice back to Hong Kong when they temporarily returned to Japan because they could not get Japanese rice. For example, rice, eggs, and natto are commonly available. And even though the prices may not be cheap, there are more choices for fruits, dried foods, seasonings, and processed foods.
20 years ago, when I was in Shanghai, I found Japanese curry sold at a expensive price, and I bought it without any hesitation. I also bought some meat that was a little darker in the market, and potatoes, onions, and carrots from an expensive deli for foreigners, and made curry and rice every week. I remember chopping the ingredients, stewing, and washing the wok in the common kitchen of the residential complex in the concession area where they lived, in order to feed curry and rice to my friends in Shanghai.
From a consumer’s point of view, I would like to see Japanese food products become more affordable in Hong Kong, while from a business viewpoint, I would like to see Japanese producers not only expand their market but also expand their high-end Japanese food products.
**Note: This supermarket is a local one, but it is originally a Seibu chain and actively sells Japanese products. Major supermarket chains such as Wellcome and PARKn Shop don’t sell as many Japanese products. However, they do sell Javanese curry, rice, eggs, natto, and meat, so there is no doubt that Japanese food is expanding as a whole.
Most of the studios for films or commercials are located a bit far from the heart of the city. This time the studio was the Clearwater Bay Film Studios in Sai Kung area in the eastern part of Hong Kong. It is a very old studio and you can almost hear the creaks coming from all around. The studio was used for shooting many films, TV shows and commercials.
There is a lot of food in the story of commercial. There were scenes where the actor eats a lot of food. The scene where the feast is lined up on a long table is a highlight.
This time, there were more than 30 staff members from our company and the production company, which also supervised the filming. Among them, there were five food staff and they made a strong presence this time.
The food stylist is a woman who has a reputation for shooting for a popular pizza restaurants, and there are four more staff members in charge of cooking. It was a large studio with a small kitchen next to it. Rather than a kitchen, a small partitioned room was used for cooking. In Japan, a studio with a fully equipped kitchen would be an option.
The small “kitchen” was filled with the smell of cooking. The smell of delicious food stung our empty stomachs, and we all felt full even though we hadn’t eaten at all.
おい、キッチン、餃子はまだか!ピザはどうした!
Hey, kitchen, where are the dumplings! Where’s the pizza!
It’s tough being an actor. They have to keep on eating the cake, licking their tongues, even though they have to do it over and over. Even in such a situation, when it came time to eat the cake, the actor never forgot to make a professional suggestion, “Wouldn’t it be fun if you put more cream on the cake so that it sticks to the top of my nose when finish eating it? This kind of suggestion can really lighten the mood and can really make a difference.
The contract with the actor is only for 10 hours. Anyway, it’s going to be a problem if we don’t finish his scene in time! This is not the kind of shooting with a lot of time to spare that is often seen in Japan. The budget had been also cut down. We had to shoot stills at the same place in between.
From here on, it was all about patience. Some of the dishes that were laid out earlier got dried out, or lost their sizzle (the feeling of deliciousness conveyed to the five senses). Sometimes the stylist will add grease or dry ice to create smoke, and other times the food is re-cooked. In the end, it took all of us until midnight, five hours after the actors left the studio, to finish the entire shoot!
We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to finish the shoot in time, but as it turned out, we were able to finish without any problems. The production staff and TYA members worked very well together.
It was hard work for the clients and actors, and the production team worked diligently while the rest of the society was on vacation. We could really feel how much they loved the work. It really enriches our own feelings. This must be the fun of working in advertising, and doing it overseas!