Referred to these days by some as Hong Kong, China, the city that’s going through many changes and creating its own new brand personality has much riding on this year’s Longines HKIR week and the 140th Anniversary of the Club.
Of course, the HKIR has always been the highlight of the Hong Kong’s racing calendar with the HKJC pulling out all stops to welcome its international guests, and this year, more emphasis placed on those from China, some of whom will be having their first taste of truly international horse racing.
Though there have been “exhibition” horse racing meetings over the many years in some provinces in China, where some of us won scratch and sniff cards, refrigerators and bottles of Chinese Dynasty wine, many are still to experience those thundering hooves and world class equine stars and the athletes who guide them.
With HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges aka The Enigma taking a personal interest in the ambitious evolution of the Conghua Training Centre in fabulous Chengdu, this week means much to Hong Kong, China that should even transcend the horse racing.
This is a week for the city’s restaurants and bars and hotels to put on the ritz and the glitz- and ensuring standards don’t nosedive.
It’s the coming together to create a Kumbaya moment and with HKIR week leading the way and, perhaps, inspiring other events in Hong Kong to follow suit and be part of a new Big Picture in line with the post Covid world.
It’s about strategic change and understanding and attracting a skeptical new generation about their future and life in general and to where horse racing might fit in.
It’s about giving them a sense of ownership and a tangible reason for investing in what is a business to some and a pastime for others. Or something that’s a combination of both.
It’s to do with aspirational values by offering them the opportunity to gain that very important Chinese thing known as “face”.
It’s not going to be easy, but, then again, having turned those weird “Sassy Wednesdays” at Happy Valley that some described as a “Joe Bananas for grandpas” into the young and vibrant international Happy Wednesday nights of engagement and interactivity, at least from where I sit after over six decades in what was once known as “Asia’s world city”, it’s about not repeating what’s come before.
It’s about rekindling the fires of Hong Kong’s Can Do spirit.
It’s also about breathing new life into what even longtime supporters of horse racing who are now decades older see as a “sunset industry” with no return on their time and investment as they deal with Father Time.
As someone who will always be in advertising, marketing, music and sports entertainment, it’s still about supply and demand.
The question is whether anyone knows what this new generation, seemingly lost in space, really wants in order to fill the void in their lives?
Does anyone really know what’s next?
What none of us need is more unsocial social media, click bait, clutter, TikTok moments that too often lead to the very dark web and depression.
How then can going horse racing become therapeutic and bring people to that happy place?
It’s been done and done extremely well every Wednesday night for at least eight years in a very happy and international Hong Kong.
What’s that invisible link or segue between horse racing and some ‘live’ performance pre the racing usually by a singer who has seen better days or a Doof Doof DJ?
Football, Formula 1, Cricket, E-sports, basketball, tennis, and even golf have changed- built a new environment and customer experience around them.
Whether it’s the tatts or hairstyles or the IPL business model or Bazball or Lewis Hamilton or Virat Kohli, all this has come together to create change that has attracted a new audience of many thousands… and retained the loyalists.
How does horse racing compare? It can’t.
The words “horse racing” don’t even figure when trying to set up a Twitter account for the pastime and warning signs in advertising don’t help- and should be dropped.
It still remains something foreign to the mainstream media and mainstream audiences.
Having said this, by working alongside international business partners with proven global track records, it offers the opportunity to create breakthrough advertising like DDB did with the classic “Lemon” ad for Volkswagen.
The negative becomes the positive and is clever and MEMORABLE advertising.
What’s not needed are (A) more sponsored advertorials that no one bothers to read and (B)“dramatic” music over which the usual pastiche of clichés associated with horse racing are cobbled together.
What’s taking place in Conghua and this year’s HKIR week gives horse racing in Hong Kong a new mindset that will surprise, inspire, invigorate, motivate and reactivate.
As Billy Joel sang, “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, but we inherited it and The Evolution of horse racing has begun in Hong Kong, China.
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