Is Hong Kong advertising losing the English plot?

Ever observant of the outdoor badvertising I see around me every day in Hong Kong, I couldn’t help noticing an ad on the side of a minibus recently for a well-known (if you’re a parent) education centre featuring a headline that was grammatically incorrect.

 For an education centre. So what are they teaching the students?

 I was not shocked by this, because it’s something I’m accustomed to by now, although it was not always the case in this bilingual Asian World City.

 There was a time when English copywriters were hired to write English copy, and you needed a decent enough portfolio with some good long copy examples to qualify for the job.

 In fact, that’s exactly how I came to arrive in this wonderful city, on the back of a job offer at one of the leading international agencies. 

 I think over the years, in an industry that is constantly evolving, communication needs change, agency structures change, roles change, and the in-house English copywriter has been deemed something of a luxury with freelancers filling in the void when and where required. I get all of that.

 That’s completely understandable if you’re managing budgets and trying to keep your agency’s head above water in these challenging times.

 However, who’s vetting the freelancers? And on what grounds are they being hired if not on the basis of a good creative portfolio? These days anyone can be a creative freelancer, regardless of experience or background. 

 Worse still, are those who see fit to get around the non-English writer problem by giving the job to the nearest in-house staff member whose English is passable. “You’ll do”.

 When recently enquiring as to who was writing some terrible social media copy for a top notch luxury car brand, I was informed that the social media agency does not in fact have an in-house English writer, nor do they give the work to a credible freelancer. 

 So someone is writing the copy who is not actually qualified to be writing the copy. At least, not for a famous international luxury brand.

 Do the brand gatekeepers not understand how much this undermines the brand image? Such is the state of affairs.

 So who cares?

 On one hand, you might say that I should stop living in the past, that English is not important in advertising communications these days and only spoken Cantonese and Traditional Chinese copy matter when it comes to local people.

 Creating local advertising for a local market. 

 Fair enough, but then what sort of image does Hong Kong want to project for itself? Is it a ‘world city’? Does it still want to remain an important regional business hub, attracting international companies to base themselves here?

 Does it care at all about preserving the rich qualities that have made it what it is today? If not, then why bother running ads with English copy at all?

 I can’t speak about the levels of English being taught in schools, I’m not a teacher. But I am cognisant of how many local parents are queuing up to get their children into international schools, and more than that, paying good money to private tutors to teach English to them.

 So I’m assuming that they do consider decent English as something important in their child’s education. 

 Yet is Hong Kong helping itself? English has almost been relegated to an unnecessary novelty.

 I was shocked recently when visiting a branch of local book store chain Commercial Press, to see their entire stock of English books hidden away in a far corner at the back of the shop and occupying just a few shelves. Like some sort of afterthought.

 And parents are paying exuberant fees for extra tutoring?

 Try finding English books nowadays at our international airport (when you are in a position to actually visit the airport again). 

 Where once international travellers could browse a fairly comprehensive range via a few sizeable bookstores, you now have to play a game of hide and seek to locate the meagre English books selection located at the back of one or two smaller vendors.

 At our international airport. What does this do for Hong Kong’s image as a regional business hub? 

 Alas, I digress. Let’s get back to the ad world. Perhaps standards have slipped over the years, and the quality of our advertising has been diluted as a consequence, compared to what it once was. I think the Hong Kong market would not be alone in suffering from this. 

 Throw into the mix the convoluted jungle that is social media and text messaging abbreviations, where languages take on twisted new forms and expressions, and it’s understandable that that eventually the way we write and speak becomes corrupted.

Of course, when it comes to mass communications and advertising, obviously English is not important. Speak to the target audience in their own language. That's how I was always taught.

 But if English is to remain important at all in advertising, marketing and business communications, it should at least be executed to a presentable level.

 For the good of Hong Kong’s reputation.