Adapt or perish - Hong Kong media urged to change after trust slumps to record low!

Is it time for a shake-up in Hong Kong’s long-established media industry? The question dominated a vibrant and sometimes fiery debate at the latest afterhours@edelman event on Tuesday night (July 7, 2015). 

The discussion took place against a backdrop of an industry in crisis. Between 2013 and 2014 trust in media plunged from 63% to 41%, according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer. Notably, people said they trusted media even less than they trusted the embattled Hong Kong government. 

Addressing the slump, speakers from the media industry — Shirley Yam, vice chairperson at Hong Kong Journalist Association; Wang Feng, editor in chief, Financial Times Chinese, Tom Grundy, founder, Hong Kong Free Press and Grace Leung senior lecturer, Chinese University Hong Kong – blamed threats to press freedom, the rise of self-censorship and polarized reporting. They said the true nature of Hong Kong’s media was revealed during Occupy Central, which saw most publications camped at extremes of the political spectrum with few remaining neutral. 

Driving the changes in media, they cited the increasing influence of China, changes in ownership and the erosion of editorial independence. Some of the speakers said these factors would ensure that Hong Kong media remains in a holding pattern for the foreseeable future. 

Others said change was already afoot with new media emerging with a mandate to uphold editorial independence and integrity. They cited the recently-launched Hong Kong Free Press – a crowd-funded, fiercely independent English-language website that promises straight-up factual reporting. 

Another start up in the works is Initium Media. It aims to deliver serious and professional reporting on Hong Kong finance, politics and current affairs in Chinese. It is rumored to be led by former bankers and lawyers with a mandate to bring better quality news to Hong Kong, and is actively seeking editorial, business and technology talent. 

But even as Hong Kong embraces media startups, the speakers noted how media in Hong Kong has been slow to adapt. Compared to the U.S. and Europe, Hong Kong still has a thriving print media market with limited commitment to digital transformation. 

China is light years ahead, according to Wang Feng from the FT Online (Chinese). For him, the future for media lies in the hands of companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, which are carving up existing media companies and bringing on board content teams. 

Wang Feng’s future for media is one of four future scenarios identified in a report from the Dutch Journalism Fund Nieman Lab. Other scenarios include independent communities and citizen journalists to a “Darwin” model of evolved and adaptable media – a hybrid of both traditional and startups where transparency and journalistic excellence rule. 

As a former journalist I’m all for the Darwin model. What about you? And to show that things might well be changing – another rumor to emerge from the afterhours@edelman, print giant Apple Daily is going all digital! 

For more on the Edelman Trust Barometer: http://www.edelman.com/2015-edelman-trust-barometer/

Hong Kong data: http://www.edelman.hk/sites/en/pages/insights.aspx 

By Chee-Sing Chan

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“Trust, the Marketing Mix and Communicating for Business Success”

The world of communications has changed

The communications landscape has seen a sea change, resulting an environment rife with new, interactive channels and increased connectivity and speed. In the past year, the media industry in Hong Kong and around the globe has felt the aftershocks. Social media use has exploded, and new hybrid media sites are popping up independently and as versions of old newspaper empires. Traditional media giants such as Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal have cut staff in ‘non-essential’ reporting groups.  Accordingly, the PR and communications industry has also shifted, with two stalwart giants, Publicis Groupe and Omnicom announcing their merger last year.

In this context, there is a need for businesses to adapt the way they communicate. Many companies in Hong Kong are asking: “how do we get more ‘likes’ on Facebook?” But what they should be asking is: “how can we harness the power of this new environment to drive business and create value for stakeholders?”

In other words, it’s not enough to get in the game just to play. To be a successful communicator; it takes strategic thinking and a creative use of a mix of marketing and PR channels and stakeholder engagement.

What about reputation?

Before diving into strategy, it is important to take a step back and look at the context of not only the media environment, but general sentiment. There is much talk of reputation, but Edelman distinguishes this concept from Trust. Where reputation is the sum of all your past activities, Trust is the current perception and belief of what you will do in the future. At Edelman, Trust forms the basis of all of our consulting activities, and we invest in understanding it. For the past 14 years, Edelman and its research subsidiary Edelman Berland have conducted a global survey on the subject. Called the Edelman Trust Barometer, the research gages the level of Trust the public has in the institutions of business, government, NGOs and media.  

In 2013, the Hong Kong results of the Trust Barometer brought to light a gap in Trust between institutional leaders and the institutions themselves. People in Hong Kong trusted leaders much less, specifically those in government and business. This year, we’ve seen a further erosion of trust in in the institutions themselves. Hong Kong is no longer a ‘trusting’ nation.

The good news is that communications can offer companies a way to rebuild lost Trust.

A strategic mix of channels and tools

As consultants, we work with businesses of all shapes of sizes. We also have the luxury of operating as a 3^rd party observer, providing us with a mostly objective view of the companies that hire us. Business leaders vary in personality and management style, but one common trait is passion for their work. This is generally a positive, but sometimes leads to a schema of thinking where tactics precede strategy for communications. This can be fatal when dealing with a milieu of fast-changing and instantaneous media.

Because of this, we encourage our clients to see media as partners not solely an outlet and to think about a mix of channels across marketing, advertising, public relations and digital. If approached correctly, PR can work as a kind of smart bomb, accelerating trending stories or instigating clever memes with born-digital players such as BuzzFeed. Realizing the power of search, too, can change the way we interact and act. Thinking about and messaging in terms of key words and content visualization assists to craft more impactful hybrid campaigns. Strategic planning and execution that includes media outreach, search engine optimization and hyperlinking creates a situation where positive messages can be amplified through channels effectively and trust can be built.

  

How: ‘Show up Differently’

Edelman’s mantra for this year is ‘Show up Differently.’ Showing up differently is a business imperative if a company is to garner both the attention, trust and loyalty of its target stakeholders.

Consumer products powerhouse Unilever* showed up differently this past November when it launched Unilever Project Sunlight. It inspires all consumers to live more sustainably through the universal and beautifully captured stories of expectant parents around the globe. Based on the insight that having a child is a life moment where people reconsider their role in the world and their behaviors, Project Sunlight in its first week received more than 30 million views and sparked more than 40,000 conversations on Unilever's social media channels.

In a world of data and algorithms, Unilever and many others are cutting through the clutter with simple, good storytelling and the human, emotional element of relating to one another. At Edelman, we believe strongly that in order for our clients to achieve their business objectives and connect with their target stakeholders, both they and we have to do as Unilever did and "show up differently." This means, among many things, connecting in genuine and authentic ways with employees, customers and all types of people. It is not about being a slave to data, big or small, but rather it's about leveraging data to guide, not dictate, a way forward.

There is a real opportunity for Hong Kong businesses to seize competitive advantage today by showing up differently, thinking differently and putting communications at the heart of everything that they do.

By Andrew Kirk, Managing Director, Edelman Hong Kong & Taiwan

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