The Deck
Positioning
A city branding and communication proposal for Hong Kong (CBS5407, Group 13, six members), themed «Adapt. Grow. Belong.»
Core Insight — The Credibility Gap
Hong Kong's city brand faces a credibility gap: only 54% of first TTPS visas were renewed, housing costs 14.4× median income (the world's least affordable market for 15 consecutive years), and the happiness index fell to 5.63/10, the lowest since 2018. The proposal reverses the brand voice from «you must adapt to Hong Kong» to «Hong Kong understands you are adapting», rebuilding trust by honestly acknowledging reality.
Narrative Proof
Grounded in 180 years of resilient adaptation — 1841 free port → 1950s industrialisation → 1997 handover → 2018 Greater Bay Area gateway: «Adapting is how resilience shows itself.» New civic symbols, ocean waves and bamboo scaffolding (a major installation proposed for the West Kowloon Cultural District), replace pressure-laden icons, with Nature 2024 research evidencing the MTR as a cross-class unifying symbol. Positioning is differentiated against Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Shenzhen.
Strategy in Action
Built on Kavaratzis's three-tier city communication model (actions → communication → word of mouth): Adapters' Hub welcome spaces across 18 districts, six-month local mentor pairing, extending TTPS visas from two to three years, a digital archive of old Hong Kong and the «Hong Kong Through Your Lens» photography exhibition. The Hong Kong Continuity Programme cultivates 25,000 resident ambassadors over three years, held accountable through the annual «Hong Kong Listens» adaptation report and quarterly pulse surveys — targeting renewal rates from 54% to 65%→75%.
Creative Assets (My Work)
A three-wave gradient logo (coral orange / jade green / deep harbour blue — ridge, tide and flag), OOH advertising, a social matrix (LinkedIn, Instagram, RedNote, TikTok / YouTube / Douyin / Bilibili), MTR reverse-copy station ads that write real pain points into bilingual copy, and the «Survival & Shine» airport welcome kit.
My Role
YE Yaocheng — Creative Assets + Conclusion + Q&A: the new city logo and visual identity system, outdoor advertising, social content strategy, MTR reverse copy, the welcome kit and Adapters' Hub display pages; I also wrote the conclusion and closed the defence (per the deck's division-of-labour table).