I was browsing Joi Ito’s (he’s Japanese + American entrepreneur/VC) blog and came across this: Sanrio, the makers of Hello Kitty, have their online shop (Sanrio Digital) in Hong Kong. They are collaborating with Typhoon Games (HK makes of some okay games) there.

More importantly I wanted an excuse to share the following, which I found on…

Continue readingSanrio Digital opens in… Hong Kong

A 7-minute video of a year-long ad campaign 可口可乐365快乐天（Coca Cola 365 Days of Happiness), created by McCann Worldgroup‘s Hong Kong Branch (香港麦肯广告). It’s an interesting case study of what advertising/marketing looks like in different mediums (or as some may call it, “multi-channel marketing”).

Warning: The “trendy” beat in the video drove me nuts.

…

Continue readingCoca Cola campaign in Hong Kong

Catching up on news: NTT DoCoMo unveiled the official mobile phone game of the 2008 Olympics at the Tokyo Game Show 2007 in September:

“In one of the game’s events, you put the phone down on a table and pump your arms like a sprinting runner. The phone’s camera picks up your movements and accelerates your onscreen running character accordingly.”

Unfortunately…

Continue readingThe official mobile game of the 2008 Olympics

糖果猫猫 popil is a Guangzhou-based designer (comic, graphic, fashion, animation) who runs a pretty little blog called “candy variety shop
糖果杂货铺.” I’ve picked out two of her works below.

First up, an illustration of a street-market scene with a classical border. The title suggests its based on a 烧衣街 in Guangzhou.

Second up,…

Continue readingFeatured designer: popil 糖果猫猫

From TechCrunch:

Sohu paid 30 million dollars back in 2005 to create the official 2008 Olympics’ website, and now claims exclusive rights to all internet advertising for it as well. The Beijing International Olympic Committee has yet to process their claim, but the original article from AFP reveals some insider views:

“Zeng says…

Continue readingSohu claims exclusive advertising rights to the 2008 Olympics

Businessweek ran an article recently called Rise of the Asian D-School. (Here “D-school” is short for design school, not to be confused with Standord’s “d.school” which is Stanford’s catchy name for its Institute for Design.)

Summary: Asian design schools are ramping up to recruit and retain talent, and multinationals are arming themselves with these grads to conquer…

Continue readingBusinessweek feature on Asian D-School features Hong Kong

“Coca-Cola is to launch a range of drinks based on traditional Chinese herbal ingredients and recipes.”

Via PFSK; original article over at BrandRepublic.

They seem to have a Chinese pop-star motif going on, and there’s some talk in the blogosphere about how they rely less on user-generated content and focus more on entertaining people.

I haven’t checked it out yet, but I wanted to get it on the radar, for those…

Continue readingHipHi gets a new competitor

An exhibition using “infographics” to compare and contrast cultural differences between east and west, from a Beijingnese artist in Germany.

See the exhibit online at Yang Liu Design; via Information Aesthetics.

Floating around the Hong Kong cyberspace this morning, a YouTube clip of Hong Kong Cable TV’s New Channel report about the trouble Air China is encountering flying into New York.

• The news report plays a taped conversation between an Air China pilot and an American air traffic operator.
• The Chinese pilot speaks gibberish, starting off with an English word but…

Continue readingCaught on tape: Air China’s pilots unable to speak English