For decades, Hong Kong was the creative nerve centre of Greater China. It was where regional marketing strategies were written, approved and dispatched to the mainland. No longer. Today, marketing budgets, senior leadership and P&Ls have decisively migrated north. But Hong Kong has not become irrelevant. Instead, its role has evolved from an overarching command centre to a specialised testing ground for brands navigating the region’s increasing complexities.

From headquarters to specialist hub

When Rudi Leung began his advertising career with Ogilvy’s Greater China team in the 1990s, many multinational clients were based in Hong Kong. At the time, regional strategies were often developed in the city before then being adapted for mainland China, Taiwan and other markets.

That model is redundant. “China is no longer simply one market within a Greater China plan,” says Leung, now founder of creative agency Hungry Digital. “For many brands, it has become a marketing operating system in its own right.”

Today most of Leung’s clients are companies based in Hong Kong such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China (Hong Kong), all targeting Hong Kong-based consumers. His agency generally does not take on any purely mainland-focused marketing campaigns.

Part of the reason, he says, is that China itself is highly fragmented. Cities such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong may be geographically close, but each requires a distinct approach. Brands must also navigate the business infrastructures and consumer ecosystems that have formed around Chinese platforms such as RedNote, Douyin and WeChat.