Success of Anyone offers good example of how to promote public policies
Monday Vibes
The author is an assistant news editor with China Daily.
My eyes were wide open when I first saw Anyone — the Hong Kong Fire Services Department’s new mascot. He is a mannequin-like figure similar to Avatar — only without eyes, a nose, a mouth and ears. Anyone’s blue tights cover his entire body from head to toe; he also wears a pair of loose black boxers.
He reminds of me a local slang — Hea, which means halfhearted, random and irresponsible.
At the department’s press conference on Nov 5, Anyone made his first public appearance in front of a group of serious-looking officers and jaw-dropping journalists. Anyone performed life-saving techniques, for example: He wielded a fire extinguisher and demonstrated cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
I believe many people in the city will be as surprised as I was. How could the Fire Services Department, a distinguished and serious government organization, adopt such a mischievous figure? He is neither a lovely cartoonlike individual who charms people with cuteness, or a powerful image of a firefighter which gives people a feeling of security.
In some ways Anyone is just so absurd. He could be in any body shape depending on who plays him! In one video featuring Anyone performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he has a protruding belly.
Yet this unconventional idea has been a huge success for the department. The faceless, bright figure soon took the city by storm, becoming an internet sensation. On the day the public learned about Anyone, his name topped Google’s daily trending chart with over 10,000 searches.
The department’s Facebook page, which was launched on the same day as Anyone’s public appearance, attracted over 35,000 followers in two weeks. The video post which features Anyone doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation has so far has had 570,000 views, 2,200 comments and 6,679 shares.
On the Facebook page, followers wrote, “I like the page five times because of you (Anyone)”. “The mascot’s image and the song he sings has a brainwashing effect,” “I like the concept. It is novel,” and “Could the department have all its promotion videos featuring Anyone?”
This mascot approach is not a new thing for Hong Kong government departments. But not every mascot has the impact Anyone has had. The only one that comes near Anyone is the Big Waster, the mascot of the Environment Bureau. It has 60,682 Facebook followers. But that has been achieved since it was launched in May 2013.
Why has an all-blue mannequin which does not share anything in common with the department achieved such success? I think this is due much to the FSD’s boldness in challenging its public image, and its openness and willingness to adopt internet culture.
It takes a lot of nerve to make such changes. HKFSD seems to have no fear of it. The department, long praised for being serious-minded and very disciplined, also lets the public know that it can be funny and down-to-earth.
The sense of contrast created by the image certainly arouses public interest. Everybody likes something new — something out of the box. Today when it comes to public relations, if you can get people’s attention, you are half way there.
It is hard to make announcements interesting to public. Examples are abundant if we take a look at previous government promotion videos. They are too conservative and propaganda-like, so people switch channels when they see them.
Public policy promotion becomes even harder when putting it online, as internet users are less patient with things that are boring and not interactive. HKFSD must have considered this, so it created Anyone.
According to the department, Anyone was created to tell the public that anyone can help in an emergency. So anyone is you and me. This helps to create a sense of identity and involvement.
Meanwhile, the department welcomes all re-creations of Anyone. Recreation is part of internet culture. It can help the prototype to reach a broader audience. To some extent, the more re-creations the product has, the more successful the product is. Certainly, Anyone does a good job in this way.
Famous brands like Sony and Carlsberg, NGOs like Hong Kong Red Cross, and other government departments like the Environment Bureau, latched on to the image of Anyone, and created parodies of it for their own promotions.
Public policy promotion in a today’s internet-based world demands innovative thinking and keeping up with latest internet developments. The success of Anyone offers a good lesson to other government departments. I would like to see more departments embrace the internet age and, most importantly, think outside the box.