See what people are saying about us today

Campaign Brief Asia

Shing Pao

Oriental DAily

Everything’s in full swing

Now that the Chinese New Year flower market in Victoria Park is bustling and the word’s getting out about our little stunt, we’re getting even more people stopping by.

Day three was muggy, loud and at times a bit too warm to be sitting outside working. When people think about working outside, they think cool breeze, rustling leaves, crystal clear waters and sandy beaches drinking a Mojito and talking about multi-billion dollar ideas. In reality, working outside kind of sucks, in Hong Kong especially. But the plus side of working outside in the CNY flower market is the conversations between sellers and potential (very annoyed) buyers. Here’s a great little one we overheard between a seller and a couple.

Seller: Look at these cute oversized tiger paw gloves. Buy them.

Buyer (Boy): No, thanks.

Seller: Your girlfriend will love them.

Buyer (Boy): Seriously, no thanks.

Seller: Come on! Just buy them for your girlfriend. She wants them!

[Girlfriend giggles. Boyfriend pulls girlfriend to walk away]

Seller [Screams]: Break up with him! Break up with him!

Ha! You can’t make up stories like this! You just can’t! Now let’s get down to business.

The day started off like any other day. We opened the store, dusted the shelves and put things in order. Then we waited patiently smiling at passers-by and luring in customers with our chiseled good looks.

Customer #1

What better way to start off the day than getting a visit from local documentary photographer Stephen Kelly. With a host of awards under his belt and having been published in big name global magazines, he’s one of Hong Kong’s most talented photographers. He talked us through his portfolio, wowing us with every shot. Check out his work at www.stephenjbkelly.com

Customer #2

RTHK stopped by our mini Eight office to do a quick story about us. Their angle supposedly will be, “Eight Partnership Creative changes flower market landscape. George Clooney visits.” Actually George Clooney didn’t visit, but our very own Chris Kyme showed up with his silver head of hair, and people automatically assumed he was George Clooney. Caucasians, they all look the same!

Customer #3

The celebrities just kept flowing in. Well some-what celebrities. Indie singer/songwriter Yoyo Sham came to the store filled with curiosity. She said the creativity inspired her, so she sat down and started penning some lyrics. We were going to put her words in this blog, but that would have been copyright infringement. Look for them instead in her website: www.streetvoice.com/thisisyoyo

Customer #4

A young creative film director visited us to show his reel. He had some exciting stuff, but we were more impressed with his boots. On the right is Sonny, a creative from Jakarta doing a little work with us here at Eight.

Customer #5

The media just kept pouring in. These three journos were from Takungpao, Oriental Daily and Wenweip. They wanted to know how we could help the government with their branding. Our tip to the government, do the exact opposite of everything you’re doing now. Simple and crystal clear.

As the day wound down, we got a surprise visit from four PolyU advertising students (from far left – Jun Yu, Shum, Katherine, Keke). Since we were brainstorming for our client Buspak, we sat them down with us for a short session of idea generation. Turns out these kids have potential.

Well that’s Day 3 for you.

Hello, it is Eight you’re looking for

Today was a busy day for our mini Eight office. Thankfully, this year Hong Kong isn’t suffering from another bout of life threatening disease like SARS or Swine Flu or Lang Mo Fever (Lang Mo’s are so 2000s). Due to the clean and disease free air, mild temperatures and some PR floating around the web and newspapers, people were coming and going from our office throughout the day. So without further adieu, I introduce to you the “Random Encounters of Eight”!

Random Encounter #1

Simon. A smart chap with a snap to his step and a southern drawl to his speech waltzed in early in the morning. A tuition centre owner hailing from faraway Tai Po, he stated he wanted to transform his business into the best English education centre in Hong Kong, eventually entering the China market by April 26th, 2011. When we asked him what his progress was so far and how he intended to expand, he declared, “I Simon from Tai Po, do not know how or why. I merely do or die. My centre isn’t open yet. But it will become the biggest I assure you!” This is a man with big dreams, and we like that.

Random Encounter #2

Eric. If we said fishmonger, what would most men think? Well, a fishmonger of sorts solicited our boys at the mini Eight office for business. Actually he’s a fishball monger, but that’s not as funny fishmonger. Anyway, back to the story. The fishmonger presented our boys with a business accord. Let me sell my fishballs at your reception and you’ll be driving in more visitors than you can even imagine. Smells fishy to us.

Random Encounter #3

Remember those commercials where a freaky deaky John Tsang randomly popped up scaring the living crap out of all those who dared to talk about country-level finances? Well it turns out those commercials weren’t the brainchild of some creative slaving away late into the night – John Tsang does actually randomly pop up everywhere around Hong Kong. Today he popped up right next to our mini Eight office.

Random Encounter #4

Joie from the London College of Communication came by to show her portfolio. She has a solid foundation in design and is currently a hair stylist at “Headquarters”. Soon Eight Partnership employees will have the funkiest hairstyles in all of Hong Kong, rad.

Random Encounter #5

Ming Pao came back for seconds. Seems like their lead reporter on the mini Eight story, Fanky, couldn’t get enough of Bennett and Chris. She wanted to dig deeper and is interested in the result of our little stunt. And she wanted numbers.

Random Encounter #6

Tourists. We love tourists. Except Americans. Oh and the British and Australians during Rugby Sevens. Oh and mainlanders. But the two tourists that came up to our reception to ask for a picture, we love them cause they’ve got good taste.

Random Encounter #7

Oriental Daily, ICY and Shing Pao came by to pick up the story that Ming Pao broke today. Looks like the press can’t get enough of us. And clearly, Chris can’t get enough of flirting with female reporters – he loves girls listening to him.

Random Encounter #8

A Ms. Polly Mui and her husband from the “Hong Kong Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Association Limited” dropped by to see what kind of brilliant ideas we could come up with. Their association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. So we exchanged business cards and got cracking on the case. Sounds pretty cool (pun totally intended!). On a side note, their son just graduated from Central St. Martin School of Arts in London and he’s coming to share his portfolio with us soon. Nothing like a little business incentive to get the hiring machine going.

Showing Eight some lovin’

Here’s what the press have been saying about us. Check it out!

Ain’t nobody gonna rain on our parade!

Today we unveiled the finished product to the world. But being a Monday, the world wasn’t readily available at 10:35AM to converge on the Victoria Park Chinese New Year flower market to witness our opening. Nevertheless, we weren’t discouraged from keeping smiling faces on as the press did come and interviewed our creatives about the oddity we created in the market.

Our first visitor of the day was Stacy from the Economic Times, and as any first-rate journalist would do, she asked an abundance of questions. But we were ready for the journalistic inquisition and satisfactorily answered every question. Including the one about the wet spot on the couch (looks like an occurrence of inter-office romance to us).

Then came Janice, a recent graduate from PolyU looking for a job in the advertising world. Foolishly she let two strange men lead her into the middle of a park for what they said was an “interview”. Luckily for her, the two strange men happened to somewhat be gentlemen (we say somewhat because the gentleman became extinct long ago with the end of fashionable double-breast frockcoats, snug leather breeches and the manly duels of the 18th and 19th centuries).

The biggest news of the day, literally, was the giant, almost disaster that we encountered when we first opened up shop. Mother Nature decided to take the piss, at our expense, and unloaded a mini-torrential rainstorm on our mini-office over the weekend. She can be a real *itch.

Look for us in Ming Pao today, we were promised a Play-girl style centerfold spread for our sexy creatives! We’re holding our breaths… and our lunch.

We packed our bags last night pre-flight. Zero hour nine a.m.

Today we officially set up the mini Eight office at Victoria Park. And, while we are trying desperately hard not to toot our own horn, it looks damn awesome. In fact, passers-by have already gawked in awe at the awesomeness that stood before them.

Our props director, Fai Gor the Props King, lived up to his reputation and made a perfect miniature replica of our office. From the fake concrete reception desk to the fake wooden flooring, everything looks perfectly fake.

There are only 3 more days until we open.

Give them 1.57 inches and they’ll take a mile

For you to understand the severity of what it is we’re trying to prove, we’ll have to take you way back. So don your radiation suit, climb into the DeLorean and gun it to 88mph cause we’re going back in time!

It’s sometime in November 2009 and our two creatives, Bennett and Chris, have snuck their way into a partner’s meeting. After a few parlour tricks and championship worthy debating, the boys walk out with a blank cheque. This was no easy feat as the partners generally have a vice-like Kung Fu grip when it comes to holding money. And thus begins 8 Partnership’s long and arduous journey to put a mini Eight office in the Chinese New Year Market in Victoria Park.
After some fierce auctioning at the yearly Chinese New Year Market stall auction, we walked away with spots 214 and 267. A combined space of 3m X 3m for around $40,000 HKD.

Fast forward to today 12:48pm. We finally head to Victoria Park to examine what our 40K bought us three months ago. We measured. And measured. And measured 36 more times for good measure. Turns out the government scammed us. Instead of the 3m X 3m space promised to us, our 40K only bought us 3m X 2.96m. The nerve. The audacity. Today they take 1.57 inches… who knows what the government will take tomorrow.

We’ve hired a team of lawyers and they say we’ve got a serious case against the government. But you’ll have to wait for this story, because we’re outta time!

Hello world!

This is Eight Partnership coming to you live from 21/F East Exchange Tower in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. You might not know who we are. You might have accidentally landed on this page because you were searching for hot sexy office ladies on Google and were directed here. Well lucky for us, cause we’ve just found ourselves another reader.

So… hi and welcome to world of Eight.