One small step for Mok, one giant leap for marketingkind?
Say this for OppenheimerFunds’ Lavin Mok: He thinks big -- even cosmic. Eager to herald the New York-based mutual fund firm’s arrival in Asia, he got Paris advertising agency Publicis to concoct an ad campaign that likens Oppenheimer’s opening an office in Hong Kong to America’s landing a man on the moon.
Mok’s ad, showing an astronaut’s boot print on the lunar surface, declaims: “Conquering new frontiers demands expertise and commitment. So does investment.” The ad ran this spring in Chinese- and English-language newspapers and magazines and adorned buses and underground railway cars.
The Hong Kong native, who heads the six-month-old office, explains, “We wanted to let people know that we treat Hong Kong very seriously and that this is something very important for us, like somebody landing on the moon.” Mok, 36, ran retail sales for Invesco Asia before joining Oppenheimer in May 2003. He brags that his ad budget is among the ten largest for a mutual fund firm in Hong Kong. The ads were “a big hit,” he says.
OppenheimerFunds (Asia), Mok’s operation, has a four-person sales and distribution team selling 11 mutual funds (all managed in the U.S.) in Hong Kong’s $534 billion fund market. About $2 billion of Oppenheimer’s $150 billion of assets is invested in Asia ex-Japan.
Last month Mok unveiled a new ad, showing a red flower sprouting on Mars. The message this time is that Oppenheimer can “uncover opportunities for investors around the world.” Appropriately for a Chinese ad campaign, of course, Mars is the red planet.
