Chris Hong

Group Strategy Director, US.com :: New York office

Chris has an awesome job title. Group Strategy Director, US .com. Unfortunately, Chris does not completely understand what this title means. He thinks this means he does a lot of thinking on how Samsung should redefine its digital marketing strategy in the not too distant future.
Chris is a planner by trade. A job he defines as someone that provides right brained solutions to left brained problems. In short, he translates business-babble into a language that creatives and media people can understand and hopefully helps the team come up with a marketing solution that drives business results. In a way, Chris is a client who is scared of taking on responsibilities, and a creative that has no artistic talent.
Chris has been a professor (marketing), founded (and saw the demise of) his own digital shop, held numerous strategic roles in building some of the most dynamic consumer electronics brands in the world. He’s had the pleasure of living in and traveling to over 67 countries (Botswana anyone?). He’s also an avid Blogger (unfortunately he is extremely hesitant in sharing his private thoughts with the world so will not post links on this page).
While he loves marketing, his true joy lies at home. Most importantly, he knows in a few hours he will be back at home with his loving wife and kids.
p.s. Chris also feels incredibly uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person, and remembers reading in a psychology book that doing so is a classic symptom of megalomania.

When an online video of a guy in an animal suit doesn't really help

Don’t get me wrong, we love people in animal costumes. It’s what arguably put us on the map (remember the chicken?).
But, difficult as it may be, there actually is a way to f’up that tried and true viral strategy. Check it out…
Phillips just ran a viral campaign in Singapore. Plenty of views, even a couple of mentions in the press, and a lot of action afterwards…unfortunately it may not have been the action they were looking for.
Some f’ing agency shot a video of a guy in a bear suit rummaging through trash cans. People saw it and freaked out, calling the police and the story spirals pretty much downwards after that…with keywords like ‘public apology’, ‘police investigation’, criminal charges’, ‘Phillips fined’ showing up in a lot of online chatter (I assume words like ‘agency fired’, ‘marketing manager let go’ will quickly follow suit).
Not quite the buzz Phillips was looking for I guess.
One resounding question remains in my mind.
WTF?

Technically my second day

Now that the Samsung.com monster has finally been hatched I have finally returned to the mothership – a mother that until now has felt quite distant from me. Been Mac’ified and introduced to a gazillion new systems (all with completely weird names) and stuff (wanted to say shit, but not sure if swearing is allowed on this blog thingy). Still very much in a state of confusion, but have to say I’m lovin’ it.

Not another frickin' Blog!

According to BlogPulse there are 126 million Blogs in the world.
Beyond the fact that I find it amazing that the number is rounded so perfectly to a million, I find it even more amazing that there are so many people out there that have something to say. Between the gazillions of mindless Facebook posts (XXX is is now friends with YYY), Tweets (XXX is having a burger for lunch), text messages (LOL :)), there are a 126 million Blogs covering such diverse topics as 16 century Arabic poetry and male genitalia mutilation.
Well this is now the 126,000,001st Blog (I should send an @tweet to BlogPulse to let them know they have to update their number). What this Blog is going to be about…I have no frickin’ clue. What I do know is that it is going to be another piece of cyber-garbage, tossed into the ethos of the world wide web, replete with irrelevant, non-nonsensical ramblings of a seriously troubled brain.