Online Review: Joey Yung as an endorser...

            From her latest album “Joey&Joey”, we can see the unprecedented authority of Joey Yung on her music production. This hugely sold and highly acclaimed album is one of the milestones in Joey’s career that she can finally get rid of her image as a singing machine and that her music is not always ‘sleazy’. After this success, what’s her next step?

            The answer is a new song called 我要玩, the theme song of the new series of Broadway’s TV commercial. After listening to the song, I find that it is quite similar to Joey’s hit 13點 in “Joey&Joey”, especially in its arrangement and music instruments used. (Maybe this song was given up during the production of the album?) It was released at the end of last year when Broadway’s new TV commercial started to be broadcasted.

            Actually this is not the first time that Joey’s songs are used as theme songs of TV commercials. In fact, TV commercial can be seen as an important channel for promoting new songs. But the case of 我要玩 is slightly different. First, the subject of the song (playing) is closely related to Broadway’s promotional slogan  “玩．樂．生活”. It is even reasonable to think that Broadway actually decided the subject. Second, the music video of the song was shot in the newly opened park of Hong Kong Disneyland Toy Story Land, concerted with gifts of Broadway featured by characters of Toy Story at that time. Third, the song was plugged on media very soon after the broadcast of the commercial while the songs in “Joey&Joey” should continue being plugged on radios - 山口百惠 was plugged at that time - and after 我要玩 was banned, 蜉蝣, another song recorded in “Joey&Joey”, was plugged on radios. Actually it is an uncommon promotional strategy of pop music in Hong Kong, where plugging new songs after finishing the promotion of previous album is the tradition.

            Based on these 3 findings, it seems that Broadway has influence on the production and promotion of Joey’s music. Actually it is not the first time of Broadway to have such influence. For example, Broadway decided the content of 綠野仙踪, theme song of previous series of Broadway TV commercial. (Watch 1:50 to 1:58 of the Youtube video below) But compared with this No. 1 hit of several pop music charts, 我要玩 is more like a promotional tool for Broadway only, which ends up being recorded in EEG’s collection album “年度熱愛2011”.

            Here comes another question: why Broadway has this kind of influence? It's about the plight that faces Hong Kong music industry. Nowadays, the sales of physical albums have reached a historical low. In 1988, only the sales of local gold records and platinum records reached 3.97 million. But in 2010, the total sales of albums (including foreign albums) are only 2.3 million, according to IFPI. Singers, and their companies as well, can no longer solely rely on the sales of albums. Advertising contracts has become their new major source of income. (See the table about Joey's income in 2011 from ihktv.com below) So, advertising clients, especially long-term clients like Broadway which pay huge money and provide thoughtful service (Broadway sent someone to hand Joey a new iPhone 4 after her old one was broken) to their endorsers, are now very important to singers. In Joey’s case, to grasp Broadway this important client, she and her company need to do something as return. This includes making compromises on her music production and promotion.

            Many people say that the nature of Hong Kong music industry has changed. Before, music is the product of the industry. But now as singers cannot solely rely on the sales of albums, they cannot just sing. They also need to participate in many performances not related to music, including movies, functions, and of course advertisements, so that they can be ‘consumed’ more comprehensively and maximize the profit. (It means more sources of income). In other words, singers now become the product of the industry and their companies now tend to fully utilize them to earn more money. Perhaps the influence of Broadway on Joey is formed under this circumstance.

CHIK Mo Tai, Adrian (10418932)