As you dip your food into the oyster sauce on the dinner table or take a quick bite at a local fastfood chain, have you ever wondered if these Hong Kong brands you have grown up with can make it big in the world market?

Hong Kong enterprises have the potential to build and launch their brands on the stage of global commerce to increase the city's competitiveness in the long run, said a group of academics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

A survey recently conducted by CUHK, which analyzes Hong Kong consumers' preference for and expectation on local brands, reveals that brand building in certain industries remains underdeveloped in Hong Kong.

For example, the three most popular local brands in personal care (beauty clinics, fitness clubs, etc.) and the pharmacy/chemical industry take up only 15 percent of the market share, pointing to low public recognition of the brand names.

Many local consumers also confuse foreign brands with local ones in banking and financial services and the pharmacy/chemical industry, as most respondents mentioned HSBC and Panadol when asked about their favorite local brands.

Hong Kong enterprises need to adopt a more systematic and strategic approach to build their brand image among the local community as well as overseas, said Leo Sin, Director of Master of Science Programme in Marketing, CUHK.

The fashion industry in Hong Kong, for example, can have its niche in the global market if the manufacturers upgrade their designs and put on the image of "affordable luxury" like foreign brands as Zara and H&M, Sin said.

"Our manufacturers are already good at production and cost control," Sin explained. "The key to long-term development of an industry is nurturing of talents and professional image, which will only happen if the enterprisers invest in building their own brands over time."

Local brands also face the crisis of fading out of the market, as younger generations tend to prefer up-and-coming brands over those with long history, said Susanna Kwok, Instructor of Department of Marketing, CUHK.

"It points to the need for local enterprises to ally with universities or other institutions in carrying out more market research, while the government should ideally offer more funding for research and development (R&D)," Kwok said.

The lack of international recognition of Hong Kong brands is detrimental to the city's competitiveness, since an established brand is what yields profits for an enterprise, said Baniel Cheung, part-time lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics, the University of Hong Kong.

"Low production costs will not sustain a business since the costs get ever lower in other countries," Cheung explained. "Our Hong Kong enterprises need to be far-sighted and work on brand building over the years, so they can speed up their entry into the world market in the future."

Most popular local brand names

1 Park'n Shop

2 Giordano

3 Vita

4 Cafe de Coral

5 Wellcome

(HK Edition 10/10/2007 page6)