They look and act like rock stars, and some earn the money of rock stars too. Only they teach children English
Just last week when I was in Hong Kong over Christmas, I couldn’t help but notice the many ostentatious banners and billboards advertising tutoring institutions. Growing up in Hong Kong’s highly academic focused culture, I wasn’t at all surprised about the mass promotion of education as a major product. What shocked me was how these education providers, better known as “Cram schools in Hong Kong” or the “Hong Kong Tutor Kings”, promoted themselves by using celebrity power to attract students; they transformed top university graduates into personalities with celebrity status. These “tutor kings” claimed to guarantee dramatic improvements in students’ results and promoted high consumption and high spending lifestyles; they became well publicized in tabloids and gossip magazines. Many students’ incentives behind registering for such cram schools were not only to radically boost their grades but also to get to meet these celebrity tutors in person.
I found this to be an ingenious method of advertising education. Why not draw upon teenagers and young adults attraction to the high life to promote the most unlikely product of education?
Here is a video that I found on one of the celebrity tutors, Richard Eng. He owns 12 tutorial schools, has 15000 students and 300 staff and earns 1.5 million USD a year.
It’s so awesome that Hong Kong is placing such a high value on education, and using marketing to do so! Great post!