Just last week when I was in Hong Kong over Christmas, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the many ostentatious banners and billboards advertising tutoring institutions. Growing up in Hong Kong\u2019s highly academic focused culture, I wasn\u2019t at all surprised about the mass promotion of education as a major product. What shocked me was how these education providers, better known as \u201cCram schools in Hong Kong\u201d or the \u201cHong Kong Tutor Kings\u201d, promoted themselves by using celebrity power to attract students; they transformed top university graduates into personalities with celebrity status. These \u201ctutor kings\u201d claimed to guarantee dramatic improvements in students\u2019 results and promoted high consumption and high spending lifestyles; they became well publicized in tabloids and gossip magazines. Many students\u2019 incentives behind registering for such cram schools were not only to radically boost their grades and also to get to meet these celebrity tutors in person.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just last week when I was in Hong Kong over Christmas, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the many ostentatious banners and billboards advertising tutoring institutions. Growing up in Hong Kong\u2019s highly academic focused culture, I wasn\u2019t at all surprised about … Continue reading