Kiss Manner’s director Vinni Leong returned from Australia to Macao at the age of 24 for starting his own business. With overseas experience in restaurant management, Leong saw the market potential of bars that offer interactive cultural entertainment in Macao. As a bar that integrates catering, music, shows, entertainment and personalised service, Kiss Manner fuels its business with cultural elements, showcasing a new business concept and model in Macao.
Vinni prefers to position Kiss Manner as a live house. “Even if the customers are here only to drink, they can also enjoy the live performance and interactive activities. There aren’t many bars that offer such interactive activities in Macao,” Vinni explained. Vinni stated that all the cultural performance won’t become supplements to the bar, but rather the “main dishes” that customers come for. As a matter of fact, many audiences booked the entrance tickets beforehand for the shows at Kiss Manner, whether it’s live concert, DJ, theatre, or magic show, etc.
Besides, Vinni is hoping to drive the dialogue of the local performing industry through organising more activities. Kiss Manner would also work with local small and medium-sized enterprises, breweries, and suppliers to promote their products through sales activities. Kiss Manner believes that this can help the development of the catering industrial chain in Macao. Kiss Manner also owns a professional catering, design and market promotion team that can help companies, performers, and even exchange group get the maximised effect.
Tremendous added value generated by cultural elements
Kiss Manner cooperates with local singers and artists for cultural performance at the bar, hoping to drive the performing market in Macao. “I want to give them the opportunity and a stage to perform. When I was living abroad, I noticed that some restaurants would give young music lovers a stage to perform, where they could have the opportunity to reach out to the audience. I am hoping that it could also become a cultural norm in Macao, since it’s both beneficial to the restaurants and the artists,” Vinni said.
From Vinni’s perspective, Macao doesn’t lack great performers. What the performers need is enough opportunities to perform and let the market recognise them. In addition, the market in Macao is relatively small, and therefore by sharing the works among people, the artists could quickly gain recognition. “The added value of cultural elements should not be underestimated to a bar. In the future, we would work with performers from different regions, while actively explore new generation artists and help them build up reputation. This is also beneficial to the long-term development of the bar,” Vinni said.
Digital live streaming quantifies promotion effect
Kiss Manner’s main promotion channel is digital media, with a focus on live media. “We pay extra attention to live streaming so as to help clients and performers promote their activities and artworks. We will livestream the performance and record the great moments that happen during the performance. This can help them get the maximised promotional effect,” Vinni introduced.
In addition, Vinni stated that Kiss Manner would focus on market promotion in the future. Besides maintaining sufficient promotion of Kiss Manner itself, the restaurant would integrate more resources to help clients promote their works. At present, there is a lack of quantified statistics on advertising effect in the market of Macao. It’s hard to estimate the actual performance, advertising value, and targeted audience that the advertising cost has generated. But Vinni believes that Kiss Manner can directly show the estimate of promotion effect to its clients by the views and repost rate of their posts, as well as the livestream on social media. Besides, the clients will also learn about how effective the promotion channels are through the number of audience and the total purchase they make on site.
Flexible spatial design satisfies market demands
Vinni thinks that bars like this don’t have high market recognition in Macao so far. It is difficult to promote the bar with performance and interactive activities in Macao. “Combining restaurants with live performance require many considerations, especially the space that is needed for the performers to perform. The restaurant itself already has seating design, which makes it difficult to adjust the stage according to the performers’ demands. We took this into consideration and went with a more flexible interior design that allows us to connect the tables, seats and all the equipment freely. In this way we can modify the stage according to the client’s or performer’s demand,” Vinni explained.
“Feasible ways come into light through exploration. Very few people in Macao dare to run a bar like Kiss Manner in Macao. We need to seize the chance and build up our strength in the market. Then we can have a clearer target and be ready for challenges and risks. I think this is the basic quality an entrepreneur should have,” Vinni said.