Guys and ghouls from Ocean Park perform Gangnam Style to promote its 12th Halloween Bash to the young adult market. Provided to China Daily

It was uploaded on YouTube on Friday October 12 and within three days had received more than 320,000 hits.

The "it" was a parody of the Gangnam Style music video by South Korean rapper Psy, acted out by the resident ghosts and demons of Ocean Park's Halloween Bash.

By the beginning of this week some 617,000 people had viewed the video on YouTube.

Although just a drop in the ocean when compared to Psy's original, which has attracted more than 520 million hits since its release in July, it has been seen as a marketing success by the theme park in promoting their event to the audience they most want to reach - teenagers and young adults.

According to Ocean Park chief executive Tom Mehrmann, who featured in the video as a zombie rocker, it is this particular age group with their love of the horror genre that the bash, now in its 12th year, is particularly aimed at.

"Although you will see people over 30 in park, the 13 to 30-year-olds are the sweet spot we shoot for," he said.

"Because they (young adults) tend to be online a lot of the time, the bash is very heavily digitally marketed. We try to do something that is trendy and popular and will strike that particular age group and the demographic we are after."

Tom Mehrmann, Ocean Park chief executive, is transformed into a Zombie Rocker to perform in a "Gangnam Style" spoof which has received more than 610,000 hits on YouTube. Provided to China Daily

Ocean Park's Gangnam Style spoof is just one example of how event organisers are turning increasingly to the online and social media to market Halloween in Hong Kong.

The same is true at Hong Kong Disneyland, according to its Marketing Director Wendy Chu, which like Ocean Park is targeting teens and young adults with its vampire and werewolf themed Haunted Halloween.

Chu says social media and online platforms had been used to market the event here in Hong Kong and in mainland and Taiwan.

"With a thorough understanding of young adults' love of innovative fun, this year, Hong Kong Disneyland launched a large-scale city-wide digital campaign to promote Disney's Haunted Halloween," she said.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board has also taken this route in promoting Hong Kong as Asia's Halloween party capital saying it had embarked "on a number of a number of initiatives to engage the digitally savvy young adults and enhance their awareness of Hong Kong Halloween Treats".

These include an interactive programme on Sina Weibo, Twitter and Facebook, and a dedicated Halloween website on its discoverhongkong.com website, all aimed at drawing the young crowd to Hong Kong's Halloween party this year.

(HK Edition 10/23/2012 page4)