Newsmaker: Ronald Ng opens up on highly acclaimed “Guinness Draught in a Bottle” campaign + his career at three BBDO agencies

Campaign Brief Asia sat down with BBDO Proximity Singapore’s Chief Creative Officer Ronald Ng at the recent Spikes Asia Festival in Singapore. With Ng about to enter an exciting new phase of his career, we wanted to find out more about both the highly awarded Guinness campaign that is taking awards shows by storm this year and Ng’s career, that has spanned creative leadership roles at BBDO Proximity Malaysia, BBDO New York and BBDO and Proximity Singapore.

The “Guinness Draught in a Bottle” print campaign made its awards show debut at AdFest in March this year where it won Gold. Since then the campaign, created by BBDO Proximity Singapore, has proved itself at every other show that it has been entered into. Without doubt, the campaign will, by the end of the year, be one of the three most awarded print campaigns in the world, in The Gunn Report’s 2014 rankings (along with Fiat “Letters” campaign from Leo Burnett Tailor Made Brasil and Y&R Beijing’s Penguin Audio Books “Mic” campaign).

“Guinness Draught in a Bottle” already has 3 Yellow Pencil Nominations and 3 in-books at D&AD. At the Cannes Lions Festival, the campaign won a Gold Lion, 3 Silvers and 3 Bronzes in a strong performance. Together with a few other Lions, these Guinness wins helped make BBDO and Proximity Singapore the most awarded South East Asian agency at Cannes this year.

At Spikes Asia, the campaign won 1 Gold and 4 Silvers. Two weeks ago the agency continued its great run at the Clio Awards, with the campaign winning 4 Golds, 4 Silvers and a Bronze. This saw BBDO Proximity Singapore rank as the show’s 3rd most awarded agency globally after Dentsu Tokyo and Forsman & Bodenfors Sweden.

And awards success continues this week with “Guinness Draught in a Bottle” set to be awarded several statues at the London International Awards, judged last week in Las Vegas. Full details of what colour these statues are will only be announced on November 3rd.

Like most good things the campaign’s creation was a team effort. Ng puts it down to “fantastic clients, suits and creatives”.

“This was a follow-up brief to 2013’s Guinness Draught in a Bottle launch campaign, ‘World’s smoothest launch’, which won a Gold Effie and broke a world record,” said Ng. “With ‘Smooth’ established, Guinness wanted us to drive home the message of ‘Draught, now available in a bottle’. We then literally brought that message to life as you can see in the work.”

Ng says the creative concept was primarily driven by Primus Nair, Gary Lim and Nikhil Panjwani with a lot of support from the account team of Joe Braithwaite and Fiona Huang. (Lin, Ng and Panjwani are pictured left on stage in Cannes).

The first three outdoor versions were sold in the first presentation, alongside social and activation ideas that brought the draught experience directly to the people.

“The craft was Gary’s work. He makes it look like really hard work, but honestly, the first and final iterations are almost identical. So he didn’t really work that hard, he’s just that good!

“Gary is also the clever fellow who crafted our 2008 Jeep ‘Two Worlds’ campaign (right) which was recently inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame, so you can say that he knows a thing or two about art direction and design,” said Ng.

Globally, Guinness believes in the power of creativity. And it’s no different here with this campaign.

“Rene, Graham, Jien and now Alan demand the most effective and creative work and we try our darndest to deliver – not easy for a brand with such a creative heritage so the pressure is unbelievable,” said Ng. “In fact, Rene was the first to personally congratulate me after we won a Gold Lion this year. How can you not love clients like him. Apart from this ‘GDIB’ campaign, Guinness also won consecutive Gold Effies for ‘World’s Smoothest Launch’ and ‘Arthur’s Day’. So it’s only natural that Diageo and Guinness were honored as ‘Advertiser of the Year’ at the Clios and Cannes this year. And I would like to think that our work played a small part in making both happen.”

So, Ronald, are you a one hit wonder at BBDO Singapore? (laughing)

I’m still waiting for a really big hit, so I technically have saved myself from being a one hit wonder. In this job, there is no finish line. I’ll retire when I do something half as good as Apple’s ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ which means I’ll never bloody retire because I’m nowhere as smart as the folks who made that.

All said, we are proud of ‘The World’s Smoothest Launch’ and ‘Arthur’s Day’. Both big activation-led, integrated campaigns that engaged directly with consumers, resulting in a tonne of media coverage.

Two months ago, we also launched a series of Mercedes online films with the use of some science experiments. VIEW HERE AND HERE

Mercedes enjoyed free exposure in many publications including Forbes which wrote: “This technique, in many ways, is what content marketing is all about”. Since advertising won’t get me on the Forbes Billionaires List, this will do just fine.

We also launched ‘World Under Water’, a collaboration between Carbon Story and the United Nations Environment Program. This campaign enjoyed USD$37 million in earned media and 263 million impressions, thanks to international coverage by BBC, Guardian, Huffington Post, WIRED, PSFK, Fast Company and more. The campaign also just made it into FWA’s ‘Top 3 Web Projects of 2014’. Best of all, the tech was totally built by the team in the agency, led by Laurent Thevenet, Nikhil Panjwani, Melanie Clancy and Gary Lim. A perfect alchemy of Art, Copy and Code. (You can vote for World Under Water to be the 2014 winner here).

We’ve been lucky that our work has proven to be effective, creative and buzzworthy. The teams push themselves really hard, so all credit goes to them. Last year, we were ranked as the 41st most awarded agency in the world according to the 2013 Big Won Report. Hopefully we will do a little better this year.

You’ve worked in BBDO in Malaysia, New York and now Singapore. Which has been the toughest market to work in and the most enjoyable?

Every market is tough. This is a tough job. And that’s why it never gets boring.

With a startup mentality and a bunch of hungry creatives led by Mun Tuck Wai (pictured right), Kelvin Leong and Kevin Le, we were the 13th and 8th most awarded agency in the world in 2008 and 2009. More importantly, just about every team won awards, not just one or two star teams.

And if being busy wasn’t enough, we even raised our hands for extra work like this elegant display of man-fruit… important advice for young creatives out there.

In 2009, BBDO Asia Chairman and CEO, Chris Thomas set me up for the New York EVP/ECD job (2009 – 2012). That was mind blowing. Working on that stage and learning from all those smart people was a humbling and enriching experience.

I got the opportunity to lead large pitches and with some luck, won Orbitz and the Johnson’s global baby business, one of that year’s largest pitch wins. And David Lubars (pictured right) was an inspiring leader. He showed me that there’s no replacement for hard work, even if you’re David Lubars.

After three years in New York, I was offered the CCO role in Singapore. I’ve been very fortunate to have some amazing creatives come on board in the last two years. We now have a motley combination of great talent and characters; we’re like a gang. And I think the plan is working. We were ‘Agency of the Year’ at last year’s Singapore Creative Circle Awards, the most awarded South East Asian agency at Cannes 2014 and the third most awarded agency globally at Clio 2014. We won Gold Effies in 2013  and 2014. All firsts for this office. And we won new biz for Banyan Tree Group and the iconic Tiger Beer.

What was your motivation to firstly move to New York and then return to Asia three years later?

The motivation was the opportunity to work in BBDO New York and to see if I would swim or sink there. And it couldn’t have happened if not for Chris Thomas. He wanted me to work on a larger stage, in one of the most creative offices in the world, before coming to Singapore. That’s what makes this such an amazing network. It’s a network that recognises, and puts plans into action, and I’ve been fortunate to be given these opportunities. The reason for coming back to Asia was this: ‘another amazing opportunity within the BBDO network’. And chilli crabs!

Creativity in Malaysia has been in a bit of a dip over the past few years. You recently spoke at Ham’s one day creative conference in KL. What advice did you give?

The advice I offered at the seminar is the same advice I give myself every morning – 99% sweat, 1% sweat. I’m average on a good day, so I need to work my butt off to survive in this industry. Malaysians are a hard working bunch. Watch them bounce back in no time, especially with Ham’s (Harmandar Singh, Publisher Adoi Magazine in Malaysia) current efforts and people like CK Tan, Gavin Simpson, GiGi Lee, Sa’ad Hussein, VJ Anand, Tan Kien Eng, Edward and Alvin.

What’s your view on the level of creativity coming from the Singapore industry as a whole?

Singapore has been consistently strong for the longest time. It’s a community that attracts great talent from around the world and frankly, I’m just trying to keep up. With so many great agencies, Singapore will never suffer from a shortage of Lions.

What did you do before getting into advertising?

I had a full time job of trying to not drop out of college. I was an atrocious student who couldn’t find something I really loved so I ended being a college nomad. I tried getting into hairdressing, law, psychology, film, economics and literature to name a few. Then by chance, I took an Advertising 101 course in the Journalism School and for some misguided reason, loved it. I double majored in Advertising and Broadcasting, graduated, got hired and still look forward to doing it every day.

What was your first big break in advertising?

I got my first break when I passed the JWT Copy Test. I’m not sure if they liked my writing, or my desperation. I accepted the offer of $250 as ‘perma-freelance copywriter’, and lived on that lucrative salary for a few years.

What was your second big break?

I got hired at Bozell by Dharma Somasundram. Before Bozell, Dharma was the stuff of legends at Y&R. When she made the move, I was one of her first hires. We were small, fearless and nimble. As a result, we won lots of business and awards. After a year, Bozell was one of the top creative agencies in Malaysia. She gave me the best advice when she said, “You’ll never be ready for anything”.

What is your career highlight to date?

I don’t know. I’m still waiting for that ‘big hit’.

Your three favourite ads/campaigns that you have been involved with?

Because I’ve spoken about some work from the Singapore office previously, I’ll pick three from my time in BBDO Malaysia and New York offices.

‘Olympus Live Washing Machine Demo’: We launched the Olympus waterproof and shockproof camera with ‘Kung Fu Master’, a film that was extremely well received. In fact, consumers were asking for the ‘Kung Fu camera’ at the stores. But after a few months of brisk sales amongst the gadget geeks, things slowed down. There was a problem of believability. Customers who were going to pay good money for the camera were not convinced that the it was really waterproof and shockproof. So we put that doubt to rest once and for all with this live demonstration at a huge camera and travel fair. Credit goes to the clients, Tan Tick Boon and Yong Kee Nyap. They did something few clients would, and it paid off handsomely. And they deservedly were honored with the ‘Advertiser of the Year’ award.

Pepsi Longest Football Dribble: Pepsi was not the official sponsor of Euro 2008. Edwin Africa, from Pepsi issued a $100,000 brief for a press campaign to disrupt the attention. We went back with something no press campaign could achieve. With an activation event, we eclipsed the competitor’s Euro sponsorship by hijacking the attention of soccer fans and news organisations on the tournament’s launch day. All for the same budget of $100,000. This became a Pepsi global case, and went on to win creative awards and an Asian Marketing & Effectiveness Gold. Once again, a case of client bravery and trust which led to great results.

Johnson’s Baby ‘You’re doing ok, mom’: This was our first project after winning the global pitch. I’m quite proud of this because it was a pitch idea that actually got produced. This was a culmination of the pitch, multiple follow-up meetings and surviving arduous research. And we made lots of moms cry. Best of all, I got to work with Kara Goodrich and Jean Robaire who are legendary creatives.

What are the 3 ads/campaigns that make you green with envy?

Here are three that make me feel most inadequate every day:

Prudential “Day One”

HBO “Voyeur”

Do you have a ‘worst mistake’ or a most embarrassing moment in your advertising career to date?

My mullet. And I had it for 10 years. Thank god those were pre-Facebook years.

Is there a person you have enjoyed working with the most?

Dharma Somasundram. She’s the bomb.

Who is the most interesting, or most inspiring, or funniest person you have ever met or worked with?

My kids, Jonah and Noah (right). They’re funny, silly and really random. They’re inspired by wholesome books like Captain Underpants. So my wife and I get an inspiring dose of poop and fart jokes every day.

What’s your favourite leisure activity/hobbies outside of advertising?

Tennis. It’s the most fun and frustrating game ever. Sounds like advertising doesn’t it?

Favourite holiday destination?

My next one.

Favourite hotel?

It’s not fancy, but I love the Lone Pine Hotel in Penang. I haven’t been there for about 10 years now. I hope it’s still musty and hasn’t lost its old world charm.

Tell me something about yourself that not many people would know.

I read Campaign Brief 10 times a day. Including weekends.

Read Campaign Brief Asia’s previous Newsmaker profile stories:

Matt Eastwood – Global CCO, JWT

Yang Yeo – Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai

RajDeepak Das – Leo Burnett India

Rahul Mathew – DDB Mudra West, India

Rob Sherlock – ADK

Masako Okamura – Dentsu Vietnam