Spotlight: Can the Malaysian Ad Industry bounce back from their current creative doldrums?

Looking in from the outside there seems to be an obvious decline of the levels of award-winning creativity in the Malaysian market over recent times. A startling statistic from the recent 2017 Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings is that Malaysian agencies, over the previous 12 months leading up to the Rankings, failed to win an award at any at the top international award shows and, regionally, could only manage a single bronze at the Spikes Asia Festival in 2016.

In the 2017 Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings Malaysia as a country ranks a very low #11 overall with just 290 Creative Ranking points (see ranking table below). This is in stark contrast to the 2016 Asia Creative Rankings where Malaysia ranked #6 in Asia with 1400 ranking points.

To be fair this was greatly enhanced by BBDO Malaysia’s award winning performance on the back of their KFC print campaign. The campaign ended the year as the highest ranked print ad in the world in The Gunn Report, however, previous to this, in the 2014 Campaign Brief Creative Rankings Malaysia was ranked quite high at #8 overall in Asia with 775 ranking points.

A quick glance at the Malaysian Creative Rankings breakdown from 2017 (see right) doesn’t paint an encouraging picture. Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur clearly leads the way with 265 points and the only other agency to gain points is Naga DDB.

Amazingly, Malaysia’s No1 agency last year, BBDO Proximity, failed to register at all and other Malaysian agencies with rich creative pedigrees like Ogilvy & Mather, TBWA, Y&R, Saatchi & Saatchi, JWT and McCann Erickson also had nothing to show from their creative efforts over the 2016/17 award season.

So is it as bleak as what it seems?

To find out Campaign Brief Asia sought some answers to find out if there is still enough talent left in the Malaysian industry for things to improve. Are agencies in Malaysiatrying hard enough? Are the country’s creative leaders trying hard enough? And, are Malaysian clients that tough that they are not accepting award-winning work?

Dentsu LHS Malaysia’s CEO Tony Savarimuthu (left) pointed out that there was one jarring fact that stands out for him from 2017.

“In 2017 Malaysia did not achieve a single finalist at Cannes,” said Savarimuthu. “I estimate that Malaysian agencies must have spent in excess of US$100k in entry fees at Cannes last year, and came back empty-handed.”

He said the industry is also awash with awards, and admitted that participation in some of these is driven by both network and client requests with its own set of KPIs for awards.

“Creative Directors can be more discerning on the award shows they should be submitting to. To be frank I don’t believe that they are allowed that discretion. Quantity has superseded quality. Client organisation have their own set of issues with talent and the short-term tenure of Marketing Directors. The few organisations which are producing the better work have worked at their relationships and have built a high level of trust with their Creative Directors. I believe the task to get clients to value creativity is an ongoing one, and we all need to work better and harder at it. With the multiple media options available, both clients and agencies have no choice but to push the boundaries together. The Malaysian 4As had played a great role in building a community of Creative Directors who had worked together to raise standards and the winner of the Grand Prix (the Golden Kancil) was rewarded with a trip to Cannes.”

Savarimuthu said Malaysia previously had a A-list of CDs who set the standards and led the market at one time – the late Yasmin Ahmad, Ed Choe, Ted Lim and Ronald Ng. He believes the existing CDs need to step up and fulfil this role.

“There is no doubt that there is a talent drain with many Creative Directors leaving our shores for better prospects most of whom have earned promotion to regional and global roles. You will find many Malaysian creatives in Singapore, Indonesia and China which have been become attractive partly due to the decline of the ringgit but also people wanting to broaden their horizons.  I would be hard-pressed to say that they left for a better creative environment as the issues not any different. If the financial rewards are worthy some of them might have opted to stay – Malaysia is a great place to live, work and travel.

Savarimuthu believes there should be more effort spent on attracting expats to move to Malaysia.

“There are used to be a number of expat Creative Directors working here. I think the market needs global talent – most of them tend to be in Planning and Strategy but hardly any Creative Directors. There will be P&L issues relating to talent costs but I think the industry should more outward looking in terms of bringing in new creative talent from both outside our shores and other industries.  Malaysia was the hub for regional commercials and some global ones and this provided the incentives for creatives to work here.

Ted Lim Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu Brand Agencies APAC (left) is a Malaysian expat who left the country to better his career. He sees the problem as bigger than an advertising industry problem.

“It’s no secret that Malaysia has lost a lot of talent,” said Lim. “The issue is bigger than advertising. Decades of racial discrimination, the rise of religious extremism and resultant social-economic problems have induced many to seek their fortunes abroad. Hundreds of thousands of highly qualified Malaysians, according to World Bank statistics and other reports, have chosen to live and work in New York, Toronto, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Jakarta, Sydney, Melbourne and beyond. The politically-motivated education system is also not helping to replenish lost talent. Not until political fair-play, good governance and social justice are restored will the country see a reversal in the brain drain.

Eugene Cheong Regional Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy & Mather also believes this is a bigger issue that just advertising.

“With Malaysia’s socio-economic policies of positive discrimination in favour of the Bumiputera, the Malay majority look at advertising, with its bad pay and long hours, and say ‘screw this.'” he said.

“They can, after all, work less hard and make more money elsewhere. Which is why, the average Malaysian creative department is populated mostly by the country’s ethnic minorities, the Chinese and the Indians. So, what you’ve got are very hard working, and thanks to the ever-devaluing Ringgit, relatively cheap creatives who can, and mostly, operated in Mandarin. These folks have become the primary target of the giant talent vacuum cleaner a.k.a. China.”

Cheong believes the Malaysian creative leaders currently have their hands full: “They have to work with young people fresh from ad school. And as soon as they’ve become decent creatives that require less looking after, say, four years down the road, the bodysnatchers appear and chart them off to Shanghai or Beijing. To make matters worse, Malaysia has become the Wild West with robbery, break-ins and lawlessness in general becoming a regular feature of life. If you are a talented guy like Ronald Ng, you’d pack your bags and take your family to a
city where you can toil in peace.”

What needs to change?

“I could write a book on this,” said Cheong. “You need a small group of passionate people who believe in the supernatural power of creativity to prosper brands and transmogrify culture. You need a bunch of malcontents who are allergic to mediocrity and impatient to make world-spinning work. You want a handful of firebrands who ache for excellence, not in some distant future, but right here, right bloody now. You start from there and you build an agency around them. If you’re lucky and they grow, they will attract other likeminded believers in creativity who will tolerate the occasional inconvenience of being robbed on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.”

For his part, Savarimuthu believes there is enough creative talent in the market to turn this around and restore Malaysia’s reputation as an award winning country.

“There are a number of top level CDs working here that can spark a revival,” said Savarimuthu. “I think the standards also need to be set around a higher level of creativity for our local Kancil Awards before Malaysian creativity heads anywhere. Or to any other show that aspires to the higher global standards with a A-list global jury.”

One of Malaysia’s most successful and awarded creative expats is Ronald Ng, the New York based Chief Creative Officer of Digitas North America. For Ng the lack of creativity coming out of Malaysia is quite personal and he’s worried for the Malaysian industry.

“While I feel that the late Yasmin Ahmad gave us our best days with those beautiful Petronas festive films, I don’t think the Malaysian industry is in a complete creative depression,” said Ng.

“There’s some strong work recently for Tenaga Nasional, Maxis, BSN, and Lazada. Unfortunately, a lot of them are not globally appreciated due to the Malaysian context that is missed. That said, Malaysia’s best ideas are seen mostly during the festive seasons or Merdeka Day. ‘Tan Hong Ming’ is one of the all-time-greats. It was local, but universal in appeal, which is why it won both local and international awards. That’s not easy to do.

Ng believes to would be a step ahead if the same anticipation, investment and standards were applied to non-festive, product and even promo campaigns. He would like to see more insight and purpose driven ideas that make people love brands and buy their products.

“When I was in BBDO Malaysia, our clients didn’t spend on big festive brand campaigns. Though we would’ve loved the opportunity to create work celebrating national pride and festivals, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as our work wasn’t competing with all those festive campaigns and we focused our energy on brand and product messaging. And these ideas could be local or universal in flavor and appeal. Whatever was best for the task at hand.

“We took a ‘local appeal’ approach for KFC ‘Never eat rice’ which worked in BM, English and Cantonese. And we did an Olympus film in Cantonese only. After all, the Kung Fu master wouldn’t be as funny in English. We also produced non-local flavored work when it was right for the project. Like the KFC OR ‘Stolen Burger’ campaign, reflecting what most kids in any country have done before – stealing. Or the ‘Pepsi Longest Dribble’ idea that hijacked its competitor’s expensive ad spend. This Hotlink idea for lower call rates. And one of my favourites, an Olympus ‘live’ demo featuring our fantastic client, Yong Kee Nyap, who eventually won the 2007 Kancil Advertiser of the Year award.”

“Yes, Malaysian clients are tough. But remember, clients are tough in any market. We had really tough clients in KFC, Olympus, Maxis and Pepsi to name a few. The KFC ‘Stolen Burger’ campaign was approved after 9 rounds of rejection by SK Wong and Jerry Loo. They’re fantastic people first and foremost, and amazing clients who pushed us to produce better work. The late Tan Tick Boon, MD of Olympus, used to tell me straight in the face that our ideas were “No good”. But that was because he wanted us to go back with even better ideas. He wanted to win a Gold Kancil because he believed award winning work are market winning ideas. As proven in this UK IPA Effectiveness Study that reports award winning work is 11 times more effective than those that don’t win awards. Clients have the right to be demanding. And clients who value and respect agencies as true partners will inspire the best work from them.”

Ng agrees there’s been a brain drain of creative talent but believes there enough creative talent in the market to turn this around and restore Malaysia’s reputation as an award winning country.

“There is no doubt that Malaysia has lost some talent to other countries. This is a talent based industry in a field that’s more global than ever before so movement is going to happen. But we have many strong leaders like Tan Kien Eng, Woei Hern, MUN, Adam Miranda, Sa’ad and GG Lee who are inspiring and showing the way. And there are many smart young and hungry hearts coming out of our colleges that we should identify, nurture and provide opportunities to. In BBDO, we were fortunate to attract amazing first-jobbers like Gary Lim, Pebble Goh and Willeon Leong. They were the hardest working people in the world and did amazing work from day one. Unfortunately they’re now thriving overseas, but Malaysia will continue to produce great young talent and we must continuously shine a light on these creative wunderkinds as they’ll help take us to the future,” said Ng

“I hope young creatives agree with me that Malaysia is one of the best ad markets to grow up in. Few markets give you this many opportunities to be nimble and have produced work like Malaysia, resulting in the most expansive portfolio very quickly.

“While agencies like Leo Burnett are producing strong work as always, there are also fantastic newcomers in Ensemble, Fisherman and Society who are a breath of fresh air. There is also an unfilled space for strong digital and data inspired agencies to help transform clients’ businesses for the future.

“Yes, winning awards are important
for agencies to attract the best talent to produce the best work for their clients. But awards are also an expensive and unpredictable game. We’d of course love for a Malaysian agency to win another Cannes Grand Prix, like JWT did in 2007. But I’ll urge us all to first and foremost focus on providing breakthrough creative solutions for our clients. Then with some luck, the awards will come,” concluded Ng.

Footnote: To illustrate the Malaysian ad industry ‘Brain Drain’ situation, Ted Lim sent along this cutting below, compiled by top Malaysian creative Edward Ong that first appeared in the mid January edition of MARKETING magazine in Malaysia.

Download the 2017 Creative Rankings PDF: Campaign Brief Asia 2017 Creative Rankings.pdf