Chris Kyme’s Postcard from Hong Kong: In search of the Sweet Spot
Chris Kyme (pictured above) continues his ‘Postcard from Hong Kong’ series. Always being one for attending events with free-flow beer and sna…sorry, I mean..which offer interesting networking and creative discussion opportunities, I accepted a very generous invitation to attend a Marketing Society panel discussion on the state of creativity in Hong Kong today which was held at the offices of JLL (a very nice creative space, big chill out area etc).
The last time they held something on this topic I was actually one of the panelists and it was pretty healthy debate. This time I was invited as an audience member and also required to have masking tape placed over my mouth during the discussion.
The panelists were: Andreas Kasser – CEO, DDB Hong Kong (moderator), John Koay – Regional Creative Director Edelman, Jocelyn Tse – Independent Strategist, Ivy Cheung- CMO, Chubb Life Hong Kong.
Now first off I have to say I’m very appreciative of The Marketing Society for hosting and encouraging this creative discussion because someone needs to be doing it. More than that, it’s not just an audience of creative awards luvvies all navel gazing either. You’ve got clients mingling with creatives and media folks and it’s all good networking integration.
Secondly, the topic or rather the focus this time was ‘Do awards matter’? Now that’s not a bad question to be asking and the opinions as you can rightly imagine balanced between “No let’s just get on with business” to “Yes they’re great for morale and help promote loyalty (yeah right) and enthusiasm” kind of thing.
I know that if you put that question to the average gong-chasing trainer-wearing Asian creative such as yourself dear reader, the answer would be “Hell yeah”. But on the evening I was considering this, and unable to restrain myself any longer, I removed the masking tape that Andreas made me put over my mouth and reframed the question.
I don’t think the most pertinent question is about “Do awards matter”?
Who gives a monkeys, of course they do but they only really matter on the night when you go up on stage shining in glory or the next day when you can do all your “I am humbled” social media chest-thumping. After that, it’s back to the grindstone.
The real question is “Does creativity matter?”.
The obvious answer to which being yes, as proven year in year out by great campaigns which raise the bar, raise awareness and raise everyone’s salaries and delivers ROI. As Sir John Hegarty put it “ It (creative advertising) inspires and resonates with audiences, fostering long-term relationships rather than just “stalking” them with data-driven messages.”
So then I put it to the panel (and in particular to John who is no stranger to the awards circuit himself) “What does it take to improve it?”
I’m not talking about how to improve it in terms of entering awards, we all know that there are many who are quite good at doing that every year with their various social causes etc, and we have a few of those in Hong Kong funnily enough, but how to improve creativity in what gets exposed in the public arena. What we see around us every day, online or off.
Because let’s face it the biggest grumble around the world today in any given market is that it’s all rubbish.
There are exceptions of course because if you keep your eyes and ears open, good work gets out into the public domain here and there from very good agencies and then gets shared and lauded in social media (the irony) and we all wonder – “How did they sell it into the client?”
John Koay’s thoughts on that suggested that good client relationships were key, and I absolutely do not disagree with him speaking from personal experience.
But the truth is, this is not a question that can be answered in a short discussion panel and actually deserves a bigger and more in depth forum of exploration if the industry was serious about wanting to improve things.
Brain whirring etc
Not that I’m volunteering to lead that particular expedition (unless asked of course, and depending on the free flow beer and snacks) but it did get me pondering the issue further. Just hear me out.
One of the problems, I observe, with mainstream advertising (yes it does still exist) today is that mostly it doesn’t respect the intelligence of the target audience.
I saw an old interview clip from Adfest with Jeremy Craigen (he of much lauded DDB Volkswagen fame), when he spoke about “creative intelligence” and respecting the consumer.
Ads today are blatant creative hammers which bonk the general public on their collective heads and say ‘Yoo hoo…buy me buy me”.
This is partly reflective of the general levels of intelligence among the marketing people responsible for briefing and approving the ads. “If I don’t get it, how will the target audience?” That plus inexperience, fear, playing it safe, etc etc.
I also think there’s a big difference between what (good) creative people deem to be creative – the benchmarks etc, and what clients do.
And that needs addressing. Many people working in marketing just don’t know how good advertising can be.
On the other hand, ‘agency initiated’ campaigns, don’t have to worry about that.
All they have to consider is whether the awards judges will get it. Well practiced ndividuals who are going to look at it, ponder it, study it, consider it with a cup of tea or coffee in hand before marking it down as a winner (or not) with all the time in the world before lunch.
So, there is a huge divide between work that has to be approved by clients, and work which doesn’t have to bother because it’s designed for awards judges and nobody else will see it anyway.
And somewhere in between, is the sweet spot.
The sweet spot, to me, is work that is good enough to be considered for awards (ie a by-product of doing great work for your clients), but was actually created to meet a proper brief and all that this entails, and therefore, deemed acceptable by the client.
So if you think of anything you’ve seen and admired of late that actually ran (think of anything from Uncommon in London these days, or recently I saw that brilliant film for DiDi “Yes I DiDi” in Australia recently and thought how the f@% did they sell that in?), it all hits the sweet spot.
Uncommon – hitting the sweet spot again and again.
It meets the brief. It wins awards. Everyone’s happy.
Hitting the sweet spot means doing things for real. It means actually going to all the effort to think about how to convince your play-it-safe client that this will work for them.
That they should go for it. Invest their budget in it. And respect that the target audience is intelligent enough to get it.
Only then can creativity across all channels improve. Only then will clients become more aware of just how good advertising can be and how it can help deliver ROI.
Only then will the image of the industry improve in the eyes of the general public and more importantly bright young people looking to build a career. Who want to look up and aspire to something.
So that’s the question we should really have been attempting to answer. Now, how do we get there?
And what’s the answer is…
F%@k knows, I was heading straight for the nibbles.
Read Chris Kyme’s 2025 Postcard’s from Hong Kong below:
Welcome to Newviola
And the award goes to… some braver clients
A look inside the Beehive
A rocket that landed in Hong Kong
In search of Hong Kong (yet again)