Chris Kyme’s Postcard from Hong Kong: The importance of training

Chris Kyme (pictured above) continues his ‘Postcard from Hong Kong’ series arguing that while technology continues to transform advertising, great ideas still rely on the fundamentals. Reflecting on the decline of creative training and quality control, he makes the case for why nurturing talent remains as important as ever.

A couple of years ago I set out to try and utilise my vast experience to help younger generations in the industry to embrace the power of creativity and hopefully, influence some improvement in the general output of what we see around us every day in mass media.

I called it Adcademy, and I was targeting both agencies and clients with helpful training modules on topics such as ‘How to get the most out of your agency’, ‘The power of ideas’, and ‘Writing simple briefs’.

Apparently, either the entire local industry is of the opinion that nobody needs any help in these topics, or, I’m considered to be such an old creative dinosaur that I’m not in tune with how things work today.

Because so far my attempts at reaching out reached on deaf ears have garnered less interest than a CFO presentation on cost-cutting at Cannes.

The entire local HK industry then, deems that training in the creative area, is absolutely unnecessary.

Defiantly, I still beg to differ. Even in today’s world of data-driven AI-controlled programmatic mish-mash, anytime we ever see anything any good, be that in award shows, or just sharing in social media, it has a strong idea at its core. Whatever the format, from films to outdoor to case studies and ambient media.

Everything starts with a good idea.

I was reminded of this recently with the furore surrounding a now cancelled, extremely misguided and not to mention fruity anti-drugs campaign by the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department. The content of which was constructed in two parts – first, the attraction of drugs as represented by an AI created pretty girl pop group, the members of which each represented a form of narcotic of which they sang about its virtues. Then the second part, which showed how nasty things turn when the drugs turn bad.

Created ‘in-house’, it has been (rightly) ridiculed enough so I won’t do that here, suffice to say that in a proper agency situation, with quality control and an experienced, level-headed creative director in charge, that idea would not have made it past the door.

And this is a common issue inflicting the local industry today in that, there is no quality control. Anyone can come up with anything and it gets approved and out it goes. Regardless of some sort of judgement criteria (Is it relevant, is it on brief, etc. You know the process).

Aside from the usual celebrity-swamped blandvertising we see across the industry, there seems to be a misunderstanding as to the difference between ideas vs execution.

In the ‘golden age’ of Hong Kong creativity (1980s/90s), the local generation of creative stars who rose up and began producing some of the best advertising to ever emerge from this magnificent and unique city, had all been groomed by professionals. They weren’t self-trained or fast-tracked into responsible jobs. They had to prove themselves.

They understood how to interpret a brief, and how simple propositions can lead to great ideas. They represented a generation who, free from the shackles that often came with playing second fiddle to international bosses, embraced their own local culture in new and inventive ways.

The work was 100% Cantonese, yet rooted in the basic principles of creativity that were universal in our industry. And still are today.

Hong Kong had very good anti-drug PSA’s (Public Service Announcements) in the past. Hard-hitting, direct and thought-provoking. Like the ‘Life has no take 2” created by Kitty Lun which used clips from famous gangster movies to drive the message home like a John Woo bullet.

In those days, the young local creative generation had been well trained. And set free to explore. That’s very different from being untrained and free to explore. You can end up anywhere and it’s not always pretty.

Creative people need training. Clients need training. The industry needs proper quality control.

I always think that creativity without control (Jaguar anyone?) is like a car without a steering wheel. It can lead to a crash, as we recently saw.

Read Chris Kyme’s most recent Postcard’s from Hong Kong below:
Coming home
Back to the future
Are you up for the Kam Funs?
Over qualified or over the hill?
Mind the (creative) gap