Newsmaker: Y&R China CCO Nils Andersson on his journey for “World Class, not China Class”

Since joining Y&R in 2010 as Chief Creative Officer, Nils Andersson has been responsible for an astonishing creative resurgence in China. Andersson was recently named ‘Greater China Creative of the Year’, and Y&R was named ‘China Creative Agency of the Year’ in Campaign magazine’s annual Awards. Following an outstanding 2014, Campaign Brief Asia spoke to Andersson about the recent success of Y&R in China in this latest “Newsmaker” column.

In 2014 Y&R was China’s most awarded agency at Cannes, for the second consecutive year. The agency won 10 Lions in 2014, and China’s only Gold, and this contributed to the Big Won Report naming Andersson as 2014’s fourth most awarded ECD, and the Penguin ‘Mic’ print campaign, the world’s most awarded print campaign.

It’s not just internationally that Y&R China has been noticed. The Beijing agency was Top 3 in the region at Spikes Asia, including a the Print Grand Prix. Y&R also won a Gold China Effie and was named ‘Most Influential Ad Agency’ by the Brand Owners Association.

Other highlights of Andersson’s time with Y&R include re-launching Dell’s gaming brand Alienware, with a global digital campaign developed out of China, and helping client GAP to win Campaign magazine’s ‘Asia Brand of the Year’ accolade.

Originally a member of the British Olympic fencing squad, Andersson studied graphics and attended the Royal College of Art. Award-winning ad campaigns include Land Rover, Ford, The Royal Mail, Woolworths and ING Barings.

Andersson first came to Asia in 2001, as ECD of TBWA Japan. In 2004 he moved to Beijing as ECD at Ogilvy & Mather and by 2006 was promoted to ECD Greater China Group, Ogilvy & Mather, and Global Creative Director on Motorola.

2014 was a great year creatively for Y&R China. Out of all these achievements which are the ones you most proud of?

Well, winning Gold at Cannes was pretty special, as it was a first for Y&R in China. Then follow that up with winning 2014 China Agency of the Year, and Beijing having the most awarded 2014 print campaign in the world, according to The Big Won Directory. Also our first Gold Effie win. Plus watching my teams continue to grow in confidence, and standard.

How did the “Mic” Penguin campaign come about?

There are over 300 million college educated Chinese, many of whom are interested in English, and in particular, classic English texts. This is the market for Penguin, which is considered an iconic foreign literature brand here.

‘Mic’ was the product of a very talented group of people in Beijing. I remember seeing the early sketches of the idea and thinking, maybe this is something very special. Real credit goes to Ronnie Wu and his team. They spent night after night on calls with illustrators in different parts of the world. 8 illustrators. 8 different time-zones. From France, to Ukraine, to America and beyond. They all stopped at nothing to make the campaign perfect. It took several months to complete. And many rounds just to get the type just right. Even going back to the illustrators to get them to hand draw the headlines.

What are the biggest challenges you face daily in China as CCO?

We try to apply a simple formula. World Class, not China Class. However, the biggest challenge is quality. It would be easier if we churned out average work for clients. However, that wouldn’t make us the place to work. That wouldn’t make Y&R a difficult place to leave. And that wouldn’t make us the place where clients must put their business. So we try to operate as if we were working in London, or New York, or Shanghai. There is no difference in the approach. Only time zone.

What’s your view on the level of creativity coming from the Chinese industry as a whole? Would you say overall creative standards in general have improved in China over the years you have been here?

I do think the industry has developed quickly over the last 10 years, however, it is still a young industry here. The quality work is mostly a thin veneer of excellence. But as China is now moving to a domestic consumption model, I believe the industry is starting to recognize that work that emotionally connects, rather than just sells hard, is the way forward. The rise of social/digital also means that content has to be worth watching and passing on. This is forcing change.

What is the Chinese industry doing better or learning to do better?

There is a huge opportunity in the digital, social, innovation space. China is developing its own advanced technologies, just as Japan and Korea have before them, and these are spawning work that in some ways is more advanced than the west. There is also the simple factor of speed. China does everything at speed. Sometimes you could argue, too quickly, but the rest of the world needs to wise up to the fact that, in comparison, they are in slow motion.

Are there any factors that are holding the industry back creatively?

The colleges really need to really concentrate on developing the stars of the future. Not just the workers for tomorrow. And clients need to be more exposed to what the rest of the world is doing. I would love to see more China clients going to Cannes. I am sure it would give them the same shot in the arm I get every time I go. Once people see more, they try more. Thanks to online, Chinese consumers are already seeing the best work from brands around the world. Both international and domestic brands need to fully understand this, and embrace the opportunity to step up.

What first attracted you to make the move to China?

I am a bit of a mutt. Having never really been from any one country, my father was Swedish, my mother English and my wife French, the idea of leaving London to work somewhere else was not really an issue. In fact, it felt as if I was meant to work abroad. I was asked to go to Tokyo for a couple of weeks to help a friend from the UK who had recently gone in as MD of TBWA Japan. Once I got there, that was it. I stayed. The attention to detail and graphic aesthetic was intoxicating.

China was not my destination at that time, although once in Japan, I became increasingly aware that the world was talking about the rise of China, so it seemed the logical next move, if I was going to stay in Asia. In fact, I very nearly went to LA instead of Beijing. But something told me China was the place. In truth, many of my friends thought I was mad.  

What do you love about living/working in China?

Anything is possible. I sensed that when I arrived, and I still believe it now. Dream something up, and there is always someone somewhere who wants to make it happen. It’s a very different feeling from working in the west. The Chinese wait for nothing. They are driven, and unforgiving if you don’t bring something that is useful to them. However, if you can prove your worth, they are incredibly loyal and hard working.

What did you do before getting into advertising?


At school I loved two things. Sport and art. However, at 18, I had cartilage operations on both knees, so that was the end of a career in sport. Therefore I went to art-college, where I studied fine art and then graphic design.

My first job? Well, I cleaned cars every weekend. Even cleaned the floors in my local supermarket at dawn for a while before school. Breakfast was the chocolate from the shelves. I guess my first real job was as a
landscape designer, during the summer holidays while I was at college. I would sketch the gardens with a designer, and then we presented them to clients. Then we built them. I still love gardens to this day. It’s a beautiful thing turning an empty space into a huge, ever changing, ever growing experience. Something that lasts beyond anyone’s lifetime.

How did you first get into advertising as a career?

I came out of college with a book full of designs. Not ad campaigns, so I started work in a design company in London. I don’t think anyone in advertising would have taken me on, unless they needed an illustrator. However, I had always felt drawn to the ad world. To me, it felt bigger and more impactful than design at the time. The lure of film felt engaging, powerful and seductive.

What was your first big break in advertising?

I am not sure if I really had a big break, as such. I met a young writer who didn’t have an art director. Agencies only took on teams, so we worked together every night after work, for the best part of a year, on a joint book. Then we knocked on the doors of agencies. Eventually, Bates took us on as a junior creative team. Frankly, I had almost no idea what I was doing. We were paid peanuts. I still have all the rejection letters to this day, from the other agencies.

What was your second big break?

Tim Ashton joined Bates as the new ECD and brought in a great mix of talent. He shook everything up, and I learnt a lot from him and others around me. I really began to understand that the way to work was to feel free of constraint and convention. To ‘not’ do an ad. Just find a fresh way to connect. Once I got that, I started to get on.

What is your career highlight to date?

I think making Motorola campaigns that ran around the world, yet were made in China, was a special period. We had a great team of mavericks that lived in China, yet operated as if they were the center of the world.

Launching GAP in China also sticks in my mind (right). The chance to introduce a brand to a market that knew almost nothing about it, and in doing so, give them the opportunity to start all over again. The client was great. She insisted on working with the very best, and Annie Liebovitz delivered.

It was quite an experience working with her. It also was interesting to watch how some very well know people such as Usher, Pharrell and Zhou Xun gave her total respect. She was master of the studio. In many ways she transcended everyone. It’s almost as if that relationship is captured in her photographs.

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

Just after Nick Leeson broke Barings bank, ING bought them for 1GBP. They then commissioned an ad campaign to celebrate the new partnership.

I think it was one of my favourite graphics pieces. We commissioned the type specialist, Vince Frost, to create the campaign using actual original wood block type, in homage to the great Dutch De Stijl graphics period of the early 1920’s.

I also really enjoyed directing a series of commercials for the Royal Mail and their first edition collections. They were all conversations, centered in how something as small as a stamp, could stimulate far bigger things. For example, Chinese chefs talking about how many wives Henry Eighth beheaded. Riot police in a van at a football stadium, discussing the merits of Britain’s children’s TV characters such as Noddy vs Big Ears vs The Clangers. You had to be British to get these, but they were a laugh to do.

From China, creating the MOTORAZR campaign using the simple ‘RAZR cut’ as a language agnostic device. We ran with this for 3 years, in every medium.

It was a real pleasure working with Platon, one of the world’s top portrait photographers.

One MOTORAZR film in particular, called “Cut Through”, where a dropped phone sliced through an entire building was a fresh piece, for a tech brand at the time.

Also a digital campaign sticks in my mind. We re-launched Dell’s Alienware globally, and in doing so, shot a family of demonic of alien heads, and combined them with messages to earth from space. If you logged on to the site, their spaceship found you wherever you were, and abducted you into its belly.

And Land Rover, World’s End. I have always loved the Land Rover brand, having worked on it in the UK before. To work on it again was a pleasure.

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

I only have one. Playstation, ‘Double Life’. It was quite simply extraordinary to watch it at the cinema for the first time. Frank Budgen at his very bes
t. From a script as deft as you can possibly get. I still remember the last line, ‘at least I can say I’ve lived.’

I also loved the ‘Nipple’ print and outdoor that followed (left).

I don’t think anything else comes close, as I saw it at a time when I was still young in the business, and it had a lasting impression because of that.

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

I have been lucky to have worked with a lot of interesting people, so it’s difficult to single individuals out.

My dad always said to me, whatever you do, try to work with the very best. It’s something I have always tried to follow. From photographers, film-makers, illustrators or designers, as they are the ones that have made me look like I know what I am doing. Go 2nd rate and your work becomes 2nd rate. It’s a simple formula, though not always easy to apply.

More recently, working with Tony Granger and the Y&R crew has certainly been a special period, as there is such a drive and passion to do great.

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

The funniest person,
 was my first ever writer partner, Roland Hafenrichter. His dad had been a film editor, who had won an Oscar for editing the feature film, ‘The Third Man.’ However, instead of taking pride of place on a shelf, Roland kept the Oscar in his loo. We worked together for 10 years. A wonderfully witty man.

Most inspiring? I think Platon, because he doesn’t think like advertising people think.

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

I have always been addicted to sport

. So whenever I get the chance, I cycle, swim, or play golf. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. I also take photographs, and have exhibited a few times.

Favourite holiday destination?

I love Cannes.
 Not just because of the festival, but because I spent a lot of time there as a kid. It’s about as close to paradise as you are going to get. The French landscape rocks. As does the food. 


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

I was the singer in a school band, long before they became famous. I left for advertising, and they went on to fame and fortune. That’s life I guess.

Read Campaign Brief Asia’s previous Newsmaker profiles:

Malcolm Poynton – Cheil Worldwide

Alfa Aphrodita – Arcade Indonesia

Norman Tan – JWT China

Ronald Ng – BBDO and Proximity Singapore

Matt Eastwood – Global CCO, JWT

Yang Yeo – Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai

RajDeepak Das – Leo Burnett India

Rahul Mathew – DDB Mudra West, India

Rob Sherlock – ADK Asia Pacific

Masako Okamura – Dentsu Vietnam