Photo: Brymo
Before I start, I know it’s April 1st today but unlike last years post, this one isn’t a joke. Just thought I should point that out.
OK? Tops.
So I’ve been in and out of HK for a couple of months now and I have to say the one thing I’ve found incredibly shocking is how small minded many of the people in adland are.
OK … I’m generalising, because I’ve not met everyone in the industry, there’s been a few guys I’ve come across who are bloody fantastic and a lot of this attitude can be attributed to lack of training rather than lack of talent … but sadly, the majority of people I have come into contact with [who work for about 15 different agencies] seem to regard anyone who has a different idea or a different viewpoint or a different experience to them as ‘the enemy’, even if that individual is better qualified in a specific area.
I wouldn’t mind if these people were producing good, interesting work and/or winning business, but they’re not – in most cases they’re churning out lowest-common-denominator, celebratory endorsed tat under the rationale that the people in HK just want simple image/status-based messages.
I find that excuse pretty insulting … to claim a whole society is thick or superficial is an outrage and demonstrates how small minded these self proclaimed ‘geniuses’ are.
It’s up there with the often used “you don’t understand the country” comment – which is the standard excuse for anyone who is too frightened of being shown up for their own inadequecies because otherwise they’d be able to show work/thinking that genuinely demonstrated the unique quirks of the country in question.
And don’t think it’s just locals who come up with this shit … sadly there’s a load of expats who subscribe to it as well, expats who – almost unanimously – have never worked in another country within the region.
Now I know this all sounds like my ego has been hurt – and it has – but its because I find it amazing a bunch of people can say [or show through their actions] that I’m not good enough to even contribute when [1] I have quite a good track record in many countries [2] I am one of the creative communities biggest supporters and fans and [3] they continuously churn out work that is either a one dimensional execution, irrelevant or worse, creative for creativities sake.
What these people need to understand is the Crispin’s, Mothers, BBH’s and WK’s of the World – the people they hold in the highest esteem – embrace opinion and collaboration, they certainly don’t subscribe to the ‘strategy’ of sitting in a little room and deciding the client brief, strategy and creative all by themselves. [And then blaming everyone and everything else when they don’t win!]
I know I’m not brilliant, but I think I’m quite good at what I do so I’m just happy I work with my little team of clever, creative and collaberative merry men and women on a host of regional business because as much as I’d like to try and help change this myopic attitude, I know if I had to work/interact with these folk on a daily basis, the only work I’d end up doing is using a meat-cleaver all over their body.
Without doubt there’s some hugely talented people in this country … and without doubt the potential is huge, far greater than Singapore … I’m just sad the country I now live in seems to have so many ad people in it who are seemingly comfortable with letting their colleagues and their country now [probably] rank below Vietnam interms of creativity, ingenuity and thinking when only about 10 years ago or so, it was one of the great creative hubs in the World.
Earth is a much smaller place these days … and whilst I regard cultural understanding as one of the most important elements in developing great communication, the work being lauded by so many in HK adland has little to do with genuine cultural appreciation and more to do with fear, laziness and immaturity.