Can Hong Kong nurture its creative potential?

After picking up one gold, three silver and four bronze Cannes Lions this year, Hong Kong once again showed its creative credentials on a global stage. But does this mean that Hong Kong is getting more creative? And how far can it go?

JWT’s executive creative director Sylvester Song declares that Hong Kong is starting to build its creative reputation, not just after Cannes but also through wins in other international awards shows. He says that due to Hong Kong’s practical culture, agencies in the SAR have always focused more on building up their business rather than trying to win awards.With these recent wins, however, he says that Hong Kong’s creative industry is starting to put more of its resources, budgets, manpower and time into initiative work and awards entries.

Connie Lo, executive creative director at Leo Burnett Hong Kong, which won a gold Lion this year for its print work for Greenpeace, provides a different take. She believes that it all comes down to the final product. “Sometimes when the advertisements are produced, it doesn’t come out perfectly and ends up being rather clichéd,” she warns.

McCann Erickson’s  executive creative director Thierry Halbroth says people are only starting to see the beginning of Hong Kong’s trademark resiliency in its desire to bring back creativity and putting itself on the world map of advertising. However, he adds that creativity is lost most of the time in the fast pace of tactical campaigns.

While there are certainly good ideas and concepts being generated out of Hong Kong again, Paul Chan, creative director at DDB Hong Kong points out that it is only a handful of individuals at a few agencies that are winning. “The truth is, brilliant ideas are still few and far between. We're not trailblazing yet. When the entire industry here is producing world-class work, then we can say Hong Kong is a creative force on the global stage,” he says.

Where Hong Kong's creatives do agree is on how the region can keep the momentum going over the coming years. Aside from the obvious additional hard work, money, investment in talent, the creatives raise the point of bringing their clients to Cannes to view the work and attend seminars, which would serve as an eye-opener to potentially open the door to even bolder creative opportunities.

“I'd like to this happen with Hong Kong's big brands,” Halbroth says. “We have the capability and creative talents needed to experiment. We need clients to believe in it and not be afraid to invest proper budgets to do so.”

But perhaps most crucially, much will depend on talent. Recent years have seen the flight of promising creatives to bigger markets such as China as well as other countries in the region. Lo says it will be hard to reverse this trend as people opt for China because of business and economic reasons, but suggests that agencies should try to pitch themselves to creatives as organisations that will give them more creative freedom.

Chan underscores the fact that the very best talent will always be attracted to where the best creative work is being produced. The more China continues its improvement — winning its first Grand Prix at Cannes this year — the more attractive it becomes for the top creatives in the industry.

Added to this is the ongoing challenge of talent retention in Hong Kong agencies, “The relatively high turnover in the industry is unhealthy and hurts the agencies’ morale," says Song. "Winning awards certainly helps provide boost to the morale of the creative team and helps retain talent in the agencies. Of course, a right mix of work opportunities and money will help as well in retaining talent."