Sunday Communications has long enjoyed a reputation as one of Hong
Kong's more innovative advertisers. In any advertising climate, Sunday's
ads would be pretty unusual; in ultra-conservative Hong Kong, and in
telecoms, a sector not known for its risk-taking, they're positively
bizarre. Even by the telecoms company's standards, however, the latest
campaign is pretty wacky.
One ad - featuring a human eyeball being lifted out of a bowl of noodles
on the end of a pair of chopsticks, has already caused a stir, racking
up several hundred complaints to the Television and Entertainment
Licensing Authority. If anything, another execution is even stranger: an
introduce-your-friends offer is promoted with an image of human heads in
a dim sum steamer. And then there's Sunday's history of in-your-face
ads, designed to back up the brand's 'Feels like Sunday'proposition: a
man punching passers-by in the street; the claim that nine out of 10
Sunday users are handsome; the Independence Day number portability
campaign; and the Taxi Driver ghost-story campaign, that managed to
generate more than 2,000 complaints.
The people behind this apparently relentless quest to stretch the
boundaries of advertising lunacy are Sunday's chief marketing officer
Bing Zeat Mah, and BBDO's joint executive creative directors Paul Chan
and KC Tsang.
Ask Chan and Tsang to describe their campaigns down the years, and
you'll be greeted with an engaging hail of giggles; they obviously
relish their work, and love working on the account. Partly that's
because of the support they get from the client: "She's even more crazy
than the advertising," says Chan. "She buys these crazy ideas because
she's brave. She always wants to keep pushing it further."
Sounds like a creative team's dream account. The confident wackiness of
the Sunday work is the source of its strength, but it's also the source
of criticism that has been levelled at it. People, particularly in the
advertising industry, look at this succession of shock-horror executions
and see ads made by indulgent creatives, with no underlying strategy and
no consistent brand message. Not surprisingly, it's a viewpoint Chan
refutes.
"A lot of our colleagues in the advertising industry look at Sunday's
ads and say: 'It's another impact execution, but where's the
strategy?'
"They convince themselves that there's no strategy behind it, because
that reassures them that the over-rigid way they work is the right way.
But I would ask anyone why the client never stops buying these
campaigns, if the strategy is wrong? Either the client is crazy, or it
works."
The Sunday brand was launched in 1997. Saatchi & Saatchi originally held
the account, before BBDO took it over that December, with OMD
responsible for media. Although shallower-pocketed than most of its
competitors, the brand has consistently been one of the highest
marketing spenders in its sector. The company says it "is committed to a
strategy of differentiating its products through consumer branding".
In that regard, the obvious comparison within the telecoms market is
with Orange, which broke the mould in a sector traumatised with
product-led advertising by, like Sunday, making its brand intensely
human and emotional. That's where the similarity ends. Where Orange is
cool, detached, serious, Sunday is humorous, iconoclastic, and fiercely
promotion-driven.
That iconoclasm is driven by the client, says Chan, who generally turns
down about six campaign ideas for every one she accepts. "The client
loves the complaints," he says. "It's not a successful campaign if we
don't get complaints."
The promotion-led nature of the advertising (the last dozen campaigns
have all been promotional) shows that promotional ads don't have to be
uncreative. All the campaigns have sales targets, according to Chan, and
they hit them.
"People believe that if you've got a really good offer, you don't have
to be creative," he comments. "But anyone can match a good offer
tomorrow - there's so much competition in the market. The function of
advertising is to get people interested in the offer, to get an
emotional reaction - if you just rely on your offer, someone will always
come along with a better one
"If you do a better offer but worse advertising, you lose.
"The most important thing is that the brand evolves with the reaction of
the audience," he adds. "We shouldn't really define the brand and say
'this is Sunday', because that means it doesn't develop."
Chan and Tsang seem to have a liking for impact ads: they were also
responsible for online share trading company E*Trade's recent
Ferrari-ramming spots (119 complaints at the last count).
Chan comments: "That's another one where people say the ads aren't
strategic. But it met its targets in a third of the time, even with the
market falling and so many competitors."
Which is all very well, but it doesn't do much to alleviate the real
downside of this fondness for shock executions: "My family keep asking
me why I'm doing these horrible commercials," says Chan.
