Creativity and innovation in Hong Kong television commercials are
suffering because of unrealistic budget expectations, say production
houses.
They complain that advertising agencies - in an effort to seduce clients
- promise TVCs which can be made for less money than is actually
possible.
This leaves directors without enough cash to do the best possible job,
and clients without the best possible options available to them.
Moviola executive producer Campbell McLean said estimations by some
agencies were "shocking".
"Continually conceding to ridiculously low budgets means no-one is
telling the clients they can achieve better results.
"There are times when the budget indication is ridiculous. And it
becomes apparent they are not based on any sound knowledge of what it
costs to produce a commercial."
Mr McLean felt agencies let their clients down, by not being prepared to
go back and ask them for more money or to reconsider their approach.
The cost of a 30-second TVC can vary from HKdollars 500,000 (USdollars
64,000) to HKdollars 5 million; many factors contribute to the cost,
including location, equipment rental, processing, transportation and
overtime.
Centro chief creative officer Stanley Wong complained that quality was
not the primary concern of agencies: "money and time" decides who makes
a TVC, he said, not how good the production house is or what is the best
angle.
Bijou Films director Eric Au agreed that agencies do not budget enough
for what they expect. But he added that if the concept is good enough,
the production house might consider it worth doing anyway.
Agencies, however, believe production houses are themselves nursing
unrealistic expectations. Grey executive creative director Sam Chung
said one of the main problems with cost was that production houses had
failed to reassess their prices in the aftermath of the economic
crisis.
"Certain people are charging much more than they're worth ... some
production houses are making too much money, especially in Hong Kong,
because the pool is quite small," he said.
Mr Chung said production costs in the SAR - compared with many other
Asia-Pacific countries - were "really, really high", and that production
houses make a habit of overcharging, because they expect to have to
negotiate.
Triangle Pacific executive creative director Rodney Tam agreed with Mr
Chung that production houses had failed to readjust prices in the
aftermath of the late '90s crash.
He cited the fate of clients in the property market as an example of how
things have changed.
Mr Tam said some properties were worth half what they were a few years
ago, and as a result agencies have been forced to compromise their own
prices to continue working with clients - something production houses
have not done. "Just because they charged two million dollars for a
production job two years ago, it doesn't mean they can charge that
today," he said.
But Leo Burnett Greater China chairman Eddie Booth said, if anything, it
was clients whose expectations were too high.
"In terms of the production companies - and the directors available in
Hong Kong - there's enough variety. The top-notch directors will cost
substantially more than the bottom rung production houses." Mr Booth
said the "worst trap to fall into" was to create a really expensive and
dynamic board. "And then get a really inadequate production house to do
it - and make a bad job."
