Future of HK advertising industry threatened by 'mediocre' young talent

Young creatives working in Hong Kong are threatening the future of the industry through a lack of passion and, more seriously, talent, senior creative directors have warned. TBWA Hong Kong CEO Stanley Wong said he believed that 80 per cent of the younger generation fits into this "problem category". "You always have this category of problem people, but in the past they were in the minority. However, what is really scary is that they are now in the majority - and I don't know what this means for the future," he told MEDIA. He said the young creatives never did anything more than simply take orders from the clients and they didn't strive to produce the best work possible. Senior sources within the Hong Kong ad industry said that the problem lay in the mindset of young people - who were, they said, too rigid, too intellectual and lacking in emotion, and had little concept of craft and detail. Work therefore tended to be execution rather than idea-led - when given a brief from a client, conceptualisation would be skipped in favour of immediately producing a draft of the ad, according to Mr Wong. "There are no sketches to show the development of the creative," he said. "They go straight to the computer and produce a layout with fancy graphics and if the client approves it, they take it as finished; there is no crafting and no attention to detail." D'Arcy group CD Francis Cleetus agreed that there was not enough passion among the younger generation. "I have rewritten copy seven, eight times or more because I know whether it's good or bad," he said. "But, a lot of the time, they seem satisfied with mediocre work and they know it is mediocre." 2 Way Street CD Margaret Tsui said, "Twenty-something creatives are not thinking about how the campaign will work for the client; they are just thinking about how to get the job done as quickly as possible". TBWA's Mr Wong believed lifestyle factors were at the heart of the problem. "In their spare time, they surf the 'Net and play video games. They don't read books, newspapers or magazines and this will affect their general knowledge," he said. Ms Tsui added that this "shallowness" had lowered standards of Chinese and English copywriting skills. The creative heads said that more training might resolve the problem; however, they added that the going would be tough because this was an issue about attitude.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com