HK4As moves to halt the talent rot

The Hong Kong 4As will introduce more comprehensive training courses in an urgent attempt to improve skills of young, local advertising people. The twentysomething generation of Hong Kong admen and women once again came under fire - at the recent MarCom Asia 2000 conference in Hong Kong, Grey China chairman and CEO Viveca Chan told a packed hall of more than 400 people that, in general, the new flag bearers of the industry "are very much overpaid". "Their standard of English is pathetic, they don't read - even in Chinese - their quality of thinking is poor, they cannot do strategic work," she said. "All they can do is coordinate. If this continues, there will be many problems later and the end result will be that we will have to hire more expats from Taiwan, India, the Philippines etcetera and that will eventually hit our bottom line." Other agency heads agreed, and noted that although there were young rising stars in the industry, they were few and far between. Saatchi & Saatchi Hong Kong chief executive officer Laurie Kwong said, "Most people are execution and not ideas-driven, and they don't have the guts to speak their minds. Another problem is that they are impatient and they seek promotions and pay rises too quickly. In most cases, they cannot live up to their titles." Added MK2's creative partner Kasey Lin: "Nowadays, young people are heavily influenced by things like MTV and video games. They don't have the time to appreciate the text portion of the content." Similar harsh words were levelled at the younger generation of advertising professionals by some of Hong Kong's top creatives earlier this year (MEDIA, February 18). However, HK4As chairman Jeffrey Yu, also Bates Asia regional president, said the talent pool is there but that "the problem is that most of the fresh graduates shy away from advertising." "What we have here is the Nintendo generation, but even this group must have its stars. From the point of view of advertising, I'm afraid we're not even getting the middle part of this generation," he said. Apart from introducing more comprehensive courses, the association might also approach tertiary institutes to establish an MBA in advertising. In addition, the 4As will be stepping up recruitment drives and exhibitions at universities around Hong Kong. "Given the right attitude and the right training, most people will improve. Not everyone can be good from day one," said Saatchis' Ms Kwong. Grey's Ms Chan said the problem was that the younger people lacked the drive and motivation because "they've grown up during good times". The result, she said, was that they sought instant gratification. However, she tempered her criticism with considered praise. "Hong Kong people's strong point is that they are efficient and multi-tasking. In the West, the ability to multi-task is not that great, because usually one person specialises in the handling of one brand," she said. "But our local talent has to understand that ideas drive the market. Being execution-driven will not help them in their career." Only one agency head, Leo Burnett managing director for Hong Kong and China Dennis Wong, said he didn't have any problems with the younger generation. "They are committed and are willing to work long hours, especially when needed and they readily sacrifice their free time like the evenings and weekends," he said.

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