LEADER: Wacky campaigns boost SAR's profile

<p>Hong Kong appears to be following the lead of Japan and Thailand and </p><p>increasingly resorting to wacky and bizarre ads to try to cut through </p><p>the clutter and get people's attention. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>BBDO started the trend about three years ago with Sunday and the </p><p>momentum is building. Recently BBDO followed up with E*Trade, then there </p><p>was Saatchi & Saatchi's work for AXN and Taikoo and Ogilvy & Mather's </p><p>San Miguel Light. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Even local hotshop MK2 have jumped on the bandwagon with its campaign </p><p>for Suzuki. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>This is a good development for Hong Kong advertising, which has </p><p>consistently lagged Japan, Singapore and Thailand in the creativity </p><p>league. The Gunn reports of 1999 and 2000 highlight this. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The current crop of ads are well crafted and the logic can be traced </p><p>back to a source point of insights on which the campaign was built. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But let's hope that the industry doesn't get carried away and simply </p><p>produce the wacky and the bizarre for the sake of being different. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In the few years before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British to </p><p>Chinese sovereignty, there was a plethora of nostalgia ads, which </p><p>rapidly became a cliche. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>One only has to look to the United States at the beginning of last year </p><p>when dotcoms turned up the intensity level of the bizarre dial to plain </p><p>insane. The high point were the dotcom-dominated commercial breaks </p><p>during the Super Bowl when diehard football fans were treated to the </p><p>spectacularly hideous as ad after ad tried to outdo each other for </p><p>ridiculousness, which probably did more harm than good for the brands </p><p>involved. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Hong Kong hasn't reached that point. Neither have other Asian </p><p>nations. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But there is fine line that sophisticated audiences can discern. Cross </p><p>that line and consumers vote with their wallets by declining to </p><p>purchase. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>