PRIVATE VIEW: Chris Kyme, managing partner/creative director of Bang!

First off a TVC for E*Trade, an online trading company in Hong Kong. I have actually seen this on air, and I have to confess it caught my eye instantly. Or rather my ear. Because it was the music, which is simple, sweet and different, and which made me look up. Mainly because it wasn't like all the other TV ads which are either shouting at you or showing people living wonderful lives thanks to wonderful properties or financial institutions. This is different. The strategy, which is a good one, is to tell people to make the most out of life now, before it's too late. The execution is witty and charming.

I'm not sure that the SCMP Classifieds campaign works though. Let's see, the strategy must have been something like 'tell people that whatever their problems in life, better jobs await them inside the SCMP Classifieds section'. Personally, I find this a bit flippant. You mean right there is the answer to eternal happiness? We see every day people falling down or getting caught on a rainy day. There must be a more believable and compelling way to direct people to seek a new job than this. I know I'll probably offend someone, but I have to say this looks like an average execution of an average idea.

Now something from Indonesia, Ardath cigarettes. I know that this is an extremely difficult and controversial category, message-wise, but when I look for the strategy here I'm not sure there was one, except perhaps to 'tell people that the taste is unexpected' (that must have taken a long time to think up). So 'expect the unexpected' runs the copy line, which is surely one of the oldest and most overused ad themes in history.

I then come to a TVC for Singapore Prison Service. If the strategy is to inform people that Singapore Prisons works hard to send criminals back out into the world reformed then it has merit. Executionally, it works well enough. Showing ex-cons looking like they're up to no good, but who turn out to be leading decent lives. But it does take licence a little by the sinister way it leads viewers into thinking there's danger.

Then there's an ad for Swissotel. A man is relaxing in his bath with headphones on, and the headline cleverly tells us that his stress and tension have 'checked out'. The problem here, again, is the absence of a strategy. So we're to assume that being able to go to your hotel room and switch off and relax is a revolutionary breakthrough in the hospitality industry? (Hey, now you can have a bath in the privacy of your room!).

On a positive note, the ad is put together cleanly and adequately enough.

Finally an ad disguised as a movie poster for the Institute of Advertising Singapore, telling the target audience 'Advertise to survive'. The question I ask is, who is the target audience? I've no idea where this ad would have been placed, but hopefully it would be in places frequented by business people. And if they are, then I question this message strategically. Let's assume the objective is to help boost the advertising industry by getting clients to spend money. Fine. But where's the evidence that suggests you can't survive if you don't advertise? There are plenty of channels of communication with consumers in today's world which can help brands without advertising, advertising being just one of them. So, again, I question the strategy. Plus the targeting. Creatively? Yeah, it's of interest.

But will it get people to act?

Interested in having your campaigns reviewed? Send submissions to Alfred Hille in the form of trims, transparencies or video printouts for TVCs plus the TVC itself, and proofs for print ads and posters.

Please send all material to media, 28/F, Dorset House, 979 King's Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong.