Had a great day out last weekend visiting the Songzhuang Art festival. The entire village was packed with artists and art spectators, and almost no white person there! In contrary to 798. Our friend Damao produced this cool set of lucky clouds made of plastic cups, took her 5 days to staple

She then also took us to this exclusive exhibition opening featuring some of China’s best know artists.

Right at Yugong Yishan’s 5th birthday party we had the chance to see about 400 tanks cruising past right outside the club’s door. They were just coming back from their 60th year anniversary dress rehearsal when the lights turned red and they backed up for a few kilometers.

But of course the party went on

Woo, long day. First day. Digital, Promo and Direct jury. All guys, all nice. Saw 150 pieces of work today, half in Direct and Promo, the rest was digital work. Direct and Promo is a much better category in my opinion as you actually get to walk around the room to see the work. Digital judging confines you in front of a screen and time passes infinitely slower.

The keywords for today were “Loading …” and “Average time spent on this website was 11,43 minutes”. I am not sure how valuable this measurement criteria has become over the past year, every second digital entry stated the consumer’s time on the website as main success factor. Given that most of the sites were mostly “loading …” it seems to be mostly irrelevant.

Overall the work was good. I was impressed by a few Indian campaigns that made it into the second round, and also the Indian section at the lunch buffet was great.

SQ803 from Beijing to Singapore, seat 51G. No sign of Economic Crisis here, the plane is packed with Chinese couples, probably all on a shopping trip. No-one looks like a creative or media type. I haven’t checked the other juries, but on the Direct, Promotion and Digital Jury I seem to be the only one representing China …

Going through the first round online judging of the Digital category it seemed like a lot of entries were from the mainland. Lets see how many of these are left when we are presented with the shortlist tomorrow. There was certainly some great work out there. The Japanese as always have entered a lot of outstanding campaigns with highly innovative use of technology. But also Malaysia, India and the Philippines have left me with one or two campaigns to remember.

Its going to be an interesting judging over the next three days. To start with I don’t know any of my fellow judges. That’s rather unusual at an Asian creative award show where you tend to bump into the same faces at different shows. Not so unusual especially for a digital category is the fact that there is no girl on the jury … three days of digital, promo and design judging with nine blokes … I reckon we will all know each other very well by the end of the week.

When I moved to China in March 2001, the numbers were intriguing. There were a total of 18 million internet users in China and this seemed like an outrageously high number at the time. Eight years later, there are 250 million Chinese consumers online, making them the world’s largest internet population. The situation became even more interesting a few years ago, when Chinese telcos stopped selling modems and went straight to installing ADSL. Now there are 215 million people on broadband, equipped with 1MB lines, craving anything that’s potentially entertaining. That’s not a bad platform to start from if you work as a creative person in a digital agency.

While the numbers of internet users are extremely high in China, that doesn’t mean we are talking about highly sophisticated consumers. The marketing and advertising industry is merely 15 years old, and in many cases, you don’t really need to be all that creative to cut through the clutter. In fact, Chinese consumers don’t really mind the clutter. It might even be part of their culture. Just picture a postcard of Hong Kong at night, and you’ll conjure up thousands of neon signs. That is exactly what communication looks like to Chinese consumers; high visual impact. This also applies to online advertising. In the Western world, you would have one to three banners on any single web page, where as in China, you will have up to 30 banners all competing for attention.

Adopting innovation
The extremely high growth rate of the Chinese online population reflects the general mindset of consumers in this region; early adoption. In the west, things take a while to be truly embraced and accepted by the general public, while in Asia consumers are constantly on the look-out for innovation. Instant messaging, social networking, browsing websites on mobile phones, interacting with outdoor ads, even watching TV on mobile phones, are not really considered or talked about much. They’re just there, part of everyday life. And this behavior is visible in almost any culture and country across the region.

In Japan for example, surfing websites on mobile phones was popular long before consumers used computers to go online. Today the mobile phone is the single most important access point, offering information from news providers and blogs, to friends, colleagues and social networking services. The phone serves as ubiquitous media player, as a payment option, as a general link from the real to the virtual, or vice versa. Think 2D barcodes, they are basically found everywhere in Japan.

Japanese consumers are extremely sophisticated in how they receive messages through their personal digital channels, so it takes a fair amount of creativity to get through to them. This works like a catapult, in order to get the message out, marketers and agencies need to spend considerable effort conceiving creative and innovative approaches, as well as packaging and distributing that message. This in turn spurs even further sophistication amongst consumers. No wonder Japanese digital agencies are consistently the highest awarded at international creative shows. Their work sets new standards in the innovative use of technology and in creating new digital channels.

In Korea, everything is about high speed internet access. There are few homes it seems, without a 100Mbit connection. Three out of four mobile phones connect through 3G and receive broadcast TV shows. Koreans make avid use of this technology, especially by connecting through MMOG (massively multiplayer online games), or by logging on to cyworld, the Korean Facebook which dates back as early as 1999 and connects about 25% of the Korean population. But while consumers in Korea are spoiled by this advanced technology and sophisticated gaming and communities, there seems to be a gap in what marketers are willing to push for. The rather conservative mindset of Korean marketers leaves plenty of room for ground-breaking innovative campaigns.

The electronic government
The fact that Asian consumers quickly adopt emerging technology into their daily lives, has led to many improvements being made by governments around the region. Singapore is a shining example of this early advancement with roll-outs of e-government services not just for Asia, but globally. The relatively small population, yet dense dwelling, has made e-government services both an ideal test market as well as a necessity. Accenture has consistently ranked Singapore as one of the top three countries in the world in regards to maturity of e-government. Singapore has over 1,600 government e-services available. More recently, Singapore has also started putting up free wireless broadband kiosks in shopping malls and public buildings.

In Malaysia, where broadband penetration moved from 1% in 2003 to almost 18% in 2008, blogging is one of the most wide-spread hobbies amongst its multicultural citizens. With more than 500,000 bloggers, Malaysia ranks among the highest per capita blogging countries in the world. And everyone blogs, from religious leaders and the ex-prime minister, to the opposition party leader. In fact, during the March election, official statistics showed that around 70% of Malaysian voters had been influenced by blogs. In a society where most television stations and newspaper publishers are controlled by the government, blogs, text messages and viral videos became the most influential source of information for voters, resulting in a historical blow to the Barisan National party, who had ruled the country for more than 50 years.

Creativity in Asia
Asia is one of the most competitive creative markets when it comes to creativity in advertising and design. Especially agencies from Singapore are constantly listed amongst the highest awarded creative shops in the world. Thailand is world famous for its unique and humorous story telling craft in TV commercials, while Malaysia and Hong Kong are renowned for beautiful design and art direction. Japan has probably the most sophisticated and innovative creativity in new media and increasingly also other markets like China, Korea, Philippines and India invest in and grow their creativity.

Asia’s advertising creativity originates in a dire need: Historically most large scale brand and product campaigns were not originated in Asia but been developed in New York, San Francisco, London or Paris. These campaigns then were sent to regional headquarters or directly to local markets for local language adaptation. This left creatives with the daunting task of localizing, vs actually creating new and talked about campaigns. Money in Asia to shoot new commercials, develop new print campaigns or create impactful online campaigns therefore has always been limited. And with limited resources, one has to get more creative to achieve great results.
Article in ADMAP magazine
Implications for marketers
According to an eMarketer study from January 2008, an estimated 543 million people are on the internet in the Asia Pacific region alone. That is almost as many people as Europe and North America combined. According to this study, within the next four years, almost half the world’s internet population will be from Asia. Pair this with steadily increasing online ad spend (China is up more than 25% year on year), and online marketing makes for a very attractive target for agencies and marketers alike.

But in order to conquer Asia, marketers must be aware of and have an inherent understanding of cultural and behavioural differences.

15 million unique visitors, 8.5 minutes on the website and a click through rate of over 4 percent! Those are numbers that I hear frequently when I judge a Chinese campaign in a regional or international creative award show. These shows are an interesting mirror of both, what is going on creatively in China and how fellow judges from around the world perceive campaigns coming out of China.

For the latter, big numbers are not any longer favorable criteria. On the contrary, those numbers raise eyebrows and doubt about the work’s creativity. Broad effectiveness doesn’t necessarily translate into brilliant creative thinking. Therefore it is fair to say that the more niche a campaign is targeted, the more difficult to reach the audience, the better the creative product has to be.

In the case of China, I think this is what is going to happen over the next year and beyond. While digital channels, and especially online have certainly reached a mass medium stage, it will be the very targeted campaigns that will set the creative standards, which then in return will be copied and re-used for broader campaigns further down the road.

Over the past 12 months we could already see things going his way. Many a campaign website has seen a significant increase in production budget, which enables creatives to work with talents from outside the own office: 3D artists, music composers, illustrators and camera men and directors. These websites create buzz, word of mouth even without spending much money on media, and are well known even beyond the target audience.

Especially in China entertainment has been high on the list of things people do online, and with a more figured out situation in the video sharing industry, branded content and brand entertainment will certainly be a thing to watch for in the next 12 months. Partnerships with professionals from outside the industry – script writers, actors, and directors – will play a significant role in creating successful online content.

Mobile is rumored to have a breakthrough in 2009, what this means though I don’t know. My personal opinion is that mobile will always be a difficult one to crack when used as a mass medium. In targeted situations this medium can become a real killer though. Social networking, location based services, flash players, high resolution cameras and many other new innovations will make for great use for in more targeted campaigns.

The global killer application on the internet is social networking and while xiaonei and kaixin are expected to grow their user base to unprecedented heights, there is still plenty of room for marketers to weave a smart SNS component into their campaign. Especially useful applications and widgets will give brands a positive appeal amongst the networkers. But the real opportunity here lies in the power of word-of-mouth, turning consumers into evangelists and spreading the word without investing big dollars in media.

Finally I believe a big trend that comes from Japan and Europe will make a significant debut in 2009 in China: the cross-over between the virtual and the real. Campaigns will increasingly make use of interaction other than with the mouse. Webcams are a hot item, when used properly they can really add the fun element into any campaign. Convergence through mobile phones and also digital outdoor that is connected to the internet will be something agencies will certainly look at.

2009 will be another year of growing up in China. While the numbers will get even more gigantic, it will be the ones who have to reach a sophisticated audience that have to be creative. Like Bill Bernbach said in one of my favorite quotes: “… the future, as always, belongs to the brave.”

Do you use some software to block the ads on websites when you surfing?

Good question! No I don’t use a blocker but if surfed more on Chinese sites then I certainly would. My daily news and email websites are yahoo.com, iht.com and spiegel.de. Yahoo is an expensive international media buy and it is very interesting to see who is advertising for what on a global level. I then sometimes go into UK or USA content to see more local banners there. Sometimes there are some really great ads to see and it also helps me stay up to date with the “banner culture” in that country.

On the International Herald Tribune you also get very international ads, brands similar to those which advertise in Time magazine. And Spiegel is one of the biggest German weekly’s and I need to know which big account are doing what campaign at the moment. If you run a big campaign in Germany you cannot get around spiegel.de

Do you think the core of ads changed when we release them on internet while not newspaper, radio or television?

No, the core of an ad shouldn’t change according to the choice of media. Within the creative process we have to communicate a message, this message is at the core of everything. The way we communicate it is with a strong idea. If the idea has to be communicated in different media, then it should be either so strong that it works across all those channels, or there are several ideas that work differently in different media but all together they bring the message across. Both are good approaches, it depends on the nature of the campaign.

But here is the biggest difference between traditional media and the internet or actually all digital channels. Traditionally, a creative team could come up with an idea, say for a print ad, write the ad, shoot the ad, and then pass it to the media. You could see the ad in magazines, newspapers, outdoor, in stores etc etc. Digital media on the other hand is defined by its constantly evolving use technology, and while we could put a print ad into a banner, we would all agree that this is not the best way to use the media. The strongest digital advertising is actually made specifically for the medium or location they appear in. In fact, more and more often times advertising defines the channel or medium. For example a widget can be advertising. Yet the widget works only as a widget.

You joined O&M Beijing in 2001, what have you seen about the changes of Chinese interactive market since then?

When I arrived in China, we had a total of 18 million internet users and most of those were dialing up with their modem or were sitting in universities. Today we are well beyond the 250 million and almost everyone has a broadband connection. Chinese netizens want to be entertained, they download music, share videos, chat in forums. The internet in China is not longer dominated by the affluent, the early adopters or an intellectual audience. The internet in China evolved into a serious mass medium. It is in fact a very popular and populist medium, much more so than in other countries. The Chinese net community by now has a certain power and influence over the whole nation. Opinions are formed quickly and news spreads like a wild fire. The internet I believe is probably China’s very own and unique pop culture.

It is also interesting to follow the trends visible on Chinese internet. From the early flash videos on flash8 or flashempire to the crazy content on the video sharing sites to the new importance of kaixin and xiaonei, the usage of the internet in China evolves constantly.

You once said “technology only affects the execution aspect of ad, while the increasing of internet users is the back force to push internet advertising forwards.” What’s your insight about these increasing users in China?

Yes I still remember saying this and it holds still true. As the internet user base grows in China, we now have a variety of different consumer types and classes online. It becomes increasingly more difficult to find the right audience for a specific brand. The more users are online, the more sophisticated internet advertising has to be to find the right ones to target. Once we know where they are, we then have to do much more than a few years ago to win their minds and their hearts. We have to play with all new applications like social networking, video sharing etc to make sure we do our best to bring them closer to our brands. And in order to do so, we have to find smarter ways, push the standards higher. Both the agencies and the clients are waking up to this and investing more time and money in their digital efforts.

Since we still don’t have any certain way to measure the result of interactive ads, do you think there is a certain standard to judge interactive ad is good or not?

An ad is successful if it sells our client’s products or at least helps to build our client’s brands. Measurement online is a very deep topic. Some like to see everything measured from click through to impressions; some just want to build a brand and create impact. For every direction there are different KPIs to use.

We know you served lots of clients like Motorola, IBM, Audi, China Mobile…if the course of innovation is experimental, how did you persuade clients to put their money on it?

Every client is different and so are their consumers. Insight-studies into different consumer profiles reveal different behavior and preferences online.

Technology clients like Motorola or IBM cater to a technically very sophisticated audience. These users know a lot about internet technology and they need to be impressed with innovative ideas. Clients know their consumers very well and they understand when it makes sense to go for a more innovative and experimental route. Other clients like Lipton or McDonalds cater to a broader range of people, here social trends like online entertainment or social networking play a big role and these brands don’t shy away to try something new.

In the end the sophistication of our online experience is to a large part shaped by the kind of campaigns big brands roll out. So for example the car industry contributed a lot to the way we shop or look for information online. Product configurations and high end website production is largely a result of the automobile industry realizing that their consumers research a lot online before buying a car.

Brands have a certain responsibility to push things further, and who doesn’t want to set the bar so high that it blows the competition away?

Which work is your favorite one among all those works you every done in China?

I am proud of every campaign we did. No matter which team I work with or for which client the campaign is for, we always push the standard a little bit further. The last campaign is normally always the best.

You attended quite lot activities like OneShow to help train the young creatives, that’s really great. In your opinion, which abilities that a creative person has to obtain in interactive aspect?

Of course the most basic of all skills is mastering the tools of the trade. If you are a designer, then your photoshop and illustrator skills should be perfect. If you are an art director, then you should have a great knowledge of styles and trends and photography and fashion and so on. As a copywriter, your crafting of words and your flexibility in styles and tones should be unmatched. But, of course this is only where it starts. Many young Chinese creatives do not realize the potential that lies beyond these skills.

The most important thing to learn in our industry is conceptual thinking. The persuasive and inspiring power of an idea is something that is hard to get and only once you had a few yourself will you realize that it is the most beautiful and fulfilling part of your job, to sit down and think and have an idea. Over time you will learn the differences between ideas and big ideas, between weak ideas and relevant ideas, between ideas that can sell a product and ideas that can build a brand. I think this is the most important ability of a good advertising creative, and it doesn’t matter if he or she works in traditional media or in digital media. An idea is always the most important part of any campaign.

Tribal DDB in China is not known for many people yet, what is your target in the coming years?

Tribal DDB is a young agency in China, we opened our office in 2006. We are not big, but also not small, and we are lucky to have the resources, brains and creativity of the DDB Group in China behind us. We are also part of the Tribal DDB worldwide network, and this network truly works. We have access to all kinds of smart people from around the globe that do anything to help us out if need it.

Recently Tribal Shanghai left the first major footprint on the China digital marketing scene with the McDonald’s Cheer for China campaign. This campaign really created noise in the market and also won us a China Gold Effie. For the future, we will continue to grow and expand our offering. Our creative vision is to be the best digital creative agency in China, and we have some great clients that appreciate creativity and support us to get there. To be the best sounds ambitious but the team is extremely passionate and everyone is committed to giving the best.

No doubt the games are the most exciting event for anyone in Beijing who has stayed here for any length of time. Seven years in my case and for almost the entire time the government has systematically prepared me for this event.

Many things have changed, as no doubt you will know. We’ve torn down an entire section of this city as big as my hometown to construct an all new central business district. The same for the Olympic green, where tens of thousands of residents have been moved to places not mentioned. We got a new CCTV building and a new opera, we built an entire new subway system, an airport which couldn’t be any bigger, and made it rain on command. A lot of change indeed.

One of the things though that go rather unnoticed is the visual change in details that came along with all this. What seems granted for Olympic tourists and the people seeing Beijing through the eyes of a TV camera is in fact something rather special for us Beijingers.

It starts with the city’s cab drivers who have undergone a complete make-over. While the old and trashy cabs have been banned off the street over the past three years, it wasn’t until August 1st that the taxi drivers themselves got a visual upgrade. While these guys used to live more of a cowboy live before, dressing as they pleased and even shaving while driving, they now all sport the same yellow and blue uniform with matching ties. When asked about it, they are all very happy with the new shirts and pants and give a thumbs up for their 100% cotton comfort. Only the ties are a bit of a drag and usually stowed inside the glove compartment. It took this gentleman a few minutes to make it work.

Also in the comfort of the night to August 1st another amazing thing happened across the city. Suddenly every shop front, in every road and on every corner, featured a standardized signage. Where before a wealth of more or less creative signs pointed out what to expect behind the doors, now a unified size and a standard set of colors and fonts make every street and every shop look the same. I can only imagine the amazing logistics behind such a feat. Even McDonalds and KFC had to comply with this new regulation, though they could keep their logo on the board.

Walking though the Olympic streets of Beijing reveals another detail to the trained eye: flowers everywhere. This I have to admit took a while of trial and error though, as flowers in all kinds of shapes and forms have been put up and down throughout town for several months. It is a real treat, wherever you go you can play flower spotting, written in tulips or roses you find anything from “Welcome to Beijing 2008” to “Use civilized behaviour; create a new atmosphere”

But of course it is all about the sport and the organizers really have managed to apply a total Olympic 360 branding to the city. The Beijing Olympic logo, the colorful signage with the lucky clouds, the 5 mascots and countless slogans are applied to every bridge, every fence and every billboard that sat empty after the non-sponsors’ advertising was removed. The Olympic branding really is a welcome change in design and typography to this usually rather grey city. I only hope that when the factories are turned back on after the Olympics, that some of Beijing’s new art direction will stay for a little while longer.

My favorite Asian TV spot from the recent past is from India. It advertises the Happydent White Chewing gum, you probably have seen it. It is the very likable and funny story of a Rajah’s palace in India where all light bulbs are replaced by servants chewing the gum. The product makes the teeth so shiny white that they illuminate everything from chandeliers to the car’s headlights. The spot is hilarious and the Bollywood soundtrack is so contagious that you find yourself humming it immediately. TV commercial storytelling at its best.

When I think of my favorite Asian digital campaign from the recent past it gets a little more difficult. Sure, there are plenty of industry events, creative award shows, marketing seminars and digital summits where I am exposed to a wealth of campaigns and case studies. But when prompted to pick my favorite I have a hard time. I think about successful campaigns I remember, campaigns that involve great banner advertising. Campaigns that stretch beyond the web into mobile or digital outdoor or campaigns that engage through games and online story telling. Many campaigns come to mind, though not one stands out as much as the TV spot from India. We can definitely improve a little when it comes to creating memorable digital campaigns, so it seems.

To the credit of our profession though, digital campaigns are not as easily stored and told as quickly as a 60 second TV commercial. They tend to be built around complex strategies that involve multiple channels, have built-in mechanics that facilitate a brand-consumer-dialogue and try to stretch digital innovation to deliver a fresh and surprising approach. But here is something they could learn from this TV commercial: don’t take yourself so seriously, be simple and have a little fun.

There are four simple and easy steps that can be taken to make sure a digital campaign gets as much recall value as a good TV spot.

First of all it’s about human insights: a universal truth should be underlying the idea. Too many times digital campaigns are built around pure demographic data rather than real insights into the specific target audience. What drives them, what motivates them, what are the daily issues they are facing? Only an idea that is built on a consumer insight can really cut through the clutter and deliver a memorable message. One of the examples that come to mind is the campaign for the Philips Bodygroom. Created over two years ago by Tribal DDB this campaign is still remembered amongst many male and hairy friends.

Then, of course you say, a strong idea is the basis for a successful online campaign. And this is true: without an idea the campaign will not make it past any brand recall study. If you look around though, how many truly big ideas come to mind when thinking of a digital campaign in Asia? Many times we get lost in the execution; focusing on getting the mechanics right, adding complex backend technology and putting mechanics in place to measure the campaign’s success from every angle. The real issue at hand is to create a compelling and memorable idea that lives beyond the next click. Something that gets passed on and talked about, not just in an online forum or on MSN, but at the water cooler, in the real world. Viral spots I believe were conceived to do just that: to provide a branded story that is compelling enough to forward or have a chat about. But it shouldn’t stop here; an idea should be bigger than a spot on YouTube. When looking in my memory’s archives for a great digital idea then Subservient Chicken springs to mind, still. An idea that combined a brand story with cutting edge technology, an idea so strong that it was and still is talked about way beyond digital media.

The third ingredient that makes for a memorable campaign is good storytelling. While copywriters and art directors in traditional agencies are trained to do exactly that, most digital agencies are not equipped to tell a compelling brand story, be it on- or offline. The fact is that digital savvy talent comes from a more rational approach to building a brand: delivering a customer or user experience across multiple digital channels, from websites to mobile phones to in-store installations. Digital creatives are mostly visual designers, technology engineers and experience architects. They sometimes could do with a magic spark, a creative leap that leads to a story that can be experienced and re-told many times over again. Great story telling online however is different from what it is on TV. The user is part of it and the story cannot happen without him/her. A great example of this is lonelygirl15, a story that has been running for nearly 2 years and which involves an audience of over 70 million in its ever evolving story play.

Lastly there is simplicity. Especially in digital marketing it is so easy to get lost in complexity. New technologies emerging daily, more and more fragmented channels for the consumer to hang out in, social networks and web 2.0 are all factors to consider for a campaign, but are they necessary? If so, which ones? It is the nature of technology to be complex, but it is our task to make the complex simple. It is great to experiment, to drive the acceptance of new communication models. It is imperative though to do so without loosing the potential impact of the campaign.

In the end the most memorable campaign will win. It will win over the hearts of the consumers more so than their minds. A digital campaign that makes me laugh out loud, makes me think or question my behavior, one that touches me on an emotional level, I will talk about and remember the next time I am prompted for my favorite digital campaign from Asia.

I started a new blog on wordpress, and I will not make the effort to upload all my old blog posts.