December 8 2025, 11:29 am | | No Comments
Chris Kyme (pictured above) continues his ‘Postcard from Hong Kong’ series, and as the year comes to end, he reflects on how some of the world’s most historic agencies have disappeared in one big gobble up. Never to be seen again.
Having just completed the past two months lecturing on the History of Advertising at Hong Kong Polytechnic, the timing of this could not have been more pertinent for me personally, having waxed lyrical about the origins of giants such as FCB and DDB.
And as the industry reels in shock from this, while still (at least in this neck of the woods) coming to terms with two other humongous losses in the shapes of the legendary creative giants Piyush Pandey and Neil French, you’re left thinking, what a way to end the year.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, I’ve been privy in Hong Kong to various discussions on the topic of improving creativity, which for me always begs the question of “what does that actually mean?”
What is creativity? What are the standards we’re supposed to be measuring it by.
According to the enthusiastic team at Baptist University Hong Kong led by Professor Kara Chan and her students, this can be measured through data given up by their studies into what works and what doesn’t work in the arena of MTR advertising in Hong Kong.
I’ve always enjoyed their findings in the past, and having published articles along with Kara on the results, the general gist of their annual results in the past have been consistently as follows: simplicity stands out, as do bold colours and less clutter.
No arguments there, but given that the sampled outdoor ads surveyed were, let’s say, not exactly earth-shatteringly creative in nature, it really amounts to an examination of the best of a bad bunch.
We learn that people like seeing celebrities. Even if it’s the same celebrities that everyone else is using at the same time. And cuddly characters.
Then, in this end of year wave of creative reflection, another article asked the question of some industry leaders “How can brands win the creative race in 2026?”, the various answers to which were as earth shattering as ‘Creativity as a driver of transformation” (yawn) “Clients seeking for clarity, accountability and results” (bigger yawn) and “Strengthening investment in upstream ideation” (yawn so big it could swallow up Donald Trump’s hair).
Honestly. How about some simple back to basics clarity on all this industry naval gazing? Great ideas help build brands. But great ideas are always very very thin on the ground, AI or not AI.
AI is just a tool which will enable us to execute differently, more cost effectively, more cleverly.
Now, having just wrapped up the last two months lecturing on the history of the industry, reviewing some of the greatest campaigns ever, I’ve more than recharged my mental library in terms of what are great ideas or not.
From classics like Apple “Think different”, Mastercard “Priceless” and Snickers “You’re not you when you’re hungry”, I took my students on a journey of exceptional brilliance that I like to think opened their eyes to the fact that being creative amounts to a tad more than just the latest campaign featuring Mirror or Black Pink
Including some of the great Hong Kong campaigns from the past. Ads that ran because clients got it. Because they had vision and bought into bigger picture thinking rather than bigger budget celebrity clout.
So while everyone pondering the state of creativity in Hong Kong like a bunch of Greek philosophers, it might be worth taking a closer look at what is creative and what isn’t. To put it into context.
Just having the dosh to splatter your enormous vibrant exciting colourful promotional campaign all over an MTR station doesn’t not amount to creativity.
But doing something surprising and different and brave and outstanding might.
Now, Hong Kong has the potential. We know that. We know it because at last year’s 4As Kam Fan awards, there were some big winners from brands such as Cathay Pacific, HSBC and McDonalds. With real campaigns. Great.
We also know it because year after year certain campaigns seem to emerge from certain agencies, that perhaps (how can I say this?) did not have extremely exhorbitant media spending behind them. But were brilliant and lauded the creative world over.
Think of the world-conquering ‘Hot & Spicy Chicken’ campaign for KFC, or the Noise Cancelling headphones ads for JBL, to name but two examples from Hong Kong agencies, both of which shone of the global stage and were by and large generally accepted as being exceptional.
The only downside of these were that they were only seen by awards judges and people who read publications like this, and not the Hong Kong public.
But imagine if they were.
Imagine if they were seen all over town as great examples of brilliant creativity, would local clients and industry insiders then have a different view in terms of what it means to be creative.
So, why is there such a huge gap between what wins in award shows, and that which we see around us every day?
I would have loved nothing more than to have seen those plastered all over huge billboards in Hong Kong, big and bold.
So that the general public can see how clever advertising can be. How entertaining. How brilliant. And maybe people would have been sharing photos of them in social media, the way people do these days when they come across great ads.
And maybe other clients would have seen them and said “That’s creative. We want some of that.”
We want work that is brilliant, that builds brands and sells product because it respects the target audience and stands out.
That turns heads and makes young people dream of working in the industry again because clever people do clever stuff.
How can work as good as that get sold into big spending clients with juicy media budgets so that they make it out into the public arena?
So here are my questions for 2026:
Which client is going to be that daring when accepting ideas? And which agency (those that are left) is going to have the balls, skill and industry nous to be able to sell it in?
Because that’s what all those top agencies producing all that great work in the past had in common.
Meanwhile, I guess we can look forward to a year of more “upstream ideation”.
Read Chris Kyme’s 2025 Postcard’s from Hong Kong below:
With a Sydney visitor
Christopher Lee, an inspiration to young Hong Kong hopefuls
From Tan Khiang to Tea Khiang
In Search of the Sweet Spot
Welcome to Newviola
And the award goes to… some braver clients
A look inside the Beehive
A rocket that landed in Hong Kong
In search of Hong Kong (yet again)
