The Spectre of Tradition and Asia’s Industry Award Performance
I’ve just come back from another year at Cannes. Among other things, it’s time to reflect another lean year for Asia at our industry’s biggest awards. To my mind, three elements that combine to dampen Asian creativity’s chance to shine on a global stage — smaller budgets, locally focussed campaigns and a severe aversion to scam culture.
Over the past few months, I’ve been debunking the myths about Asian creativity that rely on ‘absolutes’. The sweeping idea that there’s ‘no decent creative talent in Asia’, is obviously absurd because I can find lots of examples that prove the opposite. But when the question turns to the overall volume of top-notch work, the problem becomes more complicated. The good campaigns prove Asia has the talent. The smaller output of outstanding award winning work though, is arguably down to three key areas.
- Budgets are simply smaller. The reality of awards season is that the bulk of the work in the limelight is the product of discretionary or experimental campaigns. As an example, the wonderful “Like a Girl” campaign from Always started as a side project that became the main product. In APAC, we often don’t have the budgets to deliver the kind of freedom that unleashes experimental creativity.
- Asian work tends to reflect the diversity of the region. Campaigns are tailored for specific markets, not for a Cannes jury. Smaller budgets and local market considerations dictate campaigns be as effective as possible with their target audience.
- Personal and professional honour is held in such high regard in Asia that it makes submitting scam work almost unthinkable. The controversy surrounding Grey Singapore and their “I Sea” app is the exception that proves the rule when it comes to the Asian outlook on scam campaigns. If anything, I feel the outrage has been amplified by the fact the work has emerged from an Asian agency, simply because the Asian culture of honour overwhelmingly precludes this kind of dishonest behaviour. Whether “I Sea” is on the level is for someone else to say, but the doubts surrounding the campaign would likely be enough to mortify most asian marketing professional.
There are risk takers in Asia, same as anywhere. The market just allows them to take risks less often. And overwhelmingly, they don’t scam their way into notoriety. As a general rule Asian marketers refuse to take steroids just because some of the other ball players are.
Does this limit the volume of great work? I would say ‘No’, and that’s an entirely different argument. The way I see it, there’s now a difference between great work and ‘award-worthy’ work. And asian creatives professional understand the difference better than most.
