Before I start I'd like to ask a few questions.
How many of you have are from Thailand? How many of you from India?
Singapore? Malaysia? Indonesia? Japan? Australia? Europe? China? Africa?
How many of you here have exchanged stories with each other?
How many of you have exchanged stories with people from other countries other than your own?
How many of you have been arrested?
How many of you have been beaten senseless in a street fight?
How many of you have worked in other industries other than advertising?
How many of you have been fired from your job?
How many of you have had a near death experience?
How many of you have fought in a war?
How many of you have cried so uncontrollably that you had to vomit?
How many of you were picked on in school?
How many of you picked on other people in school?
How many of you have been in a threesome.
It was worth asking?
Good. Then you've all got experiences to tap into. Places to write from.
A person who's just had their heart broken sees the world differently to someone who never has and will express themselves differently.
Just as a person who's been addicted to drugs sees the world differently to someone who hasn't.
Everything we experience feeds us. Because our personal experiences are usually truths of some sort. It's hard to fake that.
And the best work always seems to be based on some kind of truth. That's the stuff that resonates.
Our cultures provide us with many of our experiences that affect our personal ways of seeing things.
For instance, anyone who has lived in the UK will know that the English and the French aren't terribly fond of each other. It not something that consumes everyday thought but it's there in the national psyche, just waiting for someone to use it.
It resonates because someone has tapped into that cultural truth. I daresay this way of thinking could work somewhere else. Japan Korea? Greece Turkey? North and South India. But it is an interesting viewpoint.
A person who has grown up in Asia is going to see the world slightly differently from someone who grew up in America or England.
That doesn't mean we're all so different and will never understand each other. I don't subscribe to the view that only Asians know how to advertise to an Asian market. It's as short sighted as thinking that only Europeans know how to advertise to a European market.
I think people are more similar than they are different.
There's far more unifying us than separating us.
We all want to love. Be loved. We all eat. We all want security. And we all like to buy stuff. The contexts may change be people generally don't.
Here are a few Asian commericials that in their way address very Asian values and yet resonate with non Asians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCSQk_3l4WQ
But like I was saying our cultures help shape our ways of seeing things.
And different ways of seeing things are a valuable resource in advertising. Where we all feel like we've seen everything before.
About ten years ago Sweden started to appear on the world advertising map. They had a strange way of looking at things, to say the least. And it showed in their work. The Diesel advertising coming out of Paradiset in Stockholm was hugely successful.
The Swedish agency's strangely kitsch and ironic point of view turned out to be really appealing to a cynical generation X.
Traktor, a group of Swedish directors responsible for producing much of the Diesel work became the most sought after directors in the world.`
Their work started to influence advertising in the US and the UK.
But what happens when you displace some of those Swedes and put them in a new environment would they still be different. Would they be understood.
Two of the Diesel creatives, Linus and Paul ventured to the US to try their hand at Fallon.
Here's a little of what they did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmVJCJg-8co
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQXfy_XfGqs
It didn't look like anything else in the US. Which meant it stood out like the proverbial dogs balls. And in turn helped change advertising a little more over there.
Other creatives and agencies started trying to do more kitsch and ironic work. Remember the C-Net campaign Leagus in SanFrancisco and the Discovery.com campaign form Hal Riney. Both campaigns incidentally, directed by Traktor.
When Neil French first turned up in Singapore. He brought a unique voice to the place that changed the market there. When you mixed that up with Australians like Jim Aitchison the style started to evolve further.
The next generation helped bring Singapore it's own flavor. People Like Calvin Soh and Francis Wee took those European and Australian influences and brought their own sensibilities and experiences to them.
Thanks to all that influencing and cross-fertilization Singapore now has it's own definitive advertising style.
And advertising is always better when you try to mix things up.
Wieden and Kennedy did it in throughout the nineties.
They brought in non advertising people and made them work with ad people.
They brought in designers and architects and mixed them up with philosophers and just plain odd people.
Say what you like about their work in the nineties but you can't accuse it of being like anyone else. It was unique. It was honest. It was thoughtful and funny and ironic and provocative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ_XSHpIbZE
They also brought athletes to work on the advertising. Non just on the agency side but on the client side too.
They realized that sport was a culture with its own truths.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNCPRkTN8N0
If you've ever been into sport. I mean really into sport. You under stand that the scars and deformities you get are sources of pride they're badges of honor.
I used to do martial arts. And I was proud of the way my knuckles looked because they were indication of what style and what level I had reached and put into it.
Here are a couple of spots from an Ex-Wieden creative who understood sports culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpHAli7lgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95iInjzeiAY
He was a fan who could take his eyes of the TV during baseball season.
Of course the Swedes weren't the first group of invading foreigners to help diversify advertising voices. There were Australians going to the UK and the States a decade or so earlier.
Eugene Cheong and Tan Shen Guan had ventured over to the UK to try and add their voices to the mix.
What happens when you start to take someone out of Asia and get them to apply some of their thoughts and memories in Western market?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eI0lkyASyI&feature=PlayList&p=6B4986ECAB9A0901&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=68
Tarsem's quote. "You don't pay me for the film I shoot or the awards I've won. You pay me for every book I've read. My childhood. Every walk I've taken, every movie I've seen."
And what happens when some of those experiences start to over flow and permeate other cultures? You start to see some interesting imagery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOylInKVtBU
We are rapidly getting to the point where we feel like we've seen everything.
But of course we haven't.
I went to Singapore because while at O&M London I had heard about Eugene and Shen Guan.
Well, To be honest I had heard that they said it was really easy to sell work out there.
Of course they were lying. But still it got me to up and leave. That and being fired from my job in London.
So I brought my own set of experiences and ways of seeing to Singapore.
The more places I live the more different ways of seeing things I'm exposed to. Even if I misinterpret them, I'm still changed. And just perhaps more unique.
And the more unique I become the more valuable I become. Unless of course, I become more uniquely boring.
Another example in England when the sun comes out we all rush out and try and soak in as many rays as possible. Because we never know hen we're going to see it again. So imagine my surprise when I go out walking with my wife, who is from India. And she starts taking this really convoluted route to get to places.
She was raised in India. The sun's not such a big treat for her. In fact she tries to avoid it at all costs. I'd be saying "where you going the shop's are over here. And she'd be the most convoluted route to get there. Andy my old partner experienced the same thing when he moved to Singapore. He was astounded too. Well, you store that stuff away.
SHOW: NIKE SHADE RUNNER
So what happen when you get an Indian kid from Singapore, Send him over to England at the age of 7 months. Bring him up with west Indians. And then get him to live and work in four different continents.
Hopefully you get a different way of seeing things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpyhpisoWf4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXAleHsmgEg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOShg-ulzU8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BqtdTpy93U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV5jNPTPx6E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n51XmB5_rh4
So what am I getting at? Don't be closed. Go out and take your experiences elsewhere. Then come back changed and apply that new modified voice back here. Or some where else again.
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