China owes the world an awesome advertising company!

(Illustration authorized by Zhu Jianqiang)

The stronger China becomes, the more its advertising industry is humiliated.

It is natural for a poor country to have a backward advertising industry, but for a rich country, it is either due to bad luck or incompetence.

Our advertising output is still not as good as that of poor South American countries. For example, if an African walks on tiptoe in the dark night, he will only be noticed by the world if he falls. The most racist ad of 2016 was the "QioBi Laundry Detergent" ad, which actually made a black guy white, causing outrage on Facebook and Youtube.

As the national faces, the UK has BBH, the US has W+K, Australia has Sapient Nitro, Japan has Dentsu, France has Publicis, and Germany has Jung von Matt. All of them are world-class advertising companies.

What do we have in China?

Yes, we have set up many large advertising companies with hundreds of employees and billions of dollars in capital. Various seminars and awards are held from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and many masters frequently appear in public. Behind the hustle and bustle, what have we contributed to the world? Which work is admired by peers around the world? What kind of cultural trend has been driven by the communication activities?

What is the crux of the problem?

We can no longer use economic backwardness as an excuse. As far as I know, in recent years, the Chinese contingent has been strong at the Cannes Lions Creative Festival, with tickets priced at RMB 22,000 and entry fees starting from RMB 4,000 per work, and everyone is buying cheap tickets.

Personnel quality? Not really. With more than 7 million university graduates every year, China's talent pool is the largest in the world. It is common to win gold, silver and bronze medals at the Cannes Film Festival, although many of the manuscripts have not been published.

Stubborn customers? Not really. The new generation of brand managers definitely want their advertisements to be both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. Many of them also hope that their works win awards at advertising festivals. Otherwise, how could awards such as the Golden Investment Awards, which are aimed at brand owners, be so successful? You should know that the marketing departments of BAT are more eager to win gold in Cannes than you are.

The biggest problem is that the leaders of advertising companies lack lofty ideals.

Ideals are the watershed that separates greatness from mediocrity.

As an advertiser, ask your boss what his ideal is?

Achieve 15% revenue growth this year?

Work from 9am to 5pm and get double salary at the end of the year?

Listed on the New Third Board?

Acquired by Blue Label or WPP?

Retire before 40 and open a gallery or a hair salon?

Many bosses lack vision, and even if they have ideals, almost no one has thought about creating an international advertising company.

"You are just dreaming. I can't even pronounce all 26 letters of the alphabet!"

"Don't make me laugh, it's good enough to be full!"

"Only idiots talk about ideals!"

Because you don’t want it, it will never happen.

The Law of Attraction mentions that if you really want to accomplish something, all the power in the universe will come to help you.

In 1965, Boeing made one of the boldest moves in corporate history when it decided to pursue the Boeing 747 jumbo jet program, but the program almost destroyed the company. Chairman Allen said firmly: "If Boeing says we want to build this kind of aircraft, we will build it, even if it means exhausting the resources of the entire company!"

If a company does not have clear ideal guidelines, employees will define the ideals in their own way. For example: find a job with high salary and good benefits to support your retirement; earn more money to pay for the house, car and children; write airplane scripts and win awards to gain fame. In fact, many large international companies in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been ruined by this mentality.

"You need money to have ideals!" an advertising company boss taught me, "Cash flow is the most important."

There is a passage in "Built to Last" that hits the nail on the head: "Profit is a necessary condition for survival and a means to achieve more important goals, but profit is not the goal. Profit is like the oxygen, food, water and blood that the human body needs. These things are not the purpose of life."

If we only look at profits, Huawei would not have spent $14.8 billion on research and development in 2015, while Samsung spent $13.3 billion and Apple spent $8.15 billion in the same period. Wouldn't it be great if the money saved could be used as cash flow, dividends, or to improve employee benefits? But Huawei has a lofty ideal: to surpass Apple and Samsung in shipments within five years.

Suppose the boss of an advertising agency receives a brief with the following goal to achieve: to build a world-class advertising agency, what will he do?

He will absorb advanced advertising and marketing ideas from abroad.

He will hire top talent to achieve this goal.

He will boldly innovate products, that is, launch innovative services that are not available on the market.

He will measure the quality of creative output by international standards.

He will create a work environment where culture is diverse and happiness is paramount.

…

“If a person has no dreams, he is no different from a salted fish!” said Stephen Chow in “Shaolin Soccer”. Jack Ma fought back from a lowly underdog situation and eventually took over KFC, all thanks to his lofty ideal of “making it easy to do business anywhere in the world.”

Ask your boss what his ideal is? Where does he want to steer the company? And if you are on the boat, look at the compass and always check whether the course is consistent with the direction of your life. If so, paddle forward with him as hard as you can; if not, jump off the boat immediately. By the way, job hopping in English is “jump job” .

I believe that China will definitely produce world-famous advertising agencies. The economic scale, talent pool, and customer expertise are already mature, and only the east wind is missing. If you look internationally, have dreams in your heart, have courage and strategy, and inspire ambitious advertising talents to work hard for you, you will have the opportunity to become one of the world's top companies.

Don't forget, the world will eventually belong to us Chinese.

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