“Let’s put it this way: London, as progressive as it might seem from an outsider’s point of view, the inner workings are still very British, which is to say, typically traditional, very safe, very tried and tested; there is in methods and systems. So there is a lot of structure that you adhere to, but then at the same time. creatives in London tend to have this attitude of ‘okay, this is the brief, this is the structure, let’s go out of it, let’s try something new and play around with it.’ So there is that balance.
I come back to Singapore every year and I have many friends who work in various creative industries here. I find that it has changed a lot over the years, but on the whole, Singapore seems to be a place where risk-taking is not a big value. I find that very frustrating because the whole point of people wanting to work with me is because I take them to an uncomfortable position.
In Singapore, there is a big emphasis on safe and tested methods – to a greater extent than London, I would say. The line of thinking is in general:’ Okay we like this (other campaign/project/design), let’s make it a little bit better because it has worked before.’
There is safety in what has worked before. So let’s do this again but tweak it – because some marketing director who’s not a creative, who’s looking at an Excel sheet and looking at numbers, feels more confident that the numbers and goals can be achieved.”
