Talented Mr. Cheong

Walaupun bekerja di dunia advertising, tapi untuk pengetahuan tentang insan periklanan baik lokal maupun internasional, gue bisa dibilang minim banget. Ngak banyak nama-nama yang gue tau, paling beberapa kayak Erik somethingvogen dari TBWA Paris, Yasmin & Jureeporn (I always like their work, funny and heart whelming at the same time), Ian Batey ini karena gue baca bukunya, Neil French (for me he is like GOD), dan paling yang sering dijadiin dewa oleh sebagian besar orang-orang periklanan setau gue David Droga (I don’t know why but for me he is just great but not the very best, OK lah…=P). Kalo dari lokal paling Om Bud, Glenn Marsalim, and Roy Wisnu(yang ngak kesebut jangan marah yak, bukan situnya kok yang ngak terkenal emang guenya aja yang kuper, so peace yak). But if you ask me, siapa insan periklanan sekarang yang paling gue salutin, Eugene Cheong is THE ONE!

Berikut adalah petikan dari artikel Campaign Brief Asia, saat mereka mewawancarai Eugene Cheong:

The man behind the glasses.

He’s the man behind some of Singapore and Asia’s most awarded print work. At the ‘Big Four’ alone (Cannes, D&AD, One Show and Clio) he has figured 131 times with 25 metal awards – including 5 Gold Lions and 3 Gold Pencils. He is a prominent figure each year in the Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings, topping it in 2001 and in 6th position this year. Here Eugene Cheong speaks with Campaign Brief Asia’s Kim Shaw about his on-going highly awarded career at Ogilvy Singapore.

Which was the very first campaign or ad in your career when you sat back and thought ‘I am really happy with that’?

The year was 1983. Patrick Low and I had done a series of sci-fi posters, which portrayed Philips appliances as giant automatons. The ideas were far, far too ambitious for a pair of greenhorns to pull off. Back then, there was neither Johnson (Tan) nor Procolor to save us with their gazillabyte computers. Anyhow, the retouched pictures finally arrived at our office from Sydney; fishing the 8 by 10 transparencies out of the Kodak Box, we pin the trannies against the glass window of our office with our thumbs, my eyes beheld these jaw-dropping pictures. I knew then and there that we’ve done the business. The campaign went straight into the One Show. Today, we’re pretty blasé about getting into the One Show. But remember, this was the early 80’s and nobody from Asia had had an ad within spitting distance of the Book. It was as if Patrick and Eugene appeared right next to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

A strength of your work is that it is always exceptionally well crafted. What sort of effort goes in to getting it right and why is crafting so important?

I use to think that what you say is more important than how you say it, that substance is greater than style, that the idea is more important than execution. But, I’m not so sure anymore. These days, everyone seems to have something to say and they are all saying the same damn thing. Go to http://www.coloribus.com/ and you’ll see my pont graphically illustrated. The Coloribus phenomenon exists because most products are at the end of their life cycle. The majority of things we’re asked to sell were invented after WW2 when folks started having money to spend again. In an age where messages have become parity, style becomes paramount. Marshall McLuhan was wrong; the medium is not the message. Neither is the message really the message. Today, style is the message and design is the idea. It might sound like heresy, but an idea is no longer enough. Every ad, every message, every idea is always on the razor edge of being clique, familiar and done-before.

Eugene, you have such a great creative reputation and are busy on big regional business and yet you still have this great passion for the work. Why do you still have this ‘need’ within you to win awards and create top class campaigns?

As a regional creative director, my job is not unlike that of a fireman. I fight a fire, I go for a run, I fight a fire, I have a beer, I fight a fire, ad infinitum. My job requires me to defend existing business and to rape and pillage other agencies. If I am successful in either winning or defending a piece of business, my responsibility is to bed the account in. This can take anywhere from six months to two years. At times, I feel I’m only a step away from being a suit. Regional CDs, as a rule, don’t have much fun and they never ever win awards. But because I am profoundly stubborn chap, I want to prove that it is possible to be a regional creative director and still do powerful, award winning work. Perhaps, not immediately on big brands like Coke and Johnson & Johnson. It took Unilever, for example, more than ten years to want something as culture-changing as Dove’s campaign for Real Beauty. I feel I have to be an example. I want my regional creative brethrens to look at me and think: if bloody Eugene can do it, so can we. And that’s the reason I’m working harder and smarter than ever before.

Would you say you were award hungry?

It’s a perception rather than reality. There isn’t a creative department in Singapore’s that wealthy enough to employ a person solely for the purpose of swanky projects. This week, for example, I was working on copy for a brand of health supplement, a campaign for a two way radio system provider, an infant milk magazine ad and a TVC for a fast food chain. The truth is 80 percent of my output is of the mundane variety that doesn’t get written about by the trade press or involves going on location in Iceland. Most of what I do is unglamorous and almost clerical, but they constitute the commercial bedrock of the agency. I have to earn my keep by making sure the headlines on these ads are clear; the layouts, uncluttered; and the thinking, sound. On a good year, I get about four opportunities to do exciting, groundbreaking work. Four shots at goal from the penalty spot. On these occasions, I take a deep breath and try not to miss. I don’t think I’m award-hungry; however, it would worry me if I stop winning. Because it would suggest that I’ve become complacent; it would imply that I’ve given up wanting it great and settled for having it Tuesday; and it would mean that I’ve bought into the glitz of the business and sold out on the craft of the trade. I’ve been in the business for twenty years and I’m still hungry. I still want to produce great advertising. When that hunger goes, I won’t hang around. It would be sad if I did.

So, what do you find yourself doing most days, day to day?

My morning are usually spent with Khai (O&M Regional ECD) while Stuart (Mills) takes up most of my afternoons. With Stuart, we do things a creative team typically do: we solve problems for marketing managers. With Khai, we solve more complex organizational and strategic problems; and at precisely 12 o’clock every day, we mull over various luncheon scenarios.

Who are the people who have had a major influence on your career?

Frenchy and Khai. One taught me to be unreasonable, the other taught me to be sensible. And they did it at the right time and in the right order. In that way, they were godsend.

And your one career highlight so far is what?

Being fired from Euro RSCG has to be the best thing that’s ever happened to my career. If I hadn’t been ‘released’, I’d probably still be CD of Euro: eating baguettes and arguing about the size of the starburst on Dell ads. I would have missed the gianormous wave that I’m currently on.