McCann Worldgroup’s Pat Baron and Heok Seong Ng will decode ‘the many flavours of creativity’ on stage at ADFEST today.


What inspired the topic of your session?

Pat: We come to festivals like ADFEST not just to judge each other’s creativity, but to celebrate the uniqueness of our creativity and local cultures, and most importantly to make new friends. And it is in this act of coming together as friends at ADFEST that we can truly celebrate the diversity of each other’s creativity in all its rich, complex, nuanced, quirky and different flavours. I’ve had the honour of participating as a member of the jury twice. Through the process of viewing thousands of entries the sheer diversity of the creativity left a profound effect.


Seong: Now more than ever, diversity is critical for an organisation’s ability to innovate and adapt in a fast-changing environment. ADFEST celebrates the region’s diversity of perspectives, experiences and cultures. It is rich in flavours, a buffet spread of quirkiness, rich imagery and emotions. I am excited to see and be a part of what’s stirring the pot this year.


Pat, you’re based in Melbourne. How does the energy of this city inspire you?

Australia is well known for its lifestyle and natural resources. Australia’s flavours are confident, bold, raw, fresh and at times, dry. It’s a new and evolving culture that can sometimes taste crude, brash and unsophisticated to other palates. These influences arrived from Italy, the UK, Germany, Greece, China and Asia and no other city in Australia has embraced this melting pot like Melbourne. It’s this diversity that feeds Melbourne’s energy and creativity.


Seong: is it true one of your first jobs was selling encyclopedias?
 
Before Wikipedia there was the Encyclopedia. Whilst waiting to get into Art School, I saw an ad for management trainees. Turns out they were actually looking for salesmen. Before search, brands had to go look for customers the hard way, door to door. I was a pretty shy kid back then so I thought, what the heck, it might be good for me.

 
I learnt how to convince people to invite me into their homes, get a free cup of coffee perhaps and then to part with a tidy sum for the Encyclopedias. Not easy as they weren’t cheap. Stayed in the job for a week and managed to sell one set. I have been a salesman ever since.


Do you really think different markets value different types of creativity? 

Pat: Yes and no. Globalisation, technology, social and economic development are rapidly colliding with markets' traditional beliefs. Digital and social media platforms, celebrities and entrepreneurs are also turbocharging a local and global fusion of regional creativity. As Western brands have imported into Asia, now Asian brands are exporting more out to the rest of the world. There’s a confident fusion of creativity that’s universal. Ultimately we will learn to appreciate each other’s different flavours, without making every different offering homogenous.


Seong: A one-size-fits-all solution no longer works. There is a shift towards locally-focused digital and social media campaigns. Having said that, today “the world is flat”. Globalisation also means that consumers around the world are becoming more similar in many ways. The challenge now is how to keep pace with the way people consume media and content.


* ‘Decoding the Many Flavours of Creativity’ takes place at ADFEST at 3:15pm this afternoon.