AD WATCH: A Reprise HK creative director's most/least favourite ads

"A great insight and a simple idea make for a powerful campaign." Kitty Tang, the creative director at Reprise Hong Kong praises a feminist gem and questions a clustered mess.AD WATCH features marketing industry figures providing their opinions on what they think is some of the most inspiring and disappointing work they’ve seen. As long as it’s not their own!On this edition:Kitty TangCreative directorReprise Hong KongHOT: Stayfree India - Project Free Period ✰✰✰✰A great insight and a simple idea make for a powerful campaign. Stayfree Project Free Period leverages an insight that all women share, and then mirrors it to a serious truth in India. This campaign had a tremendous impact on me. It is always a positive thing to see commercial brands taking on social responsibility projects, but we often see brands struggle to find relevant insights to make a case to play in that space.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjoQzICIAlAIn this example, Stayfree cleverly demonstrates what’s relevant. They have taken their brand belief and applied it to a real-life crisis, successfully bringing mass awareness to a massively taboo reality, and then taken it a step further to help effect a change. I hope they continue with the program, and that it successfully brings about long-term results to help more women in need in India and around the world.NOT: Shopee Singapore 9.9 Super Shopping Day ✰This ad immediately grabbed my attention, the reason? Well, it’s Cristiano Ronaldo of course, so as a football fan, I clicked and jumped right into it… but it left me with a bunch of question marks.Personally, this ad does not work for me because of its overuse of elements and executions, and a complete lack of any real context or idea. I know that a great idea might not always be the key element to a great ad. A great ad can be memorable because of its outstanding art direction, or a surprising twist in storytelling. Shopee Singapore 9.9 Super Shopping Day has none of that, its a mash-up of bits of everything which in my opinion makes it quite difficult to comprehend.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHJhINiQ7MHowever, perhaps because it does have a bit of everything - a world-class celebrity athlete, kicking a football, doing a random dance, and of course ‘baby shark’ - it could be a successful ad. Who knows? But just not a great one!This article was produced for the September issue of Marketing Magazine Hong Kong. For more features and other magazine-exclusive content from this and upcoming issues, you can subscribe to receive your free monthly print copy here or you can read the digital version in its entirety here.