Gen Z speaks: Sunny Idea Hong Kong’s Grace Ng

Pitching is never easy, and it's even harder for agencies when they need to deliver quality work for clients on a limited budget.

In fact, Hong Kong’s ad spending in general for January and February this year has dropped slightly from last year to reach HK$4.4bn, representing a 5% YOY decrease, according to Admango’s latest ad spending report.

Various favourable factors led to a significant increase in ad spending in Jan-Feb 2023, which made the 5% drop in Jan-Feb 2024 inevitable due to the local economy's recovery being hampered, the report said.

Sudden budget cuts from clients is also one of the challenges faced by young creatives within the local agency scene, such as Grace Ng (pictured), art director, Sunny Idea Hong Kong. 

In this episode, Ng shares her insights on how she navigates these challenging briefs and her take on pitching etiquette.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: From your experience, what would you consider a bad brief? what’s the worst brief client has given you?

Some briefs fail to articulate the objective clearly, providing only deliverables and timelines for these quantitative units.

I have an experience with a client constantly changing the brief, which is the worst brief for me. Initially, they wanted a digital and social-focused campaign targeting the Hong Kong market exclusively. However, after the first round of presentations, the client expanded the scope to reach a broader audience while also cutting the budget.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: How did you deal with the brief?

While I am not the one to deal with the brief, I learned a lot from my senior managers on how to dig deeper into the brief with the client, finding out the hidden agendas and the reasons behind the changes.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: As a junior staff, pitching is important but how do you know when to walk away??

In fact, I don't have any experience with walking away from a pitch. Like I said, my senior managers will not just “take” the brief, but always trying to dig deeper and see if the pitch is “worth” to take according to the timeline and the workload of the team.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What are the bad behaviours you have seen from clients that need to stop?

I have noticed that some clients failed to provide feedback or show up on the scheduled date and time as previously aligned.

The approval processes can be improved and punctual. Timely client feedback and approvals are important, especially for digital and social media advertising campaigns. 

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: How do you deal with clients who may not respect the younger people on your team?

I’m one of the youngest people on the team, and I feel fortunate to have earned the respect of clients so far. I believe that maintaining professionalism is essential, even as the younger team member, to gain the respect of others.

If I unfortunately find myself in a difficult situation, I would bring it up to my senior manager and seek the team's support hopefully.

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