China's Growing Ad Industry

For the second of his exclusive diaries, Milk & Honey’s John Campbell looks at the view from China.

The industry in China is growing and growing. China has money and China has clients. However, for all the money and all the need for advertising, the clients have their own way of working that is truly unique.

Chinese clients are known to be tricky to work with, for both Chinese producers and foreign productions, alike. They are notorious for changing their minds, not only at the last minute, but during the shoot day.

One production shared a story with me about a client who, halfway through the day of shooting, decided they didn’t like the look of the main actor. Not at the beginning of the day... halfway through. The producer had to go to the director and say, “We have to let the talent go. The client does not like him.”

The conversation, I’m told, went something like this:

“What do you mean they don’t like him?”
“They just don’t like him. He is too ugly.”
“But we did the casting together, they saw the pics, the video. They saw him.”
“Yeah, but they don’t like him now. So tell him he can go home.”

(Imagine telling that to a human being – “You can go buddy, you’re too ugly.”)

The shoot had to be rescheduled. The shoot day that was canceled, on the day, and was not paid for by the client. The production had to eat those costs. The following days for shooting the new talent, the weather was all rain.

Speaking of rain, sometimes, the hit comes even after the shoot is finished.

I heard was about a car shoot that happened to fall, unfortunately, on a rainy day. On set, the director and producer went to the client and said, “It’s raining. The car will be driving through the rain. That can still look very nice. But you need to understand that the commercial will be about a car in the rain.” The client understood, agreed, gave it the thumbs up and all went forward.

In the edit suite, they said, “It looks good but it’s raining.” The director said, “Yes, we talked about that on the day. You said it’s ok. You watched us shoot.” “Yeah, but we don’t like it now. Can you just remove the rain?”

Chinese producers deal with this on a daily basis. I have enormous respect for them. It's expected the client will always change their minds. Production houses are expected to be flexible. The nature of China’s infrastructure allows this to a certain degree. Roadblocks and location permits can be had in a matter of hours, if they are needed at all. Working all night, round the clock, is taken for granted. There seems to be no agency control of client demands. So when the Chinese want to shoot in a foreign country, this is the catering they are used to. If you’re not Chinese and you’re working with them on production, there’s no room for old-school thinking. You need to be light on your feet and have some impressive aces up your sleeves.

But if you do, you are set for working with the undisputed titan of Asian advertising. In the East, China is King. Or perhaps “Emperor,” I should say.

John Campbell is an Executive Producer at Milk & Honey Films, a global production service company. He recently spent three months traveling to all parts of Asia to get a better understanding of the region’s ad industry.