No, not really.

I mean, just

Just say what you would normally say like like like a normal interview

I'll give you the real stuff.

So relate to the career. I would just go for economics. I wouldn't, I wouldn't

change major art and I got to graphic design. And I was an intern for the company
that I've worked for right now. Junior art director, so that was already at the
entry level for advertising. That was already I would say like a second level the
first level of would have been a designer by jump over that. So for advertising.
You know, I didn't really learn advertising in school. I had no idea what
advertising was about internships by all I remember that. I went to a really small
liberal arts school in Kansas, which is like 1000 person school. So it was like, my
only golden ticket to the big city, independent immigrant. I wasn't really good at
communicating, which is like the basics of advertising. I remember I know, you're
the internship. If, you know, besides the stuff they asked the intern to do you
know, like clean the floor and get people coffee. Ended up just asking for way more
work. Right. So and also I will show up in meetings. In a way of the senior people
show up with two or three options, I will show up with 20 Right. So that's how I
got into advertising. You know, from doing more stuff i doing designing, right,
like I didn't know what I was doing as far as like being an art director at the
time, but I would just do more designing to get into the field. And then as I grew
I kind of learned learn about how to come up with ideas, which we teach in the
course, how to come up with like, how to work with other people, right, like,
different people are like I wouldn't say it's like bringing different people on a
journey together. So we can go really far and really like to do my clicker to say
so I like working with strategies, come up with insights. come up with creative
solutions that your account people is happy with the product you produce and sell
it to the client right. So certainly profits is that your motivation at the moment
like the creatives?

Motivation, definitely the creativity

because it's a job that no other new challenge appears. Building this giant machine
for a year, or a giant building for a year, where a product over and over again, is
more like here's a problem to solve. How do you solve it with creativity? Right,
like not just solving as like, Okay, here's a solution that everybody else is

in the greatest way that could cause

me to create more value

obviously you work for a big agency like Leo Burnett, what are the pros and cons of
working for sets sets big important advertising agencies or is it like you know,
the TV show madman with a lot of politics but also creativity and occasional fun or
is it different? Yeah, it's funny, because

I usually work like I think one of the copywriter was actually worked on my floor
on my account. Rather than madness. You should keep them off the record. I will
tell you because it's like lightning strikes cigarettes. I work on cigarettes. The
whole show was based on basically my whole account, vacuum like the time so it was
luggage driving to Kenya with marble. So the whole thing was about American
cigarettes. Like Marlboro was the biggest one you know, the copy the script,
wherever the copywriter was on the show or the screenwriter used to work and then
that will say with some of the stuff like the office like all this politics stuff,
like all the crazy stuff that's all based on my floor, I talked to all of the
people that were
suddenly not know, but so that part was really fun. Like, I want to say work for a
big agency, especially one of the top wine in the States. We definitely set the
trends or advertising industry, like the way we award shows the options you have
for career path. It's really like kind of what I would try to get started it's
really about creativity, you have a good idea, and you just sell it works is still
have this through, right it's like more of a human kind of thing. And this is not
replaceable by like aI yet. So that's the really the pro part. For me. The only
cool part of it, I want to say is like sometimes you feel like you're a little gear
with the big machine, which is true. Cool. ASUS has so many offices and so many
employees. But whether the car part of that is actually interview. I really want to
talk about like being minority within advertising. Sure. Because even though you
know, it feels like you're just a small gear in the machine for everybody, like you
know, everybody is like you're pretty much the smaller, larger gear but you're
never like the whole machine. But for a smaller beer. You can you can make a big
impact, right, like that's what advertising is about, like, how do you creatively
use creativity to create more minority which is a growing population, market and
consumer base. Like it's really the time to shine, like the same that you create is
actually for the future. Right. So I want to say that the pro pro part to the con
because if you're in a big agency, you're a small fish in a pond, but you can
definitely make a name for yourself. Right because our bigger fishes they're
looking for you. They're you know, they're they're trying to fish up the new tap,
things like that. Since you mentioned being

from a minority for obviously from the Asian American community doesn't fit into
your your work your creative role

it's really interesting that

I was talking to my friend the other day about this is like, American being a
melting pot like that's such an old kind of advertising my Wednesday night it's
like it's really brewing. He's really capable of growing like new cultures right
and diversity, for like all of these things. Because the melting pot I want to say
like a lot of people start stop there, but I think it's brilliant. A lot of these
things is all mixed together. It's really diverse. Being part of this culture.
Especially

kind of the Asian American like this is so much complacent.

Yeah, I lost you for five seconds but now I think

so I lost you again.

So I'm pretty much

immigrants because I'm not American. I'm losing every 510 seconds

yeah, so you're saying coming from from Asian Asian minority. That's That's what I
was talking about. Sorry about the internet. So

after 12 years working,

I am still the only Chinese immigrant creative director within like, the big
agencies across America. So I'm the only Chinese credit and if they promote vice
president I will be the first ever Chinese Vice President as being creative in
America for advertising. So that just shows that once I kind of know I thought
about that like, is really for people like me, minority or however you identify
yourself to really thrive because you are the one that's meeting because there's no
other people. There's not really like right or wrong or you should or should not.
It's more about I'm here to lead the way and also bring other people up. So for me,
that's why that's why I created we created an organisation called nations. So like
agency like agency within Leo Burnett, that was all for like, all the Asian
continent, cultural exchange and employee resource group. We also I was also
working with the immigrant is called cross boundary it's one of the coolest because
I'm not only Chinese. Also, immigrant consider as legal alien as a coffee. So that
part of it was really interesting because I have all these identity. I created an
organisation working with them to really make us because because they were make a
sound or expression for the group of people that I want to represent. So that was
the biggest thing in a way of helping myself we're leading the way of getting other
people up to speed. Since you mentioned that,

what are the main differences in the way I'm not sure if you've worked for Asian
clients as well apart from Americans, but even if not, the main differences in how
they approach advertising in the US and Asia or China specifically, and maybe what
can you know its country's culture can borrow from from the other in terms of
advertising.

That's a really great question. Because in a way of, you know, how crazy the world
is, the way I look at it, and the day for advertising, it's more about I would say
it's more about it's only about the consumers. Right? Because you're in Europe,
your job, my job is to communicate. Why am I talking to is more important than web
talking? So working either Asia or US or European Europe or all the other
continents? It's all about understanding the consumer. And you don't have to be the
way of nobody's going to experience everything right. Like I've been listening for
20 years. I'm like 30 Something so I know both worlds, but not a lot of people.
Even those that a lot of people just knowing well world, the culture or what was
still though, I think is the gratitude that you show towards a culture and also
your attitude towards the work that you're doing. The attitude you keep those
things really personal and authentic. And your work is going to really show up in a
great way for the consumer locally. And then the whole another thing that I've been
trying to do is called you know, there's, there's global there's globalisation.
There's localization, if you combine those two words, it's actually like, local. So
if you're trying to make, you know, let's just say you're you're American
advertiser trying to help Chinese clients, break the American market, or vice
versa, and you're really trying to elevate a brand or a product, first from a
country level to a global. You get a global level product or brand back into a
local level, which is they probably start with a city where you start with a region
right so that's like something that I'm really interested in.

Maybe can you briefly explain whether the differences in how they approach
advertising American brands, clients, Chinese or Asian

have loads of credit, how do they do work? How do they what are the differences

in the way the the approach advertising so what how they, they set their goals and
the strategies like how How's it different? I mean, I'm not sure if you ever have
you ever worked with Asian clients?

Advice Oh, yeah, I've worked with the US market but not really like I don't really
work for the US. But I do know though, because

you channels are really different. Right? So first of all, the channels are
different advertising for Asia, America, and China and America. The channel though
right now is leading the way because tech is basically the main Tech Data things
like that is really leading the way globally. So under the same with Chinese
approach is that is more about the data is more about the returns in the short
term. returns in a short amount of time. Competition is just way too fierce. Right
because their product is only selling with the Chinese culture with the Chinese
country. China country, China itself. The US markets facing America for the global
market. Chinese market is really competitive. Market is competitive with with the
world, but they're really, really steady and slow. And that's really fast. Like to
really pay more attention to what the branding for the branding is. The messages is
the right of course, all of that combined, kind of pass through all the channels
globally. While China is more about how do I get this product out there? How do I
push through the channels? How do I make the sale instead of coming from a place of
branding things like that right big influencing traditional advertising. Makes
sense?

If your questions about how you work yourself, which are sort of relevant to the
course as well because, for example, you'll be talking I think about teamwork, how
you work as a part of as a part of the creative team, right? So, from your
perspective as a creative director, what are the challenges of problems,
challenges, difficulty working with multiple partners? So I guess, the line manager
or the clients creatives below us

being creative director at this level is more about managing, right? So that comes
down to you just have to be really good at delegating the sense of teamwork, like
you said, like, I'm basically right in the centre, right? You can go up as right
top down all of those partners or your boss or co worker, the new hire the client.
All of them is delicate, because you're the centre of making things happen. Right?
So delegating, you just gotta have to look at it like even the client, what could
the client do? For the product? Right, just for the, for the campaign. We're just
trying to make sure the outcome is ultimately create the most value for the
consumers and also for the brand. So in that way I'm not really there to manage
more people will make something more dedicated to making sure the product produced
itself which is advertised so that's a big difference because we are started
dedicating to how to deal with a lot of expectation, like timelines, like all of
these things. So in that way, one of the biggest thing I have learned is actually
another thing is actually like, just you just have to really focus on dedicating.
You need to forget about creativity. You need to stop executing, you need to stop
doing things that other people aren't doing. Right. You have to dedicate a part
that you're not good at or other people aren't good at while you just keep doing
dedicating work and also working within a team it's really easy to say yes to
things that we don't understand. But you just need to learn to say no.

Because,

again, it's about the most efficient way to use resources. And nobody like you
you're not willing to understand somebody else's need and what they can provide
value. You have to really ask them about saying novelty

things like that. So that's another that sort of leads to my next question.

You probably covered already, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper. Obviously, you have
to deal with so many creative people. So how do you sort of keep their creative
flame burning? Also have a bit of discipline towards a goal. So how do you make
sure that all these creatives work together towards the same goal because they I
guess it's it's very easy when you have many creative people to structure the
various ideas and

results. That's a really great question.

So this is also something I taught in class.

One of the most valuable thing for me is that

the one thing that I use the most is leadership. So treating leadership as more of
a tool in a way, there's you know, there's a lot of methodology out there and how
you work as creatives. There's like, the management of their leadership in my way
of being

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