How much do you know about Tencent?

It launched in 1998 as a communications company. Today its fingers are in everything from entertainment to emerging technology. It pretty much owns digital gaming in China, and mobile gaming everywhere. In 2011, it became Riot Games’ parent company. That means esports, too, is at its service.

Today, the corporation is working to help create a Chinese OpenAI competitor. And after that nation’s government blocked Meta for 14 years, Zuck’s got another chance of making his mark in China, thanks to Tencent.

When we think of an embodiment of capitalism—a shape, not just an idea—we think of Tencent. Its influence in people’s lives is immeasurable and growing all the time.

Yet all this stuff we’ve listed barely scratches the surface. “Here We Go Round and Round,” by Mother Shanghai, is designed to paint a picture about the conglomo’s ambitions in energy, robotics, farming and commerce.

The background music is an adaptation of “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush,” a children’s nursery rhyme. VFX and direction come from ManvsMachine, and the film ranks as an especially impressive feat of production.

The first thing that hits us about “Here We Go Round and Round” is that it’s almost hypnotically pretty to look at. It makes us feel soothed about stuff that’s not quite so smooth in our addled minds.

Windmills and photovoltaic panels rotate in perfect time, like shifting limbs in a harmonious body. Robotic arms dance, passing their rhythm to hydroponically grown plants; dumplings move through the turbines of commerce; cars slice over bridges, lit by buttery sunlight.

It’s the international marketplace portrayed as a village, interconnected systems undulating to a childlike tune for our benefit. Everything is clean. Everything works. Everything has its place.

In the universe of Tencent, the machine of capital is well-oiled and moving just fine.

According to Mother, the work is designed to demonstrate how Tencent, through these lesser-known investments, “provides more than just web services and supports everyday people’s lives and infrastructure.” The release adds, “Superimposing overlapping layers and progressive visual effects deepens the theme of perpetual motion … reinforcing the relationship between Tencent’s role as a supporter and the economy’s digital transformation. At the same time, the continuous imagery gives the feeling of surging energy, paired with simple lyrics that convey optimism.”

Below is a translation of the song lyrics.

The windmills make our world go round and round
Fresh and free, round and round
The sun’s rays give us energy
All clean and green

The robot’s magic arms fly round and round
Here and there, round and round
Smartly and swiftly, with lots of care
More gets made

The weather on command goes round and round
Grow and thrive, round and round
Smart farming keeps the crops alive
All through the year

The commerce in the cloud goes round and round
More and more, round and round
Business owners profit and score
Cheers and great joy

Round and round, round and round
Technology boosts change in leaps and bounds
Round and round, round and round

Tencent helps the economy go round and round
Tencent helps the economy go round and round

Local weavers created the installations using 69 pounds of pure, raw, unwashed Merino wool that birds can peck away at to create nests. Mother Shanghai notes that the wool went “straight from sheep to installation.”

The video will run across owned and paid channels in China.

Per Mother Shanghai, Laojun Mountain was the ideal location, as “it’s the home to over 194 species of birds. Aside from their stunning beauty with regard to the landscape, the site was selected based on a set of carefully considered conditions: feasibility of putting up the installation without damaging the woods; species of birds; the density of nesting bird community in spring; filming possibility.”

The agency says the challenges came “less from the creation of the installation but more on putting them in place high up on Laojun Mountain—from a last-minute transportation travel ban (due to Covid) to stringing them at 3,860 meters above sea level. Plus, the inability to predict weather conditions.”

The film crew had to leave within certain time parameters due to weather conditions and a high altitude. When the weather is warmer, and travel restrictions are lifted (Shanghai is currently in Covid lockdown), they plan to shoot updated video of the installations post-wool removal.

“Most birds are incredibly skilled at building nests without any help from people,” says Mother Shanghai, “But often, the fluff they gather contains traces of synthetics, and we wouldn’t recommend that.”

CREDITS

Client: The Woolmark Company 
Agency: Mother Shanghai 
Creative: Mother Shanghai 
Strategy: Mother Shanghai 
Director: H. Stanley
Assistant Director: L.C Xu
Director of Photography: Nick Yang
Set Designer: Miga Liang 
Music Composer: Kuniyuki Takahashi a.k.a Koss
SFX: Mix Studio
Production Company: PLAYFilms Shanghai
Visual Effects: Tao&Jill
Production Company: Twinkle Lab
Photography: Scott Lee
Typographer: HeFan

Ski season’s in progress. What better way to welcome it than by bidding farewell to everything that too quickly gripped your softened attentions after the holidays?

Goodbye, enterprise group chat. Goodbye, libraries. Goodbye, even, to the slick hairdressers and the big city. “My soul’s hometown lies in the backcountry,” a man muses from the back of his taxi.

“Goodbye City, See You on Snow!” was created by Fred & Farid Shanghai for retail site TMall.com. The Alibaba Group brand, formerly called Taobao Mall, is using the ad to kick off its 2022 Winter Festival, a yearly digital shopping event dedicated to winter sports brands. 

While winter sports are still fairly new to China’s mainstream, they’re also among the fastest-growing commercial interests. By the Beijing Winter Olympics on Feb. 4, over $126 billion will be spent in China’s winter sports ecosystem, with an expected target of $160 billion by 2025.

Thus, at the same time that the Olympics will introduce the world to an association between China and snow (the country has nearly 800 ski resorts), China’s retailers will be more aggressively integrating a culture of winter sports into the mainland urban landscape.

The ad marks, but also ushers in, a new lifestyle ritual among city dwellers, who are as itchy as the rest of us to get outside as the pandemic wears on. This series of not-very-melancholy goodbyes introduces the idea that even preparing to hit the slopes—getting the right gear, doing your hair, making plans with your friends—is now part of the cycle of Chinese urban life, no matter where you find yourself in the social strata.

This is perhaps most apparent through the ad’s one child. “Goodbye, playground,” he thinks. “Mum says there are bigger slides on the mountain.” Habits start young.

See some print work below.

CREDITS

Client: Tmall, Alibaba Group
Title of the campaign: See you on Snow
Agency: FRED & FARID Shanghai
Chief creative officers: Fred & Farid
Executive creative director: Feng Huang
Creative director: Adrien Goris
Copywriters: Cao Wen, Yucy Wang
Art director: Billy Liao
Designer: Zoy Wang
Agency supervisors: Paul Lin, Chelsea Lin, Amber Yan, François Lin
Agency producers: Charles Renard, Caroline Wei
Brand Strategist: Karen Ge, Aaron Wang
Production company: FRED & FARID Shanghai
Director: Alvynn Diagne
1st AD: Ash
Executive Producer：Charles Renard
Producer: Jason Fu
Editor: Alvynn Diagne
Music composition: Ker Sound
Sound Recorder, Design & Final Mix: 韦代立

There are lots of interesting shots in the film, as Wang and cinematographer Anna Franquesa Solano pushed the iPhone to its limits. 

“We had a lot of fun just trying to figure out where else can we stick the phone so we can get angles and perspectives that are just a little bit more unique,” Wang says in the BTS video below. “We thought, ‘Oh, why don’t we just put the phone inside of the Nian’s mouth?’ I think the size of it allows us to get all kinds of cool, specialty shots that would be much harder to get with the traditional camera.”

Wang, who shot the film remotely from the U.S. due to Covid travel restrictions, drew inspiration from her own life for the story. “As a child, my parents wanted me to go further than they have ever gone,’ she says. “And yet there’s also this fear that I was going into the unknown, and so I wanted to bring that theme into this film.”

It’s a resonant theme, of course, in our age of renewed mistrust of outsiders, yet the message is delivered in such a playful way—narratively and visually—that it never feels preachy or heavy-handed. This message of acceptance is something Apple returns to quite regularly—it’s remarkable, actually, how similar this new work is to the brand’s 2016 holiday spot, “Frankie’s Holiday.”

With the impossibility of being on a real set last year, my team & I took on the unique challenge of shooting a film remotely… shooting natively on iPhone… using a practical monster. Very proud of the entire team & of course, our little star Yo Yo! Happy New Year! ?? https://t.co/HHHvOUDez6

— Lulu Wang (@thumbelulu) January 29, 2021

In addition to a message of acceptance, the spot is meant to be an empowering one for visual storytellers to see. 

“It’s really exciting that we have this opportunity to retell this ancient story, to capture these incredibly cinematic images with the iPhone, this very versatile device,” says Wang. “I hope when audiences realize that we shot it on iPhones, they will feel empowered. They don’t have to wait for permission to go out and make things.” 

CREDITS

Agency: TBWAMedia Arts Lab Shanghai
Production Company: Iconoclast 
Director: Lulu Wang 
Music: Original score by Alex Weston

“Our goal is to inspire gamers with a nonstop entertaining film,” adds Jeff Fang, also a creative director at W+K. “We don’t want to preach. And most people don’t like to be told, ‘Go work out.’ “

Gamers are incredibly competitive, and top players can put in 16-hour days, six days a week, Nike says, which takes a toll on their physical and mental acuity. Here, in a whirlwind of high-tech energy punctuated by game-style graphics and eye-popping animated effects, Nike reminds players to keep in shape in if they want to reach the next level.

“It’s not just about strengthening the body,” Fang says. “Both sport and working out build mental strength, too. The same discipline that helps you grind out a 10k can help you grind out a marathon gaming session.”

So, take care of yourself, dudes. Then just do it … for 16 hours!

Touted as Nike’s first esports foray, the film launched last week in China during the month-long League of Legends World Championship in Shanghai. 

CREDITS

CLIENT 
Nike Greater China
Steve Tsoi – Vice President of Marketing, Nike Greater China
Simon Lee – Senior Creative Director, Nike Greater China
Che Lin – Senior Brand Communications Director, Nike Greater
China
Jimmy Chen – Brand Communications Strategist, Nike Greater China
Diana Tang – Art Director, Nike Greater China
JT Griffith – Music Licensing Manager
Ryan Luo – Designer, Nike Greater China

PROJECT
Camp Next Level

AGENCY
W+K Shanghai
Executive Creative Director Ian Toombs, Vivian Yong
Creative Director Jeff Fang, Matt Meszaros
Copywriter / Art Director Gem Xu / Jing Qiu, Josh King
Producer(s) Raymond Lau
Account Team Member(s) Chuck Xu, Xueer Ren, Elaine Weng
Head of Strategy Planning Renee Zhang
Senior Planner Chris Kirkup
Junior Planner Bart An
Business Affairs Jessica Deng

PRODUCTION COMPANY
Production Company The Loft Films
Director Adam Lau
DP Allen Lv
Executive Producers Geok Lem

EDITORIAL
Editor Song Yang

VFX
Company MPC
Creative Director Barry Greaves
CG Supervisor Paolo Gnoni, Jacob T. Oommen
2D Supervisor Barry Greaves, David Rouxel
Producer Chris Li
Line Producer Chanakya Chander
Production Coordinator Sririthika Iyer, Taruna Sehgal
Lead Compositor Marielle Santens
Compositors Yao Zhang, Minnie Chen, Chloe Gao, Balakrishnan Ramadoss,
Shalwin Shaiju, Vipin Tripathi, Iman Javaherypour
Motion Graphics Neo Chu
FX Team John Svenson, Imen Zhu, Kyle Wang, Alok Dwivedi
Asset Team Aram Hakze, Cherish Zhou, Cathy Xi, Jaspreet Kaur Dua
DMP Team Taylor He, Shanmugavel V, Winnie Sharma
Animator Alexey Petryaev, Ambalika Nandy
Lighting Lead Yao Zhang
Matchmove Elangovan G, Trace-VFX
Roto and Cleanup Robin Liu, Arulanandhan P, Bijeesh K U, Prasanth Palaparthi,
Karthikeyan M D, Trace-VFX

COLOR
Colorist Nikola Stefanović
Assistant Colorist Agua Jiang, Christine Wang, Eric Ju

SOUND DESIGN
Sound Design Company Lime Studios (LSD)

VO
Company Ker Sound Studios Shanghai
VO Coordinator Lena Zhou
VO Recording Engineer Lynn Lai

MIX
Company Ker Sound Studios Shanghai
Re-recording mixing engineer Benjamin L’hôtellier
Sound Editor Lynn Lai
Music Editor Greg Yu, Akira Terao
Project manager Akira Terao

Imma’s world is beautifully designed and maximally controlled. Her style will always be on point, and she will never have cellulite. She will always be calm and reasonable. She will never have a racist rant, or get caught stumbling out of a club. And she won’t get creative blocks, act like a diva, or desire something different from what is intended for her.

She will never err. Much of her perfection relies not just on her impeccable look but on her capacity to feel relatable while remaining aspirational. She reads beautiful coffee table books by Yoshi Rotten to “stimulate” her brain, moves house with help from Ikea, believes in LGBTQIA+ rights, and learned to cook in confinement.

 

 

 

 

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Are you guys cooking for yourselves at home? I started cooking more when I was social distancing. They say you’ll be happier during the day if you eat breakfast? Chef imma?‍??‍??‍? みんなお家でご飯作ってる？あたしはステイホームをきっかけに、今まで作ったことのなかったレシピにも挑戦するようになったよっ。朝ごはんを食べると幸福度が上がるんだって? 朝ごはんは抜かないでねっ！ シェフimmaより?‍??‍??‍? ＃あたしCGらしい ＃得意料理はまだないよ＃この家が好き＃IKEA原宿 #ithinkimcgi #nospecialityyet #happytobehome #IKEAharajuku

A post shared by imma (@imma.gram) on Aug 27, 2020 at 6:08pm PDT

Her cooking post is a triumph of perfectionist realism. She looks like influencers we envied before they learned to disappoint us—immaculate, comfortably chic, but stunningly human. A secret smile sits on her face, and her hair, casually tied back, betrays just a kiss of “natural” roots. Her kitschy, slightly oversized apron features a smiling planet with the words “Save Our Home.”

Yet in Magnum’s work, she seems less real than in her social posts, sitting flush in the uncanny valley—that weird place where something that imperceptibly feels not-human looks nonetheless so much like us that it creates an itchy sensation of unease.

In a way, that feeling—so often shunned, avoided or feared in the past—makes her an ideal ambassador for Magnum’s matcha flavor. The ice cream’s chocolate shell, once broken, reveals an almost grassy green interior instead of standard chocolate or vanilla.

If matcha isn’t part of your culture, it’s a novelty, like Imma. But matcha is also familiar enough among Asians that many can vouch for its taste. 

In this way, Magnum finds an acceptable pretext for our uncanny valley syndrome. We can conflate any odd feelings we have about Imma with the jarring appearance of green ice cream in a Magnum shell. And because a lot of Asians have tasted matcha-flavored candy before, they know they can grow past the strangeness of green ice cream … and, by sneaky extension, synthetic people.

Imma, crafted by virtual-human company Aww Inc., was one of the first-ever computer-generated influencers. The curious, but not necessarily negative, press surrounding her paved the way for others, giving marketers a means to work around the human risks inherent to collaborating with, well, brands that are human.

Virtual influencers apparently attract three times more engagement than real ones, and increasingly cross the barrier between what we consider fantasy and our shared digital “reality.” In June last year, virtual musician Lil Miquela, who boasts 2.7 million Instagram followers, appeared in a Calvin Klein ad, kissing supermodel Bella Hadid.

We’ve finally made it to a world as depicted by Roger Rabbit! To mock the trend, KFC released a douchey virtual Colonel Sanders, young and muscular, with gray beach-swept hair and tattooed abs. The intention was to mock the virtual influencer trend; instead, or maybe because of that, a lot of people found the avatar hot. (In any event, he made a more positive splash than the brand’s attempt to digitally revive the actual late Colonel Sanders.) 

The uncertainty Covid brings is only likely to advance interest in synthetic brand collaborators. Never mind the messiness of human growth, which can’t be planned for, and which often spirals out of PR control once the world catches wind. What better solution than virtual icons in a world where travel isn’t so easily assured, and people can no longer approach each other with ease? There’s no better time to create an entire fantasy economy, one where non-people can enjoy gorgeously appointed lives in our place.

Back to Imma. According to a pressie from Fred & Farid Shanghai, Imma is interested in Japanese culture, film and art, “which totally fits with the Magnum Ice Cream brand.” Her name is a play on the Japanese word “ima,” meaning “now.” She also recently launched a TikTok channel.

CREDITS

Agency: Fred & Farid Shanghai
Client: Magnum Ice-Cream
Chief Creative Officers: Fred & Farid
Executive Creative Director: Feng Huang
Associate Creative Director: Jean-Baptiste Le Divelec
Copywriter: Sihan Jin
Art Director: Dagny Rozniak
Brand Strategists: Karen Ge, Si Liu
Agency Supervisor: Chelsea Lin, Sherry Zhang
Agency Producer: Tilda He

Client: Unilever / Magnum China
Vice President, Food & Refreshment North Asia: Benny Xu
Marketing Director: Terrence Wu
Senior Brand Manager: Aubrey Xu
Assistant Brand Manager: Min Lim
Assistant Brand Manager: Vicky Xu
Production: Nion Tokyo
CEO: Moriya Takayuki
Producers: Yumi An/ Yuna Hori/ Kosuke Onishi/ Lin Yin
Line Producer: Nobuki Ogawa
Print Producer: Shion Kimura
Director: Chris Rudz
Director of Photography: Andrzej Rudz
Photographer (Key Visual): Genki Ito
Photographer (Social Posters): Yusuke Kusaba
Art Director: Motty
Post-Production: Cutters studios
Editors: Luc-Yan Picker/ Ruri Abe
CGI artist: Ani-cafe

Credits (Magnum global footage):
Director: Martin Werner
D.O.P : Nicolaj Bruel
Production Company: Proppa
Executive Producer: Pablo Martínez
Art Director: Peter Grant/Pancho Chamorro
Wardrobe: Melanie Buchave/Lucia Lopez Spinola
Editor: Filip Malasek / Robota
Post House & Colorist: Bacon X

This means you can stylishly dual-tone it, as the couple above has done, or take half away … which the couple also almost does.

It turns out that in refrigeration, many jockey for the hearts of millennials and those upstart Gen-Zs, who are aging into the prime time of fridge ownership. (We don’t actually know if there’s an average age for this.)

The average big fridge lasts about 14 years, so you need to nail people young; you don’t buy many fridges in a lifetime. Haier Leader wants that 20- to 30-year-old sweet spot, when the sun rises on getting “real” jobs and first independent living spaces.

Agency Serviceplan China worked with director Zhou Ning of Red Horse to connect the funky fridge to brave new lifestyles. Maybe it feels facile to use a breakup (and reunion) to illustrate the i-Case’s merits, but it’s the details that shout—so loudly that the piece is otherwise wordless. This means there are no barriers to understanding; all communication happens in accessible codes for the demographic.

It’s a stylish amplification of familiar things: a sad but impulsive breakup, feelings still raw despite the coltish maturity in that stiff good-bye hug. The man’s longing look says plenty as the woman strides through the apartment, scooping up her half of everything they own … including the salt shaker in a hugging set, her PS4 controller, a mug. 

Her half of the fridge comes last. She gives it an affectionate caress, a sharp zip of humor in this theater. That she takes it outside before the man arrives with his half and, hopefully, rejoins them, gives the story playful buoyancy. 

But it also illustrates how easily the i-Case accommodates lives in motion, almost like a rolling suitcase. It’s designed for roots skimming the surface of the earth, flirting with displacement.

There’s also a youthiness in the apartment that feels true. Crocheted pillows mix with furniture that brings Ikea or Made.com to mind; we’ve bought stuff like that, and decorated with odds and ends from flea markets and trinkety stores. Awkward-sized fabrics drape over furniture, and items lean against the wall instead of standing or hanging.

It’s the kind of home you make when you don’t have tons of experience making a home. These are people still learning how to adult. And if Gen Z is anything like its slightly older cohort, that learning will extend long through their thirties, maybe beyond.

So much has conspired to make us, overall, more modular—materialistic and bohemian, interested in nice things but unanchored from that old, unwavering vision of a pension, 2.5 kids, and the house with the white fence and two-car garage. Maybe we’re a lot like the i-Case, in the end.

Zhao Ning deliberately chose a red and blue palette for this universe (what Serviceplan calls “post-modern Chinoiserie styling”), which complements the refrigerator’s blue toning. A French soundtrack zips it up: Growing up with the internet means we are also a globalized culture, with people of similar age groups, educations and income levels sharing all kinds of codes for concepts, like libertine chic. A unifying language. 

“We always say, ‘If you don’t have a unique selling point, be the first,'” says Serviceplan China chief creative officer Chong Kin (last seen reminding us to leave our shoes outside the door). “But what if we have? Our TVC idea perfectly illustrates the USP in an interesting way, with an insightful young Chinese story. It’s a wonderful execution for product demonstration.”

The ad is running on Weibo and Wechat, as well as on local TV.

CREDITS

Agency: Serviceplan China
Worldwide Executive Creative Director: Jason Romeyko
Chief Creative Officer: Chong Kin
Group Creative Officer: Kan Wing Ho
Associate Creative Director: Wang Yifan
Art Director: Jason Liu & Charlie Wang
Copy: Lisa Liu & Mao Shanshan
Planning Director: Moritz Sanner
Associate Account Director: Schneider Shi
Senior Account Executive: Elena Liu
Production House: Red Horse
Director: Zhou Ning
Stylist: June Jiang
Composer: Smile Studio

Give us one-line bios of yourselves.

Vivian Wong: ECD of Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai, Chinese copy-based, originally from Hong Kong, moved to Shanghai eight years ago.

Ian Toombs: ECD of Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai, from Cincinnati, Ohio, always up for adventure and dedicated to creating an environment where people can make the best work of their lives in China.

Where are you living right now, and who’s with you?

Vivian: In an apartment in Shanghai with my husband and two nosy cats. 

Ian: I’m in Shanghai with my wife Frida, our 5-month-old daughter Isabella Sofia, and dog Manolo, who eats anything and everything at all times.

What’s your work situation like at the moment?

Vivian: The outbreak happened here in January, so our experience is three months ahead of the rest of the world. The situation here has vastly improved and our office opened two weeks ago. So there is light at the end of the tunnel! The new challenge, however, is working full days wearing a mask, as it is required by law to wear one when you go out. It’s quite uncomfortable, so we are encouraging everyone to go home at 5.30 p.m. sharp.

When you meet people “mask to mask,” you can’t tell if they’re happy or sad or utterly annoyed by you. That inspired our team to initiate the “You Can’t Mask a Smile” project, where we photographed our people and swapped their smiles on top of each other’s protective masks. We hope to bring smiles back to everyone. ;D 

Ian: COVID-19 hit China three months before the rest of the world, so to be honest, we’re getting back to business. We reopened the office two weeks ago, but we’re all wearing protective masks every day as required by law. We created “You Can’t Mask a Smile” to make our neighborhood smile. :)))))

Describe your socializing strategy.

Vivian: I make sure everyone turns on the video camera in Zoom so we can feel each other. It heals cabin fever! I felt an endorphin rush when I saw my colleagues’ faces on my first Zoom call after the lockdown. And I consider myself as an introvert.

Ian: Having meetings “mask to mask” instead of “face to face” is our running joke. But outside of work, with the rest of the world quarantined, I’ve had fun organizing global friend reunions. Last week I video chatted for three hours with the six dudes that I hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal with four years ago, and it was awesome.

How are you dealing with childcare, if applicable?

Vivian: I don’t have kids, so childcare is not an issue. Phew! But my cats are spying and interrupting all my Zoom meetings.

Ian: Our baby is just 5 months old, and my wife is a champion. The silver lining of the pandemic quarantine for my family was that is was like extended paternity leave. I was working at the same time, of course, but it allowed me to help out with the baby a lot.

What are you reading?

Vivian: The Old Man and the Sea. We have time for classics now, right?

Ian: Lincoln in the Bardo by the genius George Saunders. I’ve read every one of his books.

What are you watching?

Vivian: RuPaul’s MasterClass on self-expression and authenticity, which is surprisingly philosophical and inspiring.

Ian: Curb Your Enthusiasm, every season, but in reverse order.

What are you listening to?

Vivian: A lot of Little Simz, Rhye and LCD Soundsystem. Also, sappy ’80s-’90s Cantonese pop songs from Hong Kong, as I’ve missed home during this stressful time. 

Ian: This has been the best music-searching-playlist-making time OF MY LIFE. My friend Jeremy Cunningham’s new jazz album The Weather Up There, Tame Impala, Destroyer, Danny Brown, Kaytranada, anything and everything by the Danish band GENTS.

How are you staying fit?

Vivian: Right after the lockdown started, I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to lose shape when we finally got out of the cave, so I was swinging kettlebells and doing burpees every day. Occasionally I jog on the streets, also with a mask. At first it felt horrible. All I could hear was my muffled breathing sound. But then I imagined myself doing an astronaut training program and this was practice for me living on Mars one day. Then it became fun.

Ian: Next question, please. ?

Have you taken up a hobby?

Vivian: Cooking. I was hopelessly bad at cooking and therefore hated it. But before food delivery fully resumed, I had no choice. I deliberately searched for the most straightforward healthy menus online. Now I am proud of feeding myself properly during the lockdown.

Ian: Learning to be the best father I can for tiny Isabella. :)))

Any tips for getting necessities?

Vivian: Online shopping and delivery quickly resumed in China, so it isn’t difficult for us. What’s great is that the delivery platforms here allow you to tip their staff, which makes it easy for us to thank those who take a risk to take care of us. 

Best work email you got since all this started.

Vivian: We were the first office to experience lockdown in the W+K network. One day the India office made us a funny video to cheer us up, and that triggered a domino effect of cheerful videos across all offices, each one more ridiculous than the previous. We felt so spoiled that day.

Ian: When COVID-19 broke out in China, the global W+K offices sent us videos to cheer us up and they were wonderful. When the virus spread, we sent videos back. It made the network feel warm and connected.

An aha! moment since all this started.

Vivian: I grew up in Hong Kong, an East-meet-West cultural melting pot and studied cultural studies in London, so I was always interested in cultural differences across regions. But during this pandemic I again witnessed the tremendous difference between the Eastern and Western mindsets. Almost every single step the West and the East have taken to fight the virus is different. It gave me new insight into working with the diverse talent in our office, and helping both Western and local brands in China.

Ian: Holy shit!!!! We can still make great creative work when the office is closed and everyone is working remotely using Google Slides, Zoom and AirPods?? I never thought I’d type that.

What’s your theory on how this is going to play out?

Vivian: Until the invention of a vaccine we will continue to live under threat, which means we will have to learn to adapt to the new normalcy of life. We will continue to limit social interaction. We have to work flexibly. We will spend more time at home and therefore treasure our living space even more than ever. And these changes could be permanent. I believe we’ll live differently in the future.

Ian: China is three months into the future of this pandemic. Things here have resumed—business, brunch, walks in the park. But my cautious side thinks there will be second waves. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but we need to embrace it with precaution and an extra-large spoonful of human decency and understanding.

See the full #WFH Diaries series here.

Give us a one-sentence bio of yourself.

I am a 50 percent business and 50 percent creative guy because I know we are doing commercials. 

Where are you living right now, and who’s with you?

I am living in Beijing with my family now.

What’s your work situation like at the moment?

My work situation is “9127,” which means every day working from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m., seven days a week. That includes taking care of my family while working on different projects at the same time. When you have already stayed home for a long period of time, you no longer mark weekdays or weekends.

Describe your socializing strategy.

Wechat, Wechat and Wechat.

How are you dealing with childcare?

My wife is taking care of our kids’ online learning and e-homework so I can focus on my work.

What are you reading?

Articles from Wechat bloggers, which include business, fashion, advertising and finance. 

What are you watching?

A Chinese TV drama called The Three Kingdoms.

What are you listening to?

The singing from my kids at home.

How are you staying fit?

Eating less.

Have you taken up a hobby?

Yes. My hobby is writing Chinese calligraphy.

Any tips for getting necessities?

Handwashing, wear a mask, take off your shoes outside the door when you come back home every time you leave.

An awkward moment since all this started.

Network problems, plus kids yelling while I was giving an online presentation. 

Best work email you got since all this started.

Some encouraging emails from our global office.

An aha! moment since all this started.

Aha! Client, you finally get my jokes through online!

What’s your theory on how this is going to play out?

Everyone follows a few rules, globally, for two months. Those rules are “Be positive, pay more attention to personal hygiene, and stay at home more.”

See the full #WFH Diaries series here.

Paul, tell us…

The town where you were born.

St. Asaph in North Wales. It’s the second smallest city in Britain with a population of just 3,500 people.

What you wanted to be when you grew up.

Honest.

How you discovered you were creative.

I’ve always sketched out thoughts and ideas as far back as I can remember.

A person you idolized creatively growing up.

Muhammad Ali.

A moment from high school or college that changed your life.

There are two moments that stand out.

In high school, one of my best friends once told me that people actually get paid to come up with names for chocolate bars, such as Kit Kat. That stuck with me for the longest time because I just thought it was a cool way to make a living. Little did I realize at the time that that’s often the job of an advertising copywriter—which I would later go on to become.

And in the final year of university, my two flatmates and I used to play this game during every ad break to see who could name the next ad first. We were so fast at naming the ads, we must’ve known every single commercial on air at that time. Was it a sign? I’m not sure. But all three of us ended up in advertising.

The first concert you saw, and your favorite band or musician today.

First: Oasis.
Favorite: Radiohead/Thom Yorke.

Your favorite visual artist.

There are so many. From Banksy, Damien Hirst and Francis Bacon through to Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi.

Your favorite hero or heroine in fiction.

Definitely Buzz Lightyear.

The best book you’ve read lately.

I recently read Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, the most celebrated whistleblower of our times. While there are no new bombshells in the book, it was still fascinating to learn how he helped build the U.S. government’s system of mass surveillance—an Orwellian system that collects every phone call, text message and email ever made with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on Earth. And what motivated him to bring it down.

Snowden’s autobiography then prompted me to finish my latest re-read of 1984 by George Orwell. It just blows my mind every time. The world Orwell portrays is terrifying. In the so-called post-truth era, it’s more relevant than ever.

On a much lighter note, my kids and I love reading and re-reading The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. If there were classes on being kind, this would be the textbook.

Your favorite movie.

When We Were Kings. The Oscar-winning documentary about the “Rumble in the Jungle” championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

Your favorite Instagram follow.

@charliemackesy @sportbible @thesartorialist @thefatjewish @kanyedoingthings @textsfromyourex @passengershaming

Your favorite creative project you’ve ever worked on, and why.

That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. Which is impossible to do. So I’ll pick three, each for a very different reason.

Volkswagen “Jet.” It’s almost 20 years old now, but I’m still very fond of this for many reasons. It was my first print work. It was an internal agency shoot-out. It was the agency’s most prestigious account. And it went on to win the agency’s first-ever gold at a global award show.

Tesco “Safety Bags.” This project underlines the fact that creativity can be a game changer. It’s what clients are paying us for. To think laterally and solve problems. And here, the client took a big leap with us.

JBL “Block Out the Chaos.” It’s one of those rare ideas that felt fresh and original right from the outset. And that’s incredibly hard to achieve in print nowadays.

Your favorite creative project from the past year, and why.

Chupa Chups “A Sweet Escape.” Lovely work that hits on the insight of the pressure that children—and parents—face in Asia these days. It brings a smile to my face.

Samsung “BACK2LIFE.” The fact that we surprised gamers by building hands-on CPR training right into the game itself, without making the game suck, is pretty cool.

Penguin “Lose Yourself in a Book.” I just love the passion and craft that went into these intricate illustrations.

Someone else’s creative project that inspired you years ago.

Aside from bona fide hall-of-famers like “1984” and “Think Different” for Apple and Guinness “Surfer,” I love ads that are ahead of their time and initially make you question whether they’re even ads at all. Then the proverbial penny drops and you realize they’ve just gone and changed the game. “Subservient Chicken” for Burger King, “The Hire” films for BMW, Sony “Balls” and Cadbury “Gorilla” all did this. Classic ads like “Think Small” and “Lemon” for Volkswagen would have done the same back in the day.

Someone else’s creative project that you’ve been envious of lately.

Childish Gambino “This Is America.”
Banksy “Love Is in the Bin.”

Your main strength as a creative person.

I’m very picky.

Your weakness or blind spot.

I’m often too picky.

One thing that always makes you happy.

Reading a good book.

One thing that always makes you sad.

Politics.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in advertising.

Sleeping.