Bright Ideas in dull moments

"We don’t see any green shoots”, Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP PLC, the world’s largest marketing company by revenue, said in the recent World Economics Forum in Dalian. Despite the recent stock rally, escalation of real estate prices in Hong Kong & China, and to a smaller extent, an up-swing in prices in the US & UK, multi-national corporations are not seeing a real improvement in top line sales. As witnessed by WPP, which owns key advertising agencies including JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Grey, Dentsu, Young & Rubican, advertising dollars are in a tight purse.

Brilliant creative ideas are in dire need to maximize effectiveness of a slim budget. Recently, I scouted 2 brilliant ads, playing on words & symbols to bring up the corporate message.

The following HSBC & AIA ads are for illustration purpose only.

Years back, I came across another excellent ad, using a brilliant play on words, being very appropriate to its target audience. It was for TIME magazine, using 2 very intelligent tag lines in a series of 2 executions ~

Only TIME can tell

&

All it takes is TIME