An open mind and an innovative approach help Leo Burnett Hong Kong creative director Connie Lo through days packed with meetings
MY TYPICAL DAY involves lots of meetings - with clients, with my creative team, the account servicing people, and maybe the production house.
You could say that the first meeting, the point where an advertising job begins, is when we go to a client and pick up the brief - the background to whatever product the company wants us to help advertise. Then the account servicing department develops it before handing it back to the creative department - that is my team.
We then have to discuss how to approach the project. We do lots of brainstorming and some market research to help fine-tune our ideas. Eventually we go back to the client with our suggestions, which are usually rejected at this stage.
So we come back with the second brief - the debrief - and work on it again. That is how a single client account develops but, on any given day, my team and I are working on various accounts at different stages of development.
I also have a management role, which means lots of meetings. This includes sessions with managing partners. And although we are the creative department, we still need to discuss projects with other departments - they might have their own ideas about a job.
I have been in advertising for 15 years, and with Leo Burnett a little over five years. I did not study advertising. I studied Chinese literature at Baptist University and, at the time of graduation, I did not know anything about advertising or what I would do.