Singapore’s Creative Directors Want Love Not Money

According to Singapore’s Institute of Advertising, the City’s Creative Directors are feeling distinctly unloved these days. They are being overlooked by the government and the public and are, as a result, suffering from low self-esteem. In a response to this terrible state of affairs, it has initiated a competition to find the ‘Creative Director of the Year’. Patrick Mowe, Honorary Secretary of the Institute, is quoted as saying: ‘Some of these talented people feel they are not appreciated outside a very narrow group and the generous salaries are no compensation.’


We couldn’t agree more. All of that dosh just doesn’t make up for the fact that the general public doesn’t know, or care, just how clever we really are and what a huge contribution we make to society as a whole. It’s heartbreaking really.

The generous salaries, long lunches, exotic location shoots and annual trip to Cannes, are scant reward for the emptiness and lack of self-esteem that anonymity brings.

Could this lack of respect and recognition be because creative directors are, on the whole, such a modest and unassuming bunch; preferring to stay out of the limelight while others bask in the glory? After all, when was the last time you saw a creative director step forward to take the credit for a piece of award winning work that he or she was only vaguely connected with?

To be fair to Mr Mowe, his brief is to ‘Brand Singapore as a creative hub’, whatever that means. But I wonder; if the general public were to really find out what goes on in the average advertising agency would they be falling over themselves in approbation?