The advertising industry is the core industry in the creative industry. In recent years, foreign-funded companies have gradually penetrated into the domestic advertising market, domestic companies have become more internationalized, and new media such as the Internet are widely used in advertising.

Once the soul of the overall operation of an advertising agency, the creative department is facing the test of new changes.

In order to understand the basic status of creative activities in China's advertising industry, this magazine organized this national questionnaire survey specifically for the creative departments of the 150 largest advertising companies in the country.

Foreign funding to promote local creative foreign-funded companies plays a significant role in improving the overall creative level.

This survey found that a total of about 48.1% of the respondents believed that local companies were higher than or equal to foreign-funded companies in terms of creativity; about 51.9% believed that foreign capital levels were higher. The questionnaire asked respondents to list companies with the highest level of creativity.

One Chinese and one foreign-funded advertising company.

Among Chinese-funded companies, Guangdong Advertising Company, Ye Maozhong Planning and Meigao Advertising Company have the highest level of creativity, with a response rate of 10.9%. More than one-third of the respondents believe that Ogilvy has the highest level of creativity among foreign-funded companies, with a response rate of 10.9%.

The rate was 33.8%; two foreign-funded companies, including JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi, were selected and recognized by about 18.2% and 14.3% of creative people respectively.

In recent years, local creative talents working in foreign-funded companies have started their own businesses, such as Shanghai Alliance Advertising founded by Ogilvy employees; or they have returned to local companies. Ye Maozhong said that the talent exchange in the advertising industry has been completed.

Many local companies have introduced a large number of talents from 4A, bringing advanced concepts and operating techniques, gradually narrowing the gap between local and multinational companies.

In terms of popularizing creative concepts, cultivating creative talents, promoting industry recognition of the value of creativity, and introducing creative theories, the historical contributions made by foreign-funded companies to the domestic advertising industry have been recognized by more than three-quarters of the respondents, among which

The winning rate for the first two items reached 82.3%. Global creativity should be combined with local needs.

More than 60% of the heads of creative departments agree that foreign investment has the advantages of keeping pace with international trends, having a large number of creative talents, and having sufficient funds. Approximately 65.4%, 64.1%, and 62.8% of respondents chose these three items respectively. Ogilvy recently

Winning a large global promotion order from New Lenovo is a reflection of this advantage.

On the other hand, the characteristics of transnational operations are inevitably incompatible with China's national conditions. As Piyush Pandey, chairman of the Cannes jury in 2004, said, global creativity is the biggest threat to creativity.

More than half of the respondents believe that the two most prominent disadvantages of foreign-funded creativity are: the creative does not consider the acceptance of domestic advertising audiences, and the creativity is not suitable for the cultural taste of domestic customers, about 55.4% and 52.7% respectively.

Respondent selection; at the same time, foreign-funded creativity also has shortcomings such as being too idealistic and not understanding the real needs of customers.

In the mainland market that is about to be fully liberalized, foreign advertising companies are increasing their efforts to compete for local customers, and Dentsu is a pioneer in this regard.

At present, Chinese customers account for more than 50% of Beijing Dentsu's total business, with major customers including Lenovo and Haier.

Say goodbye to creativeism. As many as 80.3% of the respondents believe that a successful company should first have first-class creativity. However, three commercialization indicators such as leading business performance, having the most important customers in the industry, and widespread dissemination of works have also received great attention.

, of which the selection rates accounted for about 75.0%, 64.5% and 50.0% respectively; good reputation in the industry accounted for about 67.1%, but only about 36.8% of the respondents believed that winning foreign advertising awards was the main sign of a successful company.

The level of creativity is still regarded as the most important indicator for defining a successful advertising company, but the rigid indicators of advertising operations are more valued by the interviewees. Considering that the interviewees are all creative directors, this shows that the domestic advertising industry has a considerable understanding of the industrial attributes of advertising.

Clear perception.

The survey found that among the main businesses of the advertising companies participating in the survey, advertising planning and advertising creativity ranked in the top two, accounting for approximately 55.1% and 47.4% respectively, media advertising agency and sales accounted for approximately 42.3%, and design and production accounted for approximately 34.6%.

Among the advertising companies interviewed, the creative department is relatively small. Half of the companies have less than 10 creative employees, accounting for about 49.4%; companies with 11-30 people account for about 43.0%, and companies with more than 30 people only account for 7.6%.

%. In terms of funds occupied, companies with more than 50% of the funds in the creative department accounted for about 16.4%, and companies with funds accounting for 30% to 50% totaled about 39.7%; companies with 100 to 30% of the funds totaled about 37.0%; about 6.8

% of the interviewed companies have less than 10% of the funds for the creative department; after weighted calculation, the creative department occupies nearly one-third of the company's total funds on average, accounting for about 32.5%. About 10% of the companies surveyed have creative departments that can generate more than 50% of the company's revenue.

27.5%, about 30.4% of the companies have 30% to 50% from creativity; about 30.4% have 10% to 30%; about 11.5% of the companies interviewed have less than 10% of the revenue from the creative department; after weighted calculation, on average, companies

One-third of the total revenue comes from the creative department, accounting for about 36.8%. The output-input ratio of the creative department is about 1.13. For the company's overall profitability, the creative department can no longer provide performance support beyond that of the general department.