Home grown talent

Lim Sau Hoong - Visual Advisor - 10AM Communications
Armed with experience from advertising powerhouses such as Ogilvy & Mather Singapore and the BBDO network, Lim Sau Hoong started 10AM Communications in 2000. Having brought her Midas touch with her, Sau Hoong has created many unforgettable commercials, including work for China's national TV station, CCTV, and the Bank of China campaign that garnered over 70 international awards. On the personal front, Sau Hoong currently sits on a Planning Committee for the 2008 Beijing Olympics' Opening Ceremony as a visual advisor and was recently voted as one of the top 3 most influential people in media, marketing, and advertising in Singapore.

March 10, 2008
Slogan queen
Bilingual and bicultural, Lim Sau Hoong overcame discrimination in a male-dominated ad world to top the game, and her eloquence in Mandarin and English has earned her a spot on the world stage
By Wong Kim Hoh

ADVERTISING hotshot Lim Sau Hoong says a lot of things during the interview which are unprintable.

No, she does not cuss like a fishmonger's wife. But she is a woman gagged by several non-disclosure agreements.

That makes it rather difficult for her to address the various rumours swirling around her of late.

Will she confirm that she's selling 10AM Communications, the seven-year-old award-winning advertising agency of which she is co-founder and chief executive? And that the deal is worth several tens of millions of dollars?

Is it true she has been asked to handle the branding of an iconic American electronics brand in Asia?

And since she is the only Singaporean roped in to help Chinese film director Zhang Yimou orchestrate the opening of the Beijing Olympics, can she let on just a teensy-weensy bit of what's in store?

We are in her office on the 12th floor of Sunshine Plaza in Bencoolen Street. Ensconced in a classic Arne Jacobsen egg chair, the impeccably dressed 40something (she wouldn't disclose her exact age) widens her eyes and squirms in mock fear each time she gets thrown a sensitive question.

She's seasoned enough not to try to deny what's true but artfully appeals for some things to be off the record.

Yes, there is an offer to buy her company. And yes, she will be handling the Asian branding campaign for the American electronics giant.

But no, she cannot say who the client is. And no, no, no, she can't say what Zhang has planned for the Olympics opening ceremony in August. All she would let on is this: 'He's very sure about what he wants, and knows how to get it.'

She then protests: 'I can't say more, I really can't.'

A local poll done by Singapore-based Marketing magazine last year ranked her as one of the top three most influential people in media and advertising here. However, her influence extends beyond Singapore.

Her resume is sterling. She is the one behind the immensely successful Guinness campaign in the early 1990s which had Hong Kong singer-actor George Lam mouthing cryptic words of wisdom.

Another campaign for the Bank of China not only became the longest running in Asia but also reaped more than 70 international awards.

And there is also her commercial for CCTV2, China's national broadcaster. Shot in Beijing, Shanghai and the Mu Dan river region in North China, the advertisement was broadcast to the nation's 1.2 billion viewers. The accompanying slogan 'There is a stage in everyone's heart. How big is your stage?' became one of the country's most memorable advertising slogans.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has publicly lauded her as a bilingual and bicultural Singaporean who can connect with China.

He did this when he launched Business China - an organisation aimed at building cultural and economic bridges between China and Singapore - with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Singapore last November.

Lim, who occasionally lapses into delightfully mellifluous Mandarin, says she did not set out to be the poster girl of advertising and biculturalism here.

Devouring Chinese classics

SHE is the third of four children. Her parents ran a garment factory and they lived in a house in Upper Serangoon Road.

When she was five, she was sent to playschool where she learnt to speak proper Mandarin, act, sing and dance. She went to Parry Primary School in Serangoon, won inter-school Chinese oratorical and storytelling competitions and told stories on radio.

By the time she was in her teens, she had already devoured classic Chinese novels such as Tale Of The Three Kingdoms, Water Margin and Dream Of The Red Chamber.

She aced Chinese throughout her school days. Her English is also pretty polished, which she attributes to her diet of Enid Blyton story books during her childhood and Mills & Boons romances in her teens.

The Catholic Junior College alumnus went on to earn a degree in Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore, where she was named Best Speaker in an inter-varsity Chinese debate.

Even as a student, the music lover, who obtained her Grade 8 piano certificate in her teens, found that she could make money with her oratorical skills.

She was a producer cum presenter for classical music on Radio 5 for the former Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), now known as MediaCorp. On television, she hosted Focus, a Mandarin current affairs programme.

However, she rejected a job offer from SBC upon graduation. 'I'd done frontline as well as behind-the-scenes work on both radio and TV. I wanted to learn something new,' she says.

So she became a Chinese language and music teacher at Anglo-Chinese Junior College, but stayed for just one year. 'I loved my students but I could just see myself doing the same thing 20 years down the road,' says Lim, who by then had married a doctor. They have two sons, aged 20 and 15.

She sent out scores of job applications to advertising agencies. In 1988, she turned up for an interview with Ogilvy & Mather (O&M). The creative director gave her an assignment and told her to come back with a concept the next morning.

'It was a promotional exercise for California Cling Peaches. I turned up first thing the next morning. The guy turned up half drunk after lunch,' she recalls.

He liked what she did and hired her. 'O&M was a fantastic experience. I was thrown into the deep end,' she says.

Her big break came in 1989 with the Guinness Stout account: 'At that time, Guinness was perceived as a blue-collar drink. The expats in my office didn't want to touch it so it was given to me.'

The result was the Words of Wisdom campaign which had Lam spouting witty lines such as 'Some people believe that man has to constantly adjust to suit his surroundings. I believe it is better to adjust the surroundings to suit the man'.

The campaign, which ran for six years, was a huge hit, winning awards not just locally but in places such as Hong Kong and Taiwan too.

She was promoted from junior copywriter to assistant creative director, and her pay jumped nearly three-fold to about $6,000. She also got to pick more 'posh' accounts to work on, such as Shell, Nestle, BMW and Bank of China.

However, she recalls: 'Being a woman in an ad agency was not easy. There was still a lot of discrimination. Mind you, 90 per cent of creative directors were men.''

But the self-confessed loner avoided the parties, ignored the politics and held her own: 'At the end of the day, your work speaks for itself. If it earns awards, if clients like it, no one can say anything.'

Hard mouth, soft heart

AFTER 11 years, she moved to another agency, BBDO. But, after a year there and lots of soul searching, she made the brave decision to set up her own company. 'I didn't have the guts initially, not when I was drawing a big fat salary,' says Lim who was then taking home between $20,000 and $40,000 a month.

Logic, however, prevailed. 'I'd picked up several hundred awards; none of them was for scam ads,' she says, referring to advertisements which agencies create specially for competitions and run without the knowledge and consent of clients.

The greatest carrot was being able to pick clients and people to work with. So in October 2000, she set up 10AM Communications with several investors.

They started out with eight staff and now have 25. Several of them, such as art director Liew Shih How, have worked with her for almost 15 years.

Mr Liew, 36, says: 'She's a good boss, she has a hard mouth but a very soft heart. Not only is she creative, but she's also very daring and very decisive. She's taught me how to be persuasive.''

Lim admits to being soft, especially with people.

'I wish I could be tougher. But I'm very serious and very anal when it comes to work. I will not rest until every single shade or note is right,'' says the woman who personally chooses the music for all her commercials, and who has also written a few jingles.

One of 10AM's first jobs was for mobile phone Sony Ericsson, an account which it won despite competing against big boys such as Leo Burnett and Saatchi.

The commercial - featuring a girl taking a photo of a squirrel - became one of the hottest in town, and led to a series of other coups, the most prized being the US$500,000 advertising campaign for CCTV2.

Lim says she was given the account without having to pitch. 'They had seen my past work, including my ad for Bank of China. When I received a call asking me to fly to Beijing, I was a bit sceptical so I asked them to fax the contract over.'

They did. Lim says: 'The Chinese tell me that although I'm Singaporean, I understand their culture and have a very special touch.'

Mr Freddie Yeo, 38, general manager of post-production outfit Infinite Frameworks, says she's very rare in the advertising industry: 'Not only is she well versed in English and Chinese, she is also excellent at managing clients. She exudes such confidence that clients feel reassured that everything is in her good hands.''

Small wonder then that her creative counterparts, as well as dignitaries from both Singapore and China, soon started seeking her out.

MM Lee asked to meet her at the Istana last year, to find out how she connects with the Chinese.

'I was not scared but very excited. He's my idol,'' she says of that meeting where they chatted for 90 minutes.

'He spoke mostly in Mandarin and he was very sincere in finding out how I learnt both languages. He used a bit of English too, but that's probably to test mine,'' she says, with a laugh.

Her advice to youngsters learning Mandarin?

'Try and have fun. Just absorb and be very focused about it. And be willing to chi ku. There are no shortcuts.'' Chi ku means 'eat bitterness' in Chinese or endure hardship.

The Chinese in China respect her, she says, because she has a good grasp of the intricacies and nuances of their language.

'They can be very subtle when expressing themselves. A few generations in South-east Asia have changed us completely. We are softer and more fragile. They are tougher; they have gone through the Cultural Revolution and other big historical events.''

Haute designers and diamonds

LIM isn't just masterful when it comes to Chinese semantics, she is just as conversant with the language of fashion.

'I'm quite materialistic, I love to shop,'' she says sheepishly. Names such as Marni, Dries van Noten, BCBG Max Azria trip off her tongue when asked about her favourite designers.

Besides a penchant for shoes by Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin, she also owns 'about eight or nine Birkins and a few Kellys''.

These are iconic bags by high-end fashion label Hermes - one bag can cost more than $10,000.

'I also love diamonds. I always go to diamond auctions,'' she says as your eyes gravitate to the two 3-carat rings adorning each of her hands.

'I don't feel guilty about it, I earn my own money. And when I do feel guilty, I try to stop,' says Lim, who is building a bungalow after securing a URA plot near Sembawang Beach for nearly $1 million last year.

She is still mulling over the offer to sell her company which has annual billings of about $20 million. She says an agency 'is not a provision shop. You can't pass it to your son who will then pass it to your grandson''.

She acknowledges the benefits of a sale: 'I can reward myself and my staff. And they will let me run my own company but I will get the network support of an international group.'' Still, she is torn.

'I'm quite proud it's a home-grown agency which has become a Singapore brand.''

She quips: 'I'm a very hard-core Singaporean, you know. I went to NUS, bank with DBS and fly SIA.''