Chris Kyme (pictured above) continues his ‘Postcard from Hong Kong’ series. When it comes to offering encouragement and inspiration to a future generation of creative talents, the idea of letting young pretenders ‘win’ the chance to participate on the big stage at Cannes to me is right up there.
Which is why I totally applaud the Hong Kong 4As Young Kam Fan competition, which encourages young teams to compete for the chance to go to Cannes and take on the world in the Young Lions competition.
Now that all of the relentless post-Cannes 2026 “My key takeaways” and self-promoting chest-thumping posts have fizzled out (yawn), I wanted to take a closer look at how this was conducted out of interest, so I caught up with Onie Chu and her team.
In order to qualify for this (and I know this is the same for any of your own markets so forgive me if you know all this already), young local talents had to enter as two-person teams to compete in the local Young Kam Fan competition at the Kam Fan Awards here.
Which is a dedicated competition within the main event designed to nurture young talent. The teams must be from HK 4As member agencies or affiliates, be under 30, and be a full time employee of that agency (I couldn’t enter because our company is not a 4As member).
So the ultimate prize of that competition (actually I have judged for it in the past) in both the Media and Creative categories is a full sponsorship to attend the Cannes Lions and represent Hong Kong in the global Young Lions competition.
Can you imagine how exciting that must be? You’re still relatively young, you spend your days (and nights) bashing out fast-food promotional campaigns while working hard on your ideas in your spare time, and next thing you know you’re being whisked off to Cannes. In France. To rub shoulders with the global advertising and marketing big-wigs. It’s like being picked to go and play in the World Cup.
This year’s challenge
One aspect of this that’s truly encouraging is just how much enthusiasm there is to take on this challenge.
For the Young Kam Fan competition this year, there were 20 teams competing for the top spot, from which, 4 winning teams were selected to go to Cannes (imagine them telling their parents “I’ve been selected to go to France”. (These were joined by teams from independent competitions hosted by PRHK and the HK2As.)
Let me now list out who they were, just to further put their name in lights and also in case your agency might want to hire them (just kidding..calm down):
The Young Kam Fan Creative Champion team: Gaius Kwong Art director and Martin Manho (Copywriter from TBWA), Media Champion Team Jasmine Chi & Stacy Choy( from Carat) PR team Kavieng Cheng Art Director and Janet Ma, Brand Executive (from Edelman) and finally Young Marketer team Kit Chan (RunOur City Foundation) & Isabel Kwan (Social Ventures Hong Kong).
Although the specific corporate and NGO briefs for these teams varied by category, ultimately what they had to do and were judged on was “cultural agility”. As one entrant commented “The biggest hurdle wasn’t just coming up with a clever idea, but developing a deep, universal consumer insight that could resonate globally, rather than just locally within Hong Kong.”
Tall order then. But these Hong Kong young guns got up there on the world stage and delivered, bringing home a Silver in the Young Lions Media category – well done to Jasmine Chi and Stacy Choy of Carat. I mean, that’s huge. And a Bronze in the Young Lions PR category, congrats to Kavieng Cheng & Janet Ma of Edelman.
This is really inspiring for future contenders, and it just goes to show that despite how dismal mainstream Hong Kong advertising is, ‘HK Got Talent’. It just needs pointing in the right direction. To echo this, I got some feedback from the participants.
“The moment that truly stuck with me was during a morning sharing session on our very first day. The speaker asked all the Young Lions where we saw ourselves in five years. It was amazing to hear so many peers from around the world share the exact same vision: inspiring the next generation,” said Jasmine Chi.
Stacy Choy echoed this. “Ultimately, I hope our win serves as an inspiration for other young marketers to trust their instincts and develop more unconventional strategies in the future.”
Kavieng Cheng reflected on just how thrilled she was to be a part of it all, and how hard they had to work. “Standing in the basement, surrounded by case study boards, I felt like a kid lost in a sweet shop—except the sweets were ideas. It was oddly reminiscent of university: a dozen of us camped in the library, researching until our eyes gave out.”
While Martin Manho said “I think the most unforgettable memory is meeting all the creatives from different countries. It’s really eye-opening to learn from other cultures and their perspectives on advertising.”
Now I’m writing about all this as if it’s the first time Hong Kong has ever been involved, but in fact, this involvementgoes back to 2011, and Hong Kong 4As has expanded on this year after year to send more candidates into more categories. So I asked Onie how she felt about this year’s performance.
“Our biggest takeaway this year is the sheer resilience and passion of our local talent. We all know that agencies are currently going through periods of streamlining and reforming), and the industry is facing its fair share of macro-level difficulties.
“Despite this, it was incredibly precious to see the younger generation striving so hard to prove themselves on the international stage. Equally moving was seeing how deeply the agencies supported their young co-workers—whether through financial backing, mentorship, or just pure cheering and encouragement. It truly felt like, despite the market challenges, the entire Hong Kong ad industry shares the exact same heartbeat and goal of elevating our creative standards globally.”
The key thing for me is, what’s next? I have always been one for helping nurture the future generations. Even today I say yes to any opportunities which involved training, teaching or inspiring. I’m still actively involved at Hong Kong Poly U, with my History of Advertising Course, as well as teaching copywriting.
I’ve seen enough to know that young people who enter our industry have the talent and the desire, but it’s up to agencies to guide them, grow them, and provide them with opportunities that go beyond delivering daily rice-bowl work that pays the bills. They have a responsibility to invest in further training for these hungry youngsters. They want it.
Onie echoed this “To truly help young creatives, the industry needs to treat them as the core drivers of our future rather than just junior support. We need to carve out safe spaces for them to take risks, fail, and innovate without fear, while actively pairing them with seasoned mentors who can help them navigate the realities of the business.”
Participant Janet Ma added “I left Cannes feeling motivated, not because I found all the answers, but because I discovered how much more there is to explore, learn and create.”
“This experience gave me great ideas for my job. It changed the way I think about event design and marketing. I learned that marketing is not just about posting on social media platforms. It is about adding real value and meaning to what we do,” said Kit Chan.
I truly hope that the local industry is looking and learning and realizing the potential that resides on its doorstep. So this little adventure is more than just a one-off event that happens every year but doesn’t help drive industry creativity, and therefore growth.
Inspiring creative people must go way beyond just picking up a couple of awards. They need to be inspired every day in what they do. It’s pretty clear from the responses that they did come back inspired. As Isabel Kwan commented “The most memorable moments were seeing the creativity of global brands brought to life through bold campaigns.”
To be fair, Hong Kong 4As are doing their part. By expanding our collaborations with local institutions and universities to host regular talks, workshops, and sharing sessions. As Onie says “We want to ensure that the inspiration and global insights our delegates bring back from Cannes are funneled directly back into the local ecosystem to inspire the next wave of creatives.”
So well done all. I’ll let participant Gaius Kwong leave you with this thought: “This will help my career immensely. During the event I was constantly surrounded by both great creatives and great work that I aspire to make and become. It opened my eyes to what award-winning work actually looks like up close, how the best creatives think and operate, and I want to bring that energy and that standard back into everything I do moving forward.”
Read Chris Kyme’s most recent Postcard’s from Hong Kong below:
The importance of training
Coming home
Back to the future
Are you up for the Kam Funs?
Over qualified or over the hill?
Mind the (creative) gap
