Written by: Charlene Wang, Ryan Yeo, and Gabriel Ramsey
“Wars have been fought over ideas, make yours a worthy one.”
The above quote is one that Benson Toh, executive creative director of creative agency DDB Singapore, believes in strongly. The media industry has been rapidly changing in recent years, with the advent of new technologies and trends, leading to an audience that demands fresh and original ideas in the content that they consume.
In Singapore, it is no different, with the growing popularity of agencies having to adopt innovative methods to market and produce content. Remember the “London Choco Roll, milky choco taste, double choco treat!” jingle? This advertisement was part of Singapore’ effort to make their marketing campaigns more innovative.
(Photo: Marilyn Lim and Germaine Nam)
The Great A-Salt
In May 2023, Benson, together with DDB Singapore’s CEO Jeff Cheong and their team, was at Temasek Polytechnic to talk about their ‘multiverse blockbuster’, “The Great A-Salt”. They shared about its production process and creative direction, as well as other projects that they have worked on, such as “Kinship”, the famous Hari Raya short film from PUB.
“Kinship ended on a cliffhanger, where nothing was really resolved between the two brothers. This actually led to many fan theories being posted online, and we started to think about audience engagement. Because people wanted more, we thought, ‘Why not let the audience write the ending?’”, said Jeff.
This called for a prompt for an open interpretation of the story to be put out, giving the opportunity for audiences to visualise what their own ending of the video looked like. This time, instead of solely the creative team, the viewers could let their creative juices flow too, boosting the video’s outreach and popularity.
(Photo: Marilyn Lim and Germaine Nam)
BENSON'S JOURNEY
Albert Einstein once said: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” So how does one embark on a career where imagination and creativity take the driver’s seat?
Benson graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a Diploma in Visual Communications. His rise to prominence began when he joined DDB Group Singapore, where his creative genius propelled him to become one of the top 10 highest-ranking creative directors at Cannes in 2011.
Since then, his accolades have continued to accumulate, including prestigious awards from D&AD, One Show, Spikes Asia, AdFest, and the Creative Circle. With his talent and recognition, he leads a 102-strong creative department.ors at Cannes in 2011.
Throughout Benson’s time in the media industry, there have been many up-and-coming elements that have contributed in improving the quality of new media-related projects. One notable factor that Benson had opened up about was artificial intelligence, which has been a game-changer for creative teams embarking on modern projects.
(Photo: Marilyn Lim and Germaine Nam)
THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
With the introduction of more prevalent Artificial Intelligence softwares such as ChatGPT in our daily lives, AI can play a part in the creative team’s ideation and brainstorming in the pre-production process.
“I think that the industry is quite different with this new (system) coming out, so I think you have a lot of creative people trying to explore its possibilities,” he said.
Quickly adapting to this new wave of AI being released, Benson briefed his creative team about the ‘dos and don’ts’ of utilising systems such as ChatGPT for their innovation process.
“One of the projects that first came out had a pitch, so we input what the client asked for, and everything that came out was actually quite an interesting deck,” he said. “Then I shared with the creatives and said, ‘This is what (Chat) GPT came up with. Don’t give me any of these ideas.”
Instead of taking direct inspiration from these softwares to carry out his work in the creative industry, Benson chose to use AI as a stepping stone to generate even greater ideas than what machines could come up with. Setting the bar with suggestions from the likes of ChatGPT, Benson materialised most of his projects’ more generic ideas and challenged his creative team to think outside the box.
He explained: “So I used technology to frame up some of the ‘would-be’ answers for the staff not to explore in those areas. But I think it’s good as a form of exploration to find some sort of insight. It can give you (many different) inspirations and so on.”
(Photo: Marilyn Lim and Germaine Nam)
BENSON'S VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Benson shed light on his unique creative process. He spoke of his desire to challenge traditional boundaries and push the envelope, particularly when it comes to the Asian cultural context. Acknowledging the concerns of many Asian clients towards daring concepts, Benson embarked on a mission to inject audacious elements into his campaigns.
One way that Benson tries to be creative in his work is by posing unique exercises with his creative team. The activity resulted in his team choosing 5 different topics ranging from Lee Kuan Yew to a lizard. The goal was to somehow incorporate each element in future advertistments.
He said: “The end goal is there, so how do you try to get somewhere with it? With this new technology, we want to experiment and create something with AI. From this, we can see how it can help with storytelling by inputs or by trends and whether they are smart enough to predict certain things.”
Benson is also a keen advocate for leveraging new technologies to enhance storytelling. Notably, he expresses an interest in harnessing the power of AI to shape narratives through data inputs and trend predictions. By embracing AI-driven insights, Benson believes that storytelling can be elevated to new heights, allowing marketers to stay one step ahead of audience expectations.nds and whether they are smart enough to predict certain things.”
“I (also think) with the new technology, what we want to do is something that is created from AI. Seeing how AI can help with storytelling (through) inputs or trends, (we can see) whether they are smart enough to predict certain things,” he shared.
In an era defined by constant change and technological advancements, Benson’s pursuit of creative excellence serves as an inspiration to aspiring young minds in the industry and proof that the possibilities for storytelling are endless.
(Photo: Marilyn Lim and Germaine Nam)
BENSON'S MESSAGE FOR ASPIRING CONTENT CREATORS
1. PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE
One of the points that Benson heavily emphasised was persevering during hard times. Back when Benson was fresh out of national service, he found it tough to keep up with his female counterparts that were already one step ahead of him.
“Don’t give up, because I think you will have a lot of rejection. I remember when I first started, I was like you guys, when all the guys went for national service, all my female classmates got all the cushy jobs,” he said with a laugh.
In response to this, he jumped into action. He prepared an extensive portfolio that showcased both old and new ideas to prospective employers.
He said: “Two to three months before (going for job interviews) I started preparing my portfolio. I took up some old things, and some new ones (to showcase in my portfolio). I had some new ideas and I just called everybody. I sent (my portfolio) to close to 10 agencies.”
Benson’s hard work would eventually pay off, securing a job by the time he finished his 2nd interview.
“It was a steep learning curve because if you don’t have the perseverance and passion for it, you will wake up feeling like, ‘I don’t want to go to work.’”
2. PASSION TRIUMPHS ALL
Benson emphasised that “nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.”
Once said by famous American singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi, Benson shares a similar sentiment.
“I think passion is very important. For me right, I still feel excited to go to work everyday, projects excite me, but sometimes they give me grey hair lah,” he said, laughing.
At a young age, Benson wanted to be a product designer, having fallen in love with technical drawings that he was exposed to during his technical classes in secondary school. This led him to visit TP’s open house to find out more about product design (back when the campus was still at Sterling Road!) where he ironically ignited his passion for graphic design instead.
While wandering around, Benson came across a classroom and saw people playing Carrom and computer games. Immediately, he wanted to know more.
“I was like, what class is this? What school is it? So I went to ask them and they told me they did design. They were taking a break, trying to find some inspiration. From there, I knew that’s what I wanted to go into.”
For the remainder of his time in secondary school, Benson exposed himself to everything design related. Designing posters, and taking part in designing in general whenever he could.
Despite the switch in interests, there was one common thing that fueled him – passion.
“The passion just grew and grew, and eventually, ya.”
3. BENSON'S GUIDE TO OVERCOMING MENTAL BLOCKS
No one likes mental blocks, especially Benson who oversees a large team of creatives as a Creative Director. But even with twenty four years of industry experience under his belt, he admits that mental blocks still plague him from time to time.
To combat mental blocks, Benson recommends that you look at the problem from all angles.
“Maybe you look at it from this angle, another day you look at it from that (angle), why don’t you look at it from underneath? So you just need to play with the product, or rather, play with the problem that you have, and try to tackle it in all different ways.”
But above all, he believes that the best way to combat mental block is through some good ol’ human interaction.
“Sometimes I talk to my kids. They give me some ideas, not all are good, but most of the time they ask you weird questions, my kid is quite young,” he said.
“So they’ll just say, ‘Why didn’t you do this? Why did you do that?’ You just get some ideas from there. Talk to people, I think that’s important.”
