Dream Teams: Under the Golden Arches

Tony and Iker are a creative duo working on one of the local market’s biggest marketers and most awarded brands, McDonald’s Hong Kong. The account is known for its complexity, range of workflow, and pace.

If you’ve seen any recent work from McDonald’s Hong Kong, one of the local market’s most-awarded brands, then you’re already familiar with the work of Tony Cheung and Iker Lin. The DDB creative directors are known for their range of complex work for the brand, and over the course of a now five-year partnership, Tony and Iker have been the creative minds behind myriad successful brand campaigns.

This year the partners have already picked up multiple awards at Hong Kong’s Kam Fan Awards and MARKies Awards, as well as prizes at both Adfest and Spikes Asia.

And if you ask them, the magic was there from their first meeting.

“On her first day, she asked lots of questions and showed genuine interest in learning more,” Tony recalls. “I felt she was immediately passionate about the McDonald’s brand, and also struck me as someone who was generally humble and always willing to help.”

According to Tony, Iker has never lost her passion for the brand, nor has her compassionate, dependable nature waned.

And her impression of Tony has not changed much either.

“He still loves the brand, maybe even more these days,” she says. ”He always comes across as both confident and passionate when sharing his thinking and ideas. He’s respected as a leader who is responsible, insightful and decisive – all traits which make him especially great to have around when there is the need to urgently respond to tasks.

For this duo, the secret to their collaboration is craft, specifically how their styles complement each other.

“Although I am an art-based creative and Iker is copy-based, we tend to think of the ‘story’ first,” Tony says. “We both believe insights are best communicated through words. We work closely and collaboratively on executing our ideas, regardless of our original skillset – I take on some copy jobs, and she takes on some art jobs.”

Iker herself admires Tony’s working style, describing his art direction as out-of-the-box and generous. “He’s always committed to the idea and to the creative delivery as a whole,” she says.

“I think good craft is about creating something that resonates with people or at least entertains them. I am always reading and researching, which helps my craft and also ensures I keep an open mind, which helps me identify and appreciate good insights. I find reading biographies or real-life accounts helps my work maintain an authenticity and connection with audiences.”

The pair’s adherence to their ‘good-craft’ doctrine has propelled them to local industry notoriety. Managing McDonald’s brand messaging isn’t easy, however, especially when you’re looking to innovate.

Iker recalls a McDonald’s campaign from a few years ago for their breakfast menu as one such risky spot.

“It was the first time we proposed a romantic storyline to run the whole year, as a way to sell different breakfast products,” she says.

“The client had long been using the approach of a series of videos featuring appetising shots, so it felt like a challenge to incorporate this extra element of entertainment around the products. We presented a series of mini-episode storylines for the whole year in one go to give the client confidence in the idea.”

Thankfully the pitch was well received, and the client ultimately appreciated the initiative of Tony and Iker. The resulting campaign was vindicated by positive sales results.

It’s one thing to be at the top of your creative game, it’s another to sustain your creative output, especially in the face of a changing world.

Tony, having spent some time now in the industry, says the commercial landscape in the region has evolved significantly – especially with the emergence of AI and ChatGPT.

“I think it is becoming more challenging to capture people’s attention and to keep them engaged,” Tony says. “Media selection needs to be very carefully considered to ensure the right people see what we want to communicate.”

Rapid global change is also a cornerstone of Tony’s advice for young creatives.

“The world is changing rapidly, but insight and storytelling skills remain the core of good creative ideas,” he says. “I regularly remind younger team members of this as they shape their ideas and their careers.”

As for what the future holds for Tony and Iker, their current run of form has certainly been noticed by the industry at large. But if there were any concerns of stagnation at DDB, Iker is happy to put those to rest.

 

“I think that as we understand each other and the brand more, the chemistry will only get better, and the process will only go more smoothly,” she says.