Uprising: Jay Lee on Diversity, a Hong Kong Childhood, and Making a Difference

“I grew up in Hong Kong (I was born there), but my family's actually French.”

As Jay tells me this, I nod along, fascinated. It’s already a curious mix of backgrounds for someone now working for Host/Havas in Melbourne. And then he keeps going.

“I grew up in a French school. I studied French my whole life. French was actually my first language.  But then on the streets, and with my aunt who raised me, I was speaking Cantonese, then I spoke French with my mom, and I spoke Mandarin with my grandma, and I spoke English with some of my friends , and French at school.”

At this point, I realise that Jay’s self-professed devotion to diversity and multiculturalism is more than just a set of values. They’re the essence of his entire life.

Jay is 29 years old, with seven years of industry experience. He’s been a copywriter for Geometry Global, McCann Worldgroup, and Leo Burnett, all in Hong Kong, and has just moved to Australia with his wife and professional partner, art director Anastasia Simone. 

“We landed in July, so we’re really fresh off the boat.” 

Jay laughs easily, but his demeanour is anything but relaxed. He’s focused, and quietly determined. You don’t doubt him when he says he views advertising as a way to change culture, and that his goals are to do just that.

“I'm really excited to learn a little bit more about Australian culture. You know, me and my partner have this mission of really trying to integrate more positive representation of minorities into our work. And I think that in Australia, there's a lot of space for that… I come from a market in Hong Kong where the price of acting talent is is dependent on race. Where something like the colour of your skin can still determine your value. It's a place where blackface is still seen on national TV. So including diversity and positive representation in our work is something that my partner and I take very seriously.”

One of the things I find most striking about Jay is his commitment not only to the idea of advertising as a force for cultural good, but his joy at it as well. For all his focus and drive, he speaks almost always with a half smile, driven by a clear and earnest pleasure in his work.

“I come from a very business-focused family, but I always held an admiration for creative professionals. I actually wanted to study game design, but my parents didn’t really see that as a real career.”

That easy laugh again.

“So advertising started out as a way for me to bridge those two worlds (business and creativity), and keep my parents happy, but it soon became something more.”

I ask Jay just what he means by “something more”. This time he doesn’t laugh. This time, he pauses, and that quiet, serious determination comes to the fore.

“So straight out of school, on our first day of work, me and my partner's first real brief was for WWF. And the task was to get enough signatures on a petition to end the ivory trade in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong at the time was still the world capital of the ivory trade. It was this crazy opportunity - two juniors fresh out of school; literally our first brief! And what we came up with… well, it was deeply rooted in culture. We looked at the language. 

During brainstorming, my partner asked me, out of curiosity, how do you say ivory in Cantonese? And it dawned on us that ivory, in both Mandarin and Cantonese (象牙), means elephant tooth - literally. And that, in turn, got us thinking ‘do people actually think it's just a tooth because of the way the language works?’ 

We did a little bit of research, and we found, after a few surveys, that a lot of people in China especially didn't realise that the process of extracting ivory from an elephant would actually kill it. Because a lot of people would think that it's just like pulling a tooth. That was a problem that was really deeply rooted in language, and we’d never have found it if we didn’t approach things from a position of ‘culture first’.

So our idea, basically, was to create a new Chinese character for ivory. We worked with literary experts from universities, and we crowd sourced. We created a digital platform where you would draw a new Chinese character. You'd literally invent one and then that would be your petition signature. That eventually actually made it through to the Legislative Council. We got the ivory trade banned. That really, I think, is the moment where I realised how powerful an idea that's rooted in culture could be. It really made me realise that having a multicultural background is something that can be really like an asset.”

Jay closed the story humbly and quietly, but it’s a remarkable tale, and a testament to the value of his approach to advertising. Having started with a passion for game design, it’s clear that some of his love of interactivity stems from that. But most of it, no doubt, comes from a desire to reach people where they live. To touch them, and to use creativity as the powerful, positive force it really can be.

“I think at the end of the day, it has to be meaningful. It has to be interesting. People are seeing so many ads nowadays. Everything's getting pushed so hard. So unless you have that kind of meaningful cultural edge, it’s just not going to cut through. That’s one of the reasons that made me want to join the team at Host/Havas. And I like doing meaningful work; it really fulfils me. And of course…”

That laugh again, even easier than before.

“It helps that you know, I get to hang out with my wife all along the way.”