Music to Clients’ Ears

Our journey begins in Sheung Wan, in the office of Rudi Leung (2005 MBA), Director and Founder of Hungry Digital, an agency that produces campaigns for the likes of Bank of China, Cigna, Fairwood, HSBC, L’Occitane, Standard Chartered Bank and Starbucks APAC. Rudi’s path to leading a creative agency happened with a large dash of serendipity and resulted from his endless curiosity. An award-winning advertising veteran, columnist, blogger, music critic, Rudi has also been a songwriter, trumpet player and part-time university lecturer, so wearing many hats is part of his nature.

Working as a reporter for the Hong Kong Economic Times （香港經濟日報）in the early 1990s, Rudi interviewed people from an ad agency and was offered a job there after the interview – “that's how I started my advertising career. The following year, I became a copywriter at the well-known ad agency, O&M (now known as Ogilvy). It was over 30 years ago, long before the digital era took hold. As the internet and social media emerged, I expanded my skill set from a creative director to become a digital and social media specialist.”

Social Media Conquers All

Before the advent of social media, advertising was incredibly top-down. We would see adverts on TV, hear them on radio, and see them on billboards. Great advertisements were the talk of the town, subjects of conversation at the work water cooler, and often became cultural milestones. Nowadays, with hyperinformation and a fragmented media environment, this is rarely the case. “When Facebook launched in 2004, I doubt many people would have imagined that it would become one of the largest media giants in the world. Social media was a thrilling new frontier in advertising. I saw it as an intimate channel to connect with like-minded audiences around the globe, contrasting traditional media's one-way communication.”