AME's Greater China Awards Executive Jury Spotlight Interviews celebrate the exceptional minds shaping the landscape of advertising and marketing communications in Greater China. The 2024 Greater China Executive Jury includes visionary leaders renowned for creating influential, results-oriented campaigns for leading brands.

Kitty Lun, is Director, Creative Shop Greater China for META. She brings years of leadership and award-winng talent to the 2024 AME Greater China Executive Jury. Kitty served as Chairman/CEO at Lowe China, 2006-2016. In 2016, she turned a new page in her career and joined Facebook (now Meta) as Head of Creative Shop, Greater China.

At Lowe, Kitty achieved tremendous business growth and led the agency to become the most awarded agency in China in 2014 and 2015, including the world’s most awarded campaign in 2015 according to the Gunn Report and agency global rank #30.Kitty was named many times as top 10 Creative Directors of the Year and top 10 Distinguished Advertising Women of the Year. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award at New York Festival in 2005 and judged/chaired many award shows in Hong Kong , Taiwan, Chinese mainland, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, US, Canada, Eastern Europe, etc.

In the interview below, Kitty Lun shares her insights and perspective on future forward trends, emerging technology,  brands are learning e-commerce merchants, why effectiveness competitions are important and so much more.

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?  
  
Kitty Lun: All forms of commercial communications are driving result, whether brand image or direct sales transaction. Nowadays, measurement of effectiveness is so sophisticated that we will know whether we are creating real impact for every dollar spent. Competition recognizing effectiveness will draw the attention from industry on real and measureable impact rather and bring the industry the distinction between real effectiveness vs fluffy executions.     

AME Awards: What future forward trends and innovations are brands embracing for 2024?  
  
KittyLun:  Definitely AI. AI is the most misunderstood innovation of the decade. As soon as consumer facing AI gets in the hands of every human, people think of it as text, image and video generation. The power of AI is far bigger. In terms of delivery of the right content to the right people; understanding and predicting trends even before it happens and being able to advice creative ideas and executions; the ability to create and execute content that are totally customised and personalised that has never been dreamed of a few years ago. Industry leaders and practitioners should think beyond personal entertainment, learn and understand what AI can contribute to their success, learn it and deploy it. Quick.    

AME Awards: How are emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and interactive content shaping the landscape of advertising effectiveness?  
  
Kitty Lun: Fantastic technologies at our finger tip and expands our horizon. AR and VR have been around for years. Consumers are immersed in them. The industry is actually a little behind in adoption. Two things practitioners should do:   

1. learn the craft of technologies on hand and apply them on current work when approrpirate - not just for the sake of using it or just being cool. Technology should serve the idea, not the other way round.  

2. Keep an eye out on new technologies. They are cropping up everywhere, all the time. Keep abreast of what’s happening, learn fast and be early adopters to capture first mover advantage for your campaigns.       

AME Awards: In terms of conversational marketing, how do you develop and implement strategies that leverage AI-driven interactions to enhance the customer experience?  
  
Kitty Lun: Messenger bot is already quite advance in commercial deployment. Right now, it is rather limited in transactional function, e.g. product recommendation, purchase; and after-sales service. Enabled by AI, messaging bots of WhatsApp or Messenger can actually develop a lot more in influencing perception and purchase. The bot can be trained to deploy different personalities, learn and be able to answer questions and not just to provide answers but to anticipate needs and give recommendations before the user could even think of. It is a gold mind that we have just scratched the surface.  

AME Awards: How have brands adapted in the realm of mobile gaming? How do you design advertisements that encourage user engagement and interaction rather than passive viewing?  
  
Kitty Lun: This is a very lucrative area and has been quite sophisticated. Fantastic new ways in creative development (e.g. creators, ways of storytelling, etc.) emerge all the time to attract an audience that need constant new stimulation.   True that mobile games is developed for and used by a highly concentrated, highly homogenised group. Expanding the audience reach will give the industry tremendous potential opportunities.      

AME Awards:  How have brands adapted their advertising strategies to capitalize on the growing trend of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer models?   
  
Kitty Lun: Brands are now learning from eCommerce merchants, not just in opening their eShops and transactional campaigns. They are picking up the dynamic (AI enabled) and creative diversified approach from Ecommerce. This allows culture to lead the conversation and brands can be seen as up to date rather than stale and stagnant.