Steve Hough, Memac Ogilvy & Mather’s new executive creative director has big shoes to fill, coming as he does, to take the place of Till Hohmann who moved to Germany earlier this year to head up JWT’s creative department.
“Till was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met,” said Edmond Moutran, chairman and CEO of Memac Ogilvy & Mather Holding MENA, at the time. “He’s left a legacy; he’s left his mark after a very short period of time.” But Moutran also said he wasn’t worried about finding someone to take Hohmann’s place. That someone is Hough.
Hough brings with him a wealth of experience from the Far East. He was the fifth most awarded creative in Asia in 2005, the top ranked creative in Malaysia for two years running, and was later ranked as the top creative in Vietnam for two years running during his stint as executive creative director at Saatchi Vietnam. And Hough says he is excited to share the knowledge of those years with his new Dubai agency. “My general philosophy is: I’m very passionate about pushing for great work and I’m very passionate about training,” he says.
“I think you can only build a great department through a lot of training and working very closely with people, so I like to roll my sleeves up and work with all the teams,” he continues. “I see the job of a creative director is like being a coach, and it’s a nurturing kind of role, really. This is an opportunity for me to share all the knowledge I’ve learnt from working with some real icons in Southeast Asia. I want to share that knowledge, take it, extend it, further it, and we will hopefully get results, and do great work on our brands.”
Hough has been in Dubai for about two months, during which he says he has studied the regional advertising industry closely. “Even while I was in Asia, I observed that the advertising industry in the Middle East is improving quite drastically,” he says. “And I think the Dubai Lynx awards were a catalyst for raising the standard; the standard is already good, so now it’s a matter of getting more world class work out. It’s a fascinating region and it’s attracting a lot more talent, so it’s an evolving thing. There are pockets of greatness.”
Following Ogilvy’s strong performance at the Dubai Lynx last year – Memac Ogilvy Dubai was agency of the year, and did particularly well in the Integrated category – Hough is intent on keeping up the agency’s standards, strengthening its integrated campaigns, and diversifying into other categories. “We will generate as much work as we possibly can in as many ways as possible,” he says. “The objective is for the work to be good on an international scale; the agencies here are world-class already, so it’s just a matter of getting more work out.”
Hough also hopes creatives will be able to spend more time on projects, as he believes not enough time is given to produce great work. “It would be great to carve out more time to work on the projects that are special, because I think producing world-class work does require a special commitment in terms of time, energy, and resources.”
