The advertising industry is full of all kinds of individuals. Each creative firm uses their own unique methods and approach to creativity to define a space and voice for themselves. Due to the different styles and approach, the advertising industry has become a dynamic one that’s hard to define.

M & M is a creative company from Singapore and they might be one of the unique creative firms to watch out for. They not only gathered a group of directors with excellent visual effects to make films, but also won many top awards in the advertising industry. They pursue creativity at all levels, enjoy the beauty of art and use technology to break the boundaries of advertising.

ADTODAY invited Wenhao Tan, the founder of M & M, to tell the story of M & M.

Change tradition and let creativity land effectively

Advertising is a place of innovation and change. No matter which creative company or which country they are from, advertisers are always trying to find a new and unique way to do things.

ADTODAY : can you introduce M & M to us first?

Wenhao Tan: I run three companies, a creative agency (Cum Creative), a film and visual effects director driven studio (Method & Madness) and an AAA level game asset creation company (Onyx). As a studio driven by film and visual effects directors, we are actually full of all kinds of wild ideas, and we have always paid attention to the development direction of the advertising industry.

We have noticed that creative people are studying and putting forward many ideas to promote the development of advertising.

For example, in the past, a client would reach out to a creative agency to set the creative strategy and idea for the campaign and then reach out to an agency like ours to manage the execution and production.  What we are trying to do is to change this traditional approach to working with CG production companies like ours. Not only do we have the right capabilities to execute at the highest level, but we also have the ability to come up with groundbreaking creative ideas.

It can be said that when our creative people put forward some ideas, we know how to realize these ideas and implement them. We have the wild ideas (Madness) and the right executional capabilities (Method). We lean a lot on technological innovations to help us bring these ideas to life. More often than not, with the traditional approach of hiring separate agencies to manage the creative ideation and production, production agencies aren’t given sufficient time and budget, inadvertently ending up rushing the project. If we as a team are looped in from the beginning of the brief, we are able to complete the project from ideation to execution with even bigger impact to the client’s project. The team works extremely well together, complementing each other’s strengths and expertise.

Integration of Chinese and Western cultures, making creativity more comprehensive

Although a Singapore company, M & M's market is by no means limited to the local market. Coming from a country that knows Chinese culture well and Western culture well, this Singaporean company has a unique edge and the ambition to do something different.

ADTODAY: what do you think of the Chinese advertising market and Chinese brands in recent years?

Wenhao Tan: I like Chinese brands very much and have been looking for more opportunities to cooperate with Chinese brands. We look forward to doing more work in China. I have worked with Huawei several times before. I think if we look around the world, China's advertising works are much bolder, especially Nike's. I think a lot of things are very groundbreaking.

What I’ve noticed is that many brands hire Western companies and teams to manage their advertising work. However, I think there is a lot of great talent in China and within Asia. I am in particular hoping to see more Asian brands working with Asian creative companies.

ADTODAY: how do you think M & M can create different ideas and technologies in the Chinese market?

Wenhao Tan: I think we can bring different perspectives and ideas. And I think every company has its own taste and style. As a Singapore company, we have a good understanding and exposure to both Chinese and Western cultures, trends and ways of working.

For example, when we worked with Huawei and Xiaomi - this was their first time working with a Singapore studio. They thought that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the intensity of their working hours. However, we ended up working round the clock with them! We realized we had a similar work ethic, attitude and passion for the craft that brought both our teams together. We were in the trenches together, working with the same level of grit to get the job done - and we ended up enjoying ourselves in the process.

Diversified cooperation makes creativity more possible

Since its establishment, M & M has received many opportunities with its "brand" advantages and international recognition, which also gives M & m more possibilities in creative development. One of them is the cooperation with the famous British singer Ed Sheeran.

ADTODAY: M & M recently worked with the famous British singer Ed Sheeran. Can you talk about it?

Wenhao Tan: we did a project for Greenpeace last year that won many awards, such as Cannes Lion and London International Advertising Awards. I am very proud of it. We also won two British arrows awards. This award is similar to the Emmy Award in advertising in the UK. It can be regarded as a special award in UK. And we found that we were the only Asian country to win the award.

left: Wenhao right: Alex Scollay (CG Director, Method & Madness)

Through this project, we won two awards in the UK, which not only made us famous in the UK market but globally as well. After that, many companies contacted us and wanted to cooperate with us.

Because of this, the opportunity to cooperate with Ed Sheeran came. They contacted us by phone and said that they had an opportunity to cooperate with some very talented people to complete the project. Then we flew to Ukraine. At that time, the weather in Ukraine offered a very challenging filming environment. We spent a week there, including a three-day shoot. It was an unforgettable experience with many interesting challenges.

For the Ed Sheeran shoot, we had planned some intricate camera moves that play off each other and would allow us to execute the complex transitions we had in mind. However, due to some logistical issues, we had to work with manual systems like techno cranes that we pushed and rotated based on the beats in the music video and combined those with shots from the motion control system which only arrived on the final day of the shoot. Fortunately, the whole team came together to overcome these challenges, resulting in an amazing shoot. It was such a memorable experience for me.

ADTODAY: you have been cooperating with many new technologies. What do you think of the application of metaverse in the field of commercial advertising?

Wenhao Tan: I think the next big direction is social media, such as Tik tok and other platforms we use now. For me, I grew up in the field of technology. I have worked in video games and made game trailers. We are not strangers to these things.

The meta universe will become a part of our lives. This is a natural process. It's like, since the advent of the iPhone, everything has started to become touchable and interactive.

The era we live in is full of various technological elements. We have photogrammetry technology and can model everything, which is the foundation of the meta universe.

Therefore, we should embrace the meta universe with a more courageous attitude and apply it better in all aspects of life.

Epilogue

Based on technology and with creativity at the core, M & M shows us the strong strength of a film production studio in the advertising field. The advertising space is growing with more and more interesting companies and we believe that M & M will bring more positive surprises to the advertising industry and is one to watch out for.