Mr. Victor Y. Mehra is one of them. He is a creative director who recently joined the Lee Davis Ayer Advertising Ltd. He has worked in France, Germany, Africa, the United States and South American countries. His most successful work was a campaign for Cathay Pacific produced five years ago.
Having worked all around the world, he said Hong Kong is the hardest place for him to work, because he needs to deal with two languages at a time.
"When I worked in America, I could get whatever equipment I want. When I was in Europe, I developed a reputation for writing dialogue.
"But in Hong Kong, writing dialogue is very difficult and expensive. I have a hard time in finding a Chinese writer who can understand what I want to say, and replace it into the right Chinese phrase or idiom. It's almost impossible," said he.
Mr. Tsang Kam Ching, another creative director, who works for Ogilvy and Mather Direct Hong Kong Limited, gained much credibility in working on advertising campaigns for Optical 88, the Kowloon-Canton Railway and Tien Dey Seen CT-2.
He is not satisfied with Tien Dey Seen CT-2's campaigns, though it won The Most Popular Advertising in the Advertising Competition organised by Asian Television Limited. He does not regard it as a genuine commercial.
"There's no fresh thing in it. The ideas are old-fashioned: a hero rescuing a beauty. Escape and intrigues have been repeated in many movies and TV series before," he said.
Instead, his favourites are the campaigns for Optical 88 and the KCR. "They are works of sincerity, coming from the bottom of my heart. I put in my real feelings and positive values inside.
"I really want to tell everybody: A commercial is not a bad thing. It doesn't solely encourage consumption," said Mr. Tsang.
The slogan for Optical 88's campaign, "To see the truth. To see the precious life," is said to be sensational and received rapturous applause along with its commercial stories.
Mr. Tsang said, "I intended to convey messages like humans are good, the future is bright, and we should treasure all things surrounding us."
The slogan of the KCR's commercial, "Step by step and you will get to success", was an optimistic story.
"It is an uplifting and cheerful advertisement. I hope people would keep struggling in reaching their goal," said he.
Like Mr. Tsang, Mr. Mehra also wants to put his personal values into his productions.
"I'm very concerned about the environment. I'd like to say, 'Stop polluting the harbour', 'Stop burning down the trees', or 'Let's look after the poor.' You can also find many of my commercials showing people together.
"But I cannot expose my personal views every time. I'm spending the money of my clients, who sometimes do not share my views," said Mr. Mehra.
Recently, TV commercials featuring celebrities have increased in popularity. Magnificent views and pretty faces are always found in commercials.
But as Mr. Tsang stated, these celebrity commercials have actually been around for a long while.
"There have been a lot of such kinds in the past. But their small acale production and boring ideas make them fail to remain in people's memory.
"Only the large productions, like Sovil et Titus featuring Mr. Chow Yuen Fat, or Tien Dey Seen CT-2 of Leon Lai, suddenly draw people's attention.
"Moreover, with the economic recession, many clients want to adopt the most effective method to promote their products. A celebrity commercial is the best guarantee of immediate and positive feedback," said Mr. Tsang.
To Mr. Mehra, a good commercial is something that stops him dead in his tracks, that makes him react: "Ooh! That is really great. That says something to me."
It is often said that most local commercials cannot compete with the foreign ones. Mr. Tsang explained the situation as follows:
"Taiwan's commercials are very sensational and poetic. Their in-depth approach of expression may not be viable in Hong Kong.
"Japanese fresh, humorous, crazy commercials are more acceptable to local people. The expensive air-time makes them short and shocking to draw the greatest attention.
"Thai commercials are characterized by cultural colour. Things like temples, Buddhist monks, Thai music and Thai operas are always in them."
Mr. Tsang said, "Compared with commercials in these places, Hong Kong's advertisements are more alike to the Western ones, making them lack their distinctive features. Perhaps it is because we don't have our own culture.
"Local commercials can be made distinctive enough if more Chinese or Oriental values are put in them, " he said.
Mr. Mehra mentioned the Park'N Shop campaign featuring the fussy, "Mrs. Wong".
"It's a very old idea. All they've done is taken an old idea of 30 or 40 years ago and rehashed it.
"I've seen its idea of 'tick' being done in German, American, French and English supermarket commercials.
"There is a lot of such copycat work in Hong Kong. They come straight out of Paris, London, New York, etc. They are robbery and thievery."
He also pointed out one distinctive feature of locally produced commercials.
"The 'noise'," he said. "It's like Canto-pop. It's not music and it's not good music. It's just a lot of noise.
"It's like people making boats. Some make really good boats. Some make bad boats.
"Now most of what happens in our industry are okay boats. Many professionals are doing okay work," he said.
Sexism is another thing that Mr. Mehra always finds in Hong Kong commercials.
"Women are seen as sexual objects in many alcohol commercials. That's disgusting," he said.
"I'm not surprised that rape and child abuse continue to happen in this place, when we have a society reflected in our commercials which hold women as sexual objects."
To Mr. Mehra, local advertising industry needs many improvements.
"First, the industry here should watch itself, and make sure every commercial is not offensive to anybody and hold everybody at the same level.
"We also have to be very careful and tactful about the way we show wealth. It's portrayed as if people who have money can do anything they like.
"But there's a lot of people who have no money. Our society ought to be more caring about them.
"Second, we have to educate people coming into our industry, teach them how to work and to be more responsible. So we would not go on making these terrible mistakes," Mr. Mehra said.
Facing 1997, he sends a very serious message.
"We will have people coming into this society from mainland China. Their values are going to be merged with ours.
"We have to be very careful about how that takes place. We have to be very mindful of what other audience wants and expects. We have to make it friction-free when we make the two very different societies come together."