David Smail (’05) enjoys charms of Vietnam

By Valerie Gleaton

"It was good, but I missed he charm of Vietnam." — David Smail

More than a decade ago, David Smail (’95) set off for a foreign country with no job prospects, no place to live and almost no money. That country was Vietnam.

After freelancing for a short time, Smail said he was offered the position of creative director at the Vietnamese branch of the Japanese-American advertising agency Dentsu Young & Rubicam. While there, he said he worked on ad campaigns for everything from soda to motor oil to toothpaste – Colgate was a major client.

After four years in Vietnam, Smail moved to the Hong Kong office of DY&R, where he said he served as creative director for international clients such as Campbell’s and Citibank.

“It was good, but I missed the charm of Vietnam,” said Smail, who graduated from Cherry Creek High School in Denver.

So, once again, Smail set off for Vietnam with no guarantee of a job. Of course, this time around, he had the experience and connections to land a new position with ease. It didn’t hurt that soon after arriving in Saigon, an ad he had dreamed up for Colgate and pitched to the Vietnam branch of DY&R won a Bronze Lion at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes.

The Absolut vodka ad won a bronze at the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival – Asia’s largest awards program.

“The whole ad community was charged,” he said. “Many a bottle of champagne was drunk. And it proved to all of the agencies that work in Vietnam could be recognized.”

After returning to Vietnam, Smail said he worked as creative director at Ogilvy and later as executive creative director at JWT, Vietnam’s largest advertising agency. At JWT, he said he created ads for some of the world’s most recognized brands: Pepsi, Nike and Unilever.

It was a position that many in the advertising world could only dream of, but Smail wasn’t quite happy.

“I was missing the small-agency feel and felt that there weren’t any real creative boutique agencies in Vietnam. I missed the family feel of something like that,” he said.

So, when Smail heard that BBDO, a global advertising firm, was considering opening a fledgling branch in Vietnam, he pursued BBDO aggressively.

“I made a phone call,” he said. “I told the new CEO for Asia what I thought Vietnam was missing, and a few meetings and conversations later, we agreed to open BBDO.”

The office opened in May 2007 with Smail as partner and executive creative director. Although the company claims Mercedes-Benz and KFC as clients, it has only 16 employees.

“It’s back to that nice family-style creative boutique that I was hoping to create,” Smail said.

Working in Vietnam has been different for him this time around, he said. In addition to creating ads for print and television, he said he has been tackling the world of online advertising – and trying to bring his reluctant clients on board.

David Smail’s Nike ad won a Cannes National Certificate and One Show Merit award

“Digital is coming on strong, and I think people are still in the stage here of trying to figure out how to really harness it,” Smail said. “At JWT, we had a campaign for Knorr (a food industry branch of Unilever). Part of our proposal was a digital element. The client didn’t think that many 25- to 40-year-old women would be receptive to the digital idea. We said, ‘Let’s just try it.’ We figured that if we got at least 7,000 hits on the site, we’d call it a limited success. Three months after the campaign launched, we had something like 120,000 hits.”

Another change: Smail said the Vietnamese TV station authorities are becoming more flexible about ad content. In a recent video spot for KFC, a young man enjoys a value meal from the safety of a KFC restaurant while illegal street vendors scatter when the police show up to confiscate their tables and chairs.

“We never actually see the police because you still can’t show that,” Smail said. “But what’s interesting is that it was actually allowed to be made and aired. Years ago, you wouldn’t be able to touch on subject matter like this, but I think they found the humor in it.”

For Smail, part of the thrill of working in a country such as Vietnam lies in the ever-changing political and cultural climate, which is why he said he probably won’t be leaving any time soon.

“What excites me here is that you know every day is going to be different from the one before,” he said. “Things are developing so fast that you tend to just remain caught up in the speed of things.”