And the next big thing of AOTY 2015 is...

Gone are the days when boring products can be saved purely by pumping money into ad exposure.With this in mind, former senior art director at Leo Burnett, Man Kit Lee, along with three partners who shared the same vision, broke out of their comfort zone from the 4As circuit in 2013 to set up an independent creative shop – Curious Few – in the hope of breathing new life into the creative industry.Collecting more than 20 years of 4As experience spanning from Publicis, Leo Burnett and DDB, the ad insiders also include Fenris Kau, Howard Kwong and Wayne Lau.After two years of marching forward in the belief that today’s advertising is all about baked-in word-of-mouth value, the boutique agency has now developed into nine members with a strong client roster, including Fidelity MPF Hong Kong, Shu Uemura, and Dermes, to name but a few.One example of this philosophy applied to a campaign for Shu Uemura, where the agency created a “make-up roulette” that embodied the benefits of the cleansing oil in an experiential product.It proved the four young minds are moving in the right direction.Last year, Curious Few was the first independent shop to earn a place in the Kam Fan Awards 2014, taking out bronze in the Social Video category for the campaign “Life in Blossom” for Shu Uemura.The agency also won the regional business for Airbnb, handling social media and digital marketing for outbound travel in Hong Kong and Taiwan.“Our agency model is to use revenue from doing advertising for clients to fund our own start-up business ideas,” said Lee, adding the agency is now developing its own in-house garment brand which it aims to launch in December.“We do this because we believe advertising at its core is all about building business and the most convincing creative of today would be those that can prove beyond reasonable doubt to clients that they can create successful businesses of their own.”