Stop At Nothing at Cannes: Creating Advocacy and Representation for Asians
Featuring: Tim Wang & Julie Lee
Interviewer: Olyvia Chac
The ongoing lack of representation in the advertising industry creates an unfair playing field, leading to invisibility. This issue persists at major awards shows like Cannes Lion, where diversity remains low. Tim Wang and Julie Lee from TDW+Co recognized this problem and initiated the "Stop At Nothing" movement at Cannes Lion 2023.
This movement aims to shift the focus from "Stop Asian Hate" to highlighting the global Asian community's joy and celebration. In an exclusive interview, Olyvia Chac-Nguyen, copywriter at Asians in Advertising, speaks with Tim Wang and Julie Lee, founders of Stop At Nothing and leaders at TDW+Co. They delve into the movement's origins, its significance, offer mentorship to fellow Asian creatives and discuss its future in 2024.
Olyvia Chac-Nguyen: Tell us about yourself and how you both got into advertising.
Tim Wang: I had an unconventional path into advertising actually. I was working in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, focusing on clean and safe initiatives and learned a lot about working with the underserved and underrepresented communities. I saw that there was a need to bridge the communication and culture between brands and consumers, and that’s the inspiration on how TDW+Co was started - with a laptop, $100 check account, a printer, 19 years ago. Today, our commitment remains the same with a focus on building brands but also communities in which they serve.
Julie Lee: My day job is CEO at TDW+Co. And I have more traditional advertising experience, with almost 25 years at holding companies like Publicis, WPP on strategy teams, media, communications, planning and even buying.
I’ve always had the opportunity to work in startup environments - creating something new, getting to help build or revamp or rebuild. That’s the joy I’ve gotten to experience over the course of my career and now I get to do that on behalf of cultural communities who are underrepresented through our work at TDW+Co.
TW: And Julie and I had the privilege of working together on the 2020 Census National Communications Campaign to ensure that all our audiences are counted as a part of this once-in-a-decade count by the U.S. Census Bureau. We’re very fortunate that Julie decided to take her talents to TDW+Co since then.
OC: What is the mission of Stop At Nothing and how did it get started?
TW: For context and kind of going back to my unconventional advertising experience, I always heard that Cannes is like the place to be. It's the festival of international creativity. It's where the best and the brightest and the most creative work lives, breathes, and is showcased. And so I had been in business for 18 years at that point, and I hadn't ever gone before. I remember having a conversation with Julie. I was like, hey, I think I'm just going to go and just experience and see what it's like. I don't know what to expect, don't know where to go, what sessions to be a part of. But I just want to experience this and see what it's all about.
JL: And Olyvia, this was in 2021 and was like two weeks before Cannes that Tim decided we should go for the first time.
TW: Usually there's a lot of preparation and planning before going. That kind of gives some context to why when I arrived my first time two years ago, in 2021, I didn't have a working cell phone plan. And I felt completely lost and I felt completely, like, at the mercy of the environment that I was in, right?
Just even just walking along the croisette, the beaches, like, meeting people, it was very intimidating for me. Fortunately, I was able to befriend a few veteran festival goers. And in the true spirit of creativity and humanity and I think what this festival is trying to achieve and do, I felt fortunate enough to be able to be accepted and tag along. These people brought me from place to place, got me into the parties, got me into the sessions, got me into different spaces that were very privileged.
But that was really by circumstance and chance because I thought to myself, “if it wasn't for that, how would I feel?” I remember walking away thinking to myself, like, how can we make a difference? There weren't a whole lot of sessions or panels that had talked about Asian narratives or stories. There weren't a whole lot of campaigns that were being featured that shared our perspectives. There weren't panelists who shared experiences that I've had. And that’s kind of the impetus for the reason why we started Stop At Nothing this year.
JL: So the Stop At Nothing name is actually the result of some work that we were doing during a pitch process. This is just a great example of how even if a pitch doesn't move forward or an idea doesn't move forward, that idea still can live in so many different ways. So the idea around Stop At Nothing was inspired from what we envision as the next evolution of the Stop Asian Hate movement. Stop Asian Hate is more about “Stop doing things against us, the Asian community”. And Stop At Nothing is much more an active term where we will not stop at nothing, so we will do everything that we need to do and it's much more empowering.
We knew that there was a need for community and for connections for the global Asian community at environments like Cannes, which are still very much traditional advertising white-male executive led. Because we knew that there was a need for community and connection, we started it.
We had a direction in mind, but we hadn't really sat down and articulated any of it, which is the process that we're going through now and refining our mission and vision. But we do have a goal of creating these spaces on an ongoing basis for the global Asian advertising community so that we can continue to help connect each other and to advance together.
TW: I also think another thing about the idea around Stop At Nothing, we don't want to dispute the fact that our communities that are victims and hate still exist in society. We don't want to take away from those that continue to be marginalized or hated. But we also want to shift the particular conversation at Cannes and in the creative and advertising community about this insight about our audience.
There are cultural aspects to us getting into this space of advertising that I would say that is not the norm, and we're sometimes going against the grain in kind of our familial backgrounds, but we're wanting to broaden that perspective, right? And also to have those shared experiences, to learn from one another, but to reach a level of being a leader, like an executive, a CMO, an agency owner, etc.
These are people from our community that have excelled and have achieved greatness in our industry and being able to share some of those learnings and lessons to those of us striving to succeed too. It speaks to this sheer perseverance, grit, and will that we will stop at nothing to be able to achieve the greatness that we have and just celebrate. And we also wanted to intentionally build a global community as well.
OC: What were some of the success stories or the impacts of creating the Stop At Nothing Cafe?
TW: There was nothing more than just wanting to make this investment and to put our money and resources where our mouth was and to be able to see how to make this idea come alive. It also took a tremendous amount of community. It took a village to be able to make this happen as well and people were going either on behalf of their company or on their own to be out there and willing to lend their voice.
Bernice Chao with Asians in Advertising was one of those individuals that lended her voice to be able to speak. We had so many others that kind of lended themselves to be able to share their stories. Michelle Wong, CMO of Sprinkles and some of our client partners from P&G like Yea Yun Chow, a senior advertising and brand executive that spoke as well. And can’t forget our keynote speaker, Eric Nam, Mr. GQ Magazine of Korea, who was able to lend his time at our Stop At Nothing cafe.
It really took a village for all of us to come together for panelists, for speakers, for connecting, and even a number of brands that wanted to donate their own products to have in our goodie bags. Every single piece of item that we gave away in our Cannes Survival Kit goodies tote was from an Asian founded, owned, operated brand. So it all kind of came together and you could see that there was this spirit of community and being able to contribute, to volunteer, and to donate.
JL: Just a personal anecdote. Like Tim said, we went into this with an idea that this was needed, right? But I would say that as we were getting ramped up and having conversations with folks, I knew something was going to happen magically because every conversation we had, people were so excited, because this type of thing doesn't exist, and they were ready to join us and support us. These conversations helped to reinforce this idea. And then once on the ground, it just really all came together and was this magical moment, driven very much from an insight that's derived from a personal experience that Tim had. And so definitely it just shows how this can all come together in a meaningful way based on all those things.
TW: Oh let me also share a story about allyship and reflecting on those who came before us. We had not arrived at Cannes yet, but one of our team members, Danni, was supporting a lot of the efforts in getting our cafe set up. She was at the store on Sunday night getting some items for programming. Then she had actually bumped into the founder of the Cannes Diversity Collective, Adrianne Smith, at the store and they started having a conversation about our Cannes programming.
Danni was sharing a little bit more about our effort of Stop At Nothing. And it was because of that moment in time and having that brief encounter and conversation that gave the exposure of Stop At Nothing to Adrianne, who's running all the diversity programming at Inkwell Beach. And because of that, she's like, “oh, I want to meet Tim. I would love to have Stop At Nothing talked about during our opening reception on Monday morning as a part of the opening for all of the programming at Inkwell”. That's how we got even more connected and visibility by just that tiny conversation in passing.
OC: Stop At Nothing hard launched at the biggest creativity festivals this year. Do you have plans beyond Cannes? Maybe SXSW 2024, AdWeek 2024, maybe even AIA’s Breaking Barrier Summit 2024? Are you both thinking of traveling around with this movement?
JL: Our current goal is to continue to represent and have our presence at Cannes year over year, become bigger and more meaningful each time. But we also plan on having Stop At Nothing present at events around the world in support of the global Asian advertising community - at a minimum once a quarter, if not more.
We believe in creating spaces, and those spaces might be virtual spaces. So the WhatsApp group, social platforms, community connection platforms like that. It could be physical spaces. It could be at a bar or a restaurant, or it could be something more formal like the Stop At Nothing cafe was with programming. To answer your question directly, yes, absolutely, we have bigger plans than just Cannes.
OC: I want to wrap up with some mentor musings. What advice would you give to someone who is trying to start something like Stop At Nothing? Is any advice for any API creatives who are looking to create this type of space or a space in general?
TW: There's a lot that comes from instincts and gut. And sometimes we need to trust our gut and instincts, and it may not be the most rational or logical thing, right? But if you know in your heart and you know in your gut that there's something out there that you want to be able to solve for or you feel like there's a gap or there's a need, don't worry so much about exactly what's going to end up happening or how it'll take place once it's been set up.
I’ve been watching a lot of Star Wars with my eight year-old son, Elijah. There's a saying from Yoda, right? “Do or do not. There is no try.” So if there's something in your gut, if there's something in your mind, there's something you're so convicted and passionate about, don't worry about how things will take place, just do it.
JL: It’s also important to voice what you're thinking and put it out into the world, because you don't know what you're going to hear back or the people you're going to hear back from. That could be the group of people that you together create something wonderful with, whether it be a business or whether it be a movement, whether it be a social post that goes viral, who knows? But you have to put it out there. So I would encourage people to put it out there and see what comes back, how the universe returns. But also it manifests, right?
Tim and I talk about this all the time. We just say things because we want to manifest them into being. Stop At Nothing is a great example of that. The other thing I would just say for creatives in particular, just having come from a more traditional holding company background - claim your space.
And I can't say this enough because I feel like oftentimes we need to go against our DNA and our cultures to do that. We've been raised in certain ways where it feels boastful or it's just not encouraged because we come from more of a communal upbringing versus an individualistic upbringing. And so you tend to maybe downplay or be humble in ways that your counterparts might not. And so I think you can absolutely, with grace and with humility claim your space.
Doing that is important in order to advance not only yourself, but our overall community at large and support each other. So put it out there. Put it out in the universe, manifest, see what it returns, but also take pride and claim your space because you're helping not only yourself, but everybody else around you.
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Learn more about Stop At Nothing and follow them for more updates:
Instagram: @_stopatnothing/
Also check out Tim and Julie’s agency, TDW+Co., for their amazing roster of clients and more about their team:
Instagram: @tdwandco
