AdFest 2011: Calvin Soh wants to “Feeeel eeet”

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calvinsoh.jpgCalvin Soh, vice-chairman and chief creative officer-Asia of Publicis, is Campaign Brief’s man in the Outdoor judging room at AdFest. Judging started in Phuket yesterday and here is Calvin’s report on proceedings so far.

Great bunch of judges and with Mayan at the helm it went smoothly. We finished shortlisting in a day. Tomorrow, we do medals.

Some quick observations.

Outdoor has evolved and the lines have blurred. There are still entries which are basically print ads, with the logo and strapline in the good ‘ol right hand corner.

 

Remember, it’s outdoor and everything must be visible from 20 paces or from the armchair in our case.

Videos are too long. 3 minutes doesn’t mean you must fill it up. Make it a story and get to the point. The judges know what twitter and facebook look like.

Most are still monologues, which is basically dramatizing/demonstrating a product proof point. Very few precious invite you to participate and hopefully change behaviour.

The principles of being interesting/entertaining/relevant at the right time still apply. Mediums and technology might change but the principles don’t.

Midway through, we all had our mugshots taken. Upclose, wideangle for that “cute dogs with big noses” look. Not good for a Chinese guy with an actual big nose. The Thai photographer in her inimitable way told me to, “Feeeeel eeet. You must feeeeel eeet.” I tried my best puppy dog look.

We didn’t disagree much today at all. There was a good Korean Post It pad idea where they stuck actual post its on a moving supertrain moving at 300km/h. Talk about product demo of adhesive. Second was a really funny aquarium piece for LG microwave ovens. Imagine a slab of cooked salmon swimming about. You can’t, can you? There was another piece with prawns and spring rolls on roller blades to sell non stick pans.

There were more good ones that made the judges “Feeeel eeet.”

That’s more than I can say for my Pugshot.