March 2009 Archives

Euro RSCG Singapore Executive Creative Director Victor Ng is a judge at this year's Clio awards, sitting on the Print/Poster/Billboard/Innovative/Integrated panel. Ng is writing a daily account for Campaign Brief Asia and this is part two of his list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

43) Seeing all the great work reminded me that, somewhere, someone out there is smarter, quicker and hungrier than you. Be that guy.
42) We started the second day by taking the judging to a cosy room with a huge TV screen to screen over 150 Innovative and Integrated entries. Someone asked for popcorn, another asked for lots of coffee.
41) Think of the presentation video as an escort that your ad has in front of the judges. Make sure it's helping, not hurting, your chances. The best videos articulated the challenge and creative solution with clarity, charm and conviction.
40) Having said that, not even the best salesman can sell a flawed product to those who know. 
39) The massive success of Earth Hour and Tap Project has obviously spawned a slew of public-service "360" campaigns, each masquerading as a "movement" - without a simple, original and contagious idea. And it's time to lose the emo world-music soundtrack.
38) There is a first-rate Asian contingent at Clio this year. I'm thankful to be in the rarefied company of Ng Tian It, Huang Ean Hwa, Eugene Cheong, Jureeporn Thaidumrong, Ravi Deshpande, Yuya Furukawa, Satoshi Takamatsu, Stanley Wong, Dave Ferrer and Senthil Kumar.
37) It's all silent voting at this point. The real judging doesn't start till one judge openly disagrees with another. Soon.

AWARD School Singapore welcomed the next creative generation at the opening lecture and welcome drinks last night. AWARD Committee members, students, tutors and lecturers, all came together to celebrate the opening of the ideas-based training program for aspiring creatives.
Speakers included AWARD Executive Committee Member Jagdish Ramakrishnan (left) - ECD of BBDO Singapore, and Chan Hwee Chong, previous AWARD School graduate and Art Director at Ogilvy & Mather, Singapore.
Eight top agencies in Singapore are involved in tutoring this year on the Thursday evenings, and on Monday evenings students will hear lectures from the industries top creative leaders and innovators. The all-star lineup includes;
Jagdish Ramakrishnan - BBDO Singapore; Joji Jacob - BBDO Singapore; Ayesha Walawalker -BBH; Peter Callaghan - BBH; Sonal Dabral - Bates 141; Ali Shabaz -- JWT; Tay Guan Hin - JWT; Chan Hwee Chong - Ogilvy & Mather Singapore; Stuart Mills - Ogilvy & Mather; Mark Taylor - Ogilvy One; Calvin Soh - Publicis Mojo; Richard Copping -Saatchi & Saatchi; John Merrifield - TBWA Singapore; and Adeline Tan - The Talent Box.
For further information on AWARD School, including registration for 2010 visit the website or contact Hannah Morden at AWARD.

On Saturday March 28th at 8.30pm local time over 4000 cities and towns 'officially' took part in Earth Hour making it the world's first global vote and the strongest call to action against climate change. The total number of people taking part around the world is thought to be 1 billion, although it will be a while before WWF will announce an official number.  Lights went out over many of the world's most famous icons including the Sydney Opera House, Greece's Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, the Las Vegas strip, New York's Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, London's Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge. In the Philippines alone over 650 towns and cities took part.  Whilst in China thousands of public buildings switched off their lights, including the Bird's Nest stadium and the neon lights across Hong Kong Island.

One of the strongest print performers at AdFest this year was this Nikon campaign from Euro RSCG Singapore. The campaign picked up 6 Silver Lotus awards across the Electronic sections in the Press and Poster categories. The series promotes the industry-leading face detection feature of the new Nikon S60, dramatizing how the S60 can capture up to 12 faces.
The awards top off an extremely successful year for Euro RSCG Singapore, which has gone from strength to strength after a string of new business wins including DBS and NTUC Fairprice, to receiving strong recognition at creative awards shows such as Hall of Fame and Creative Circle Awards in Singapore.

AGS Four Winds International Movers make moving easy as shown in these two tvcs from Saatchi & Saatchi Bangkok and Passion Pictures.
View the first spot.
View the second spot.
Credits: Creative Director: Joel Clement. Art Directors: Kittitat Larppitakpong, Joel Clement. Copywriters: Teewin Tientongtip, Joel Clement. Production Company: Passion Pictures. Director: Brad Hogarth. Producers: Jamie Popham, Saifful Shah. Post: MFX. Editors: Ng, Chan Moon Chong. Sound: Fuse.

Euro RSCG Singapore Executive Creative Director Victor Ng is a judge at this year's Clio awards, sitting on the Print/Poster/Billboard/Innovative/Integrated panel. Ng is writing a daily account for Campaign Brief Asia and starts off a list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

50 years is an eternity in advertising.
A great idea can spring out of nowhere in mere seconds; the same great idea can be killed by research in the first five minutes; a great campaign can change a brand in weeks; the same brand can also change its agency in months. Even great creative talent can be forgotten in an unfruitful year or two. But the best ads? They can be an adman's only claim to immortality.
Erik Vervroegen reminded me over a beer that "You're only as good as your last ad." Agreed but my take is "You're only as good as your next ad."
It's evident that success in advertising is not just measured by creativity, but creative consistency and longevity, and Clio's excellence for the past half-century certainly deserves a coveted Statue in its own right.
In that spirit, here are my 50 chronological (and unofficial) thoughts as a judge:

50) Day One: Bishop's Lodge, hoisted up in the beautiful highlands of Santa Fe, is a unique venue for judging a show of this magnitude. It really feels more like a creative retreat with some of the world's finest ad people, rather than a cut-throat "how's my network looking so far" corporate slugfest.
49) Clio Executive Director Wayne Youkhana is an inspired man who understands what it takes to do great work and, perhaps more importantly, what it takes to find them. His team also took the effort to know each of the judges and made everything tick.
48) 3,500 pieces of work, 15 judges. Morale of the Math: Keep your ideas brutally simple and clear. The best ads always stand out in a very visceral way, as if the rest aren't even there.
47) Jury Chairman Marcello Serpa briefed us on the task ahead - first round of 'In or Out', next round to cull the surviving work to a shortlist, followed by statue discussion.
46) Heard: Relived sighs of relief when it was announced that the jury would be divided into three groups to judge all the work.
45) The Apple iTouch is our handy tool for judging -- quick, simple to use and generally trouble-free. Plus, it's cool.
44) Print ads are judged on long tables, which is aptly old-school. It must be a first day thing, as judges adopt a wait-and-see approach before dishing out their awesomes and fabulouses. While there are some favourites which could have already won at other shows, I was on the lookout for some fresh winners.
Stay tuned...

 

Bartle Bogle Hegarty Asia Pacific (BBH) has launched a desktop application papercut.com.sg that simply makes you reconsider what you print.
Papercut is an application that works behind the scenes. Every time you press CTRL-P to print, the sound of a chainsaw is activated before you hit OK to print.
The software works on both a Mac and a PC, with the desktop icon showing up as a mini chainsaw.
While most BBH staff in Singapore have voluntarily installed papercut, ultimately the Agency wants to spread papercut to friends, colleagues and clients worldwide.
Creative Director Peter Callaghan and Art Director Joseph Tay dreamed up the papercut idea, and it was the accumulation of uncollected paper in their own printer trays that got them thinking about printing habits.
"We wanted to do something for the environment and what could be better than loud buzzing chainsaws," says Peter Callaghan, Creative Director at BBH Asia Pacific.
Papercut is one of many initiatives BBH Asia Pacific has undertaken to reduce their impact on the environment.

KODAK and AWARD have announced the 2009 Call for Entry for the New Director of the Year, with new categories to expand the discovery of the very best new talent across the region.
Designed to recognise and promote exceptional new commercial directors in the Asia Pacific Region, the KODAK AWARD New Director Of The Year honors outstanding commercial directors whose fresh thinking and creativity sets them apart from the rest.
The Call For Entry launches 29th June and will now offer two categories;
Category A;
• Current commercial directors, who have only been in the commercial production field for a maximum of two years. You are eligible if you have been directing other material previous to your commercial work.
Category B;
• Currently enrolled in a full time film-training program.
• Graduated from a full time film-training program within the last 12 months of the competition closing date (31st July 2009).
"Kodak is proud of our partnership with AWARD and excited that this is our third year celebrating the KODAK Award New Director of the Year. The addition of the second category highlights KODAK's ongoing commitment to Student Film-makers. We are dedicated to nurturing creativity and to celebrating excellence," says Johanna Gravelle (left), Director of Marketing, Kodak Entertainment Imaging, Asia Pacific Region. "The cultural diversity that we have within this region provides us with a steady supply of unique ideas and inspiring content. With one third of the world's advertising coming from the Asia Pacific Region, we are in the perfect place to look for new talent. The KODAK AWARD New Director Of The Year is designed to promote a new generation of commercial directors. Directors who inspire and push the boundaries of creative thinking."
Michael Ritchie, MD and Executive Producer at Revolver and AWARD Executive Committee Member adds; "Whether you are a Creative Director, a production company or a student, the new criteria will hopefully reach out and find directing talent from all walks. KODAK AWARD New Director Of The Year will cement its significance during AWARD judging week, with the promise to deliver the industry an incredible night of showcasing new talent."
A distinguished panel of international directors and creative directors will judge the entries
and finalists will be showcased at a special New Directors' event held 9th September.
The winning KODAK AWARD New Director Of The Year will be awarded a prize of 10 x 400' loads of 35mm Kodak Motion Picture Film valued at approximately $4,000.00. This prize will allow the filmmaker to express him/herself with high quality film images and subsequently build upon and enhance their show reel.
The winner will also be recognised at the AWARD Presentation Evening to be held in November 2009 and attended by a crowd of up to 800.
The Call for Entry website launches Monday 29th June. Email kodaknewdirector@awardonline.com to register your interest.

Lowe Bangkok has released this new print campaign for Scholl Crystal (SSL Healthcare, Thailand Ltd).
Credits: Creative Directors: Supon Khaotong, Kittinan Sawasdee, Piya Churarakpong. Art Director: Porakit  Tanwattana. Copywriter: Noranit Yasopa. Agency Producer: Nuch Lertviwatchai. Photographer: Srimongkol Phachonkaew (Illusion). Digital Imaging: Phutthiphong Yommasan (Illusion).

Two Asian based creative directors have been invited to sit on the prestigious Cannes Lions Titanium and Integrated jury. Edmund Choe (below), Executive Creative Director Greater China, Saatchi & Saatchi, China and Prasoon Joshi (left), Executive Chairman & Regional ECD Asia Pacific, McCann Erickson, India win judge along with 8 other jury members.
Chaired by David Droga, Founder and Creative Chairman of Droga5, the Titanium and Integrated Lions jury will judge and award both integrated campaigns as well as looking to honour breakthrough ideas that challenge current forms of advertising and communication.
"This exciting category is all about pushing boundaries. To take this task onboard we have a fantastic group of visionaries and influential industry leaders who understand the importance of taking the world's advertising and communications to new heights," commented Terry Savage, Chairman of the Festival.
From this year, Gold, Silver and Bronze Integrated Lions will be awarded for the first time replacing the Integrated Lion trophy. The much sought-after Titanium Lions and Titanium Grand Prix trophies remain unchanged. Judging will take place in Cannes during the Festival week, with the winners being announced on Saturday evening, 27th June.
The complete jury is:
David Droga, Founder and Creative Chairman, Droga5, USA - Jury President
Steve Mykolyn, Chief Creative Officer, TAXI, Canada
Edmund Choe, Executive Creative Director Greater China, Saatchi & Saatchi, China
Juan Carlos Ortiz, President, DDB Latina, Colombia
Rémi Babinet, Chief Creative Officer, Euro RSCG Worldwide and Founder & Chairman, BETC Euro RSCG, France
Prasoon Joshi, Executive Chairman & Regional ECD Asia Pacific, McCann Erickson, India
Andy Blood, Group Executive Creative Director, TBWA\Whybin\Tequila, New Zealand
Mark Cridge, Chief Executive Officer, glue London, UK
Susan Hoffman, Executive Creative Director/Partner, Wieden + Kennedy, USA
Rich Silverstein, Co-Chairman, Partner, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, USA

Honda Motors Europe and Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam launch the new Honda Insight Hybrid campaign. The integrated campaign marks the first work for Honda from W+K Amsterdam and is the first in a series of products being advertised under Honda’s new environmental brand platform. ‘Everyone Wants to Be Good’ is set to break across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia throughout April.
The campaign will launch the Honda Insight Hybrid, which represents the first step in establishing a strong and accessible messaging platform for future environmental product initiatives for Honda. Tapping into a core Honda philosophy that ‘human nature is fundamentally good’, the Insight features the Honda Eco Assist coaching system which helps people drive more efficiently while the Insight campaign touts the line ‘Everyone Wants to Be Good.’
Chris Brown, Head of Marketing for Honda Motor Europe' ‘‘we would like to become the most admired company in the world, and to do this we need to have the most admired brand and communications across our region, EMEAR. This is a continuation of our journey.”
Executive Creative Director Jeff Kling continues, “People want to be good and, given the chance, will choose to do good. Honda has given more people the chance to be good by creating an affordable hybrid.”
The ‘Let It Shine’ :60 TV spot, directed by Erik van Wyk and produced by Bouffant, will begin with what appears to be the world’s largest LED screen displaying an animated sequence of simple iconographic stories that depict ‘good’. The animations will show hugs and kisses, frowns turned into smiles, and general good will, which is all meant to convey people’s inherent wish to be good. As the animation plays it is slowly revealed to the viewer that it is actually being created entirely by hundreds of Insight vehicle headlights being operated by their drivers. The entire spectacle is set to a bespoke recorded version of ‘This Little Light of Mine’ created by Berend Dubbe.
The physical production of the spot was an extreme exercise in mathematical theory. “We first set out to see if it could be done with all real cars,” says Executive Creative Director John Norman. “It was incredible to see the amount of research that went into what it would take to create an actual vehicle grid of that scale. The camera distance, types of lenses needed, and the actual height of the camera were all variables that affected each other and just about everything else. It was an awe inspiring process.”
View 'Let it Shine'.
View the making of 'Let it Shine'.

BBDO Guerrero in Manila used guerrilla tactics to promote Krispy Kreme donuts during the running of a marathon in The Philippines. Play the video.
Credits: Creative Directors: David Guerrero, Simon Welsh, Joel Limchoc. Art Director: Brandy Tan. Copywriters: Tin Sanchez, Meggy  de Guzman. Print Producer: Al Salvador, Cielo Laforteza. FA: Manny Vailoces, Oliver Brillantes, Joy Panaguiton. Photography: Digital Minds & Vision

UPDATE: The seedy side of Pattaya's "Walking Street" along with the rumour of a proposed change in location for the annual festival has hit the international trade press. AdAge's Normandy Madden has written about the fact that the Cannes of Asia is held in a Thai city that is filled with "lowlife tourists seeking affection from Thai prostitutes". Under the heading "Asia's AdFest wrestles with down economy, prostitutes" Madden points to the popularity of Walking Street with AdFest's predominantly male delegates and writes that, not unreasonably, that many women delegates are offended with the seedy location around which AdFest is held. Read the full AdAge article here.

(CB Asia's original March 24th story) How do people who have attended AdFest previously feel about the big rumour that the Festival will be moved to Shanghai?
Although denied by the festival, the rumour was the talk of the three days in Pattaya but in CB Asia's quick poll of a dozen or so delegates on the last day we couldn't find one person who responded favourably to the rumoured move. A change to Shanghai as a venue gathered momentum with the Shanghai-based Sino-Adi corporation taking this year's top Dragon Sponsorship package at AdFest. It was quietly confirmed to CB Asia via a reliable source at AdFest who suggested it was 80% likely to happen next year or 100% likely to happen the year after.
No doubt the motivation for even remotely considering a change is financial. It was a tough year for AdFest with the festival taking a hit both in entries and delegate numbers. Sino-Adi was at AdFest representing the Shanghai Jiading Government. The Jiading Industrial Zone in Shanghai is home to the Sino-ADI Development Base of Advertising & Creative Industry and you can see why attracting an established festival like AdFest to Shanghai would greatly appeal to them.
A major underwriting commitment from them would certainly be hard for AdFest to ignore.
The obvious risks to the Festival organisers would be that Shanghai doesn't hold the same appeal as a destination to international delegates, although there is no doubt Chinese delegates would compensate in terms of numbers.
241 of this year's total of 693 delegates came from Japan. Thai delegates numbered 111.

In a restructure at Leo Burnett Jarek Ziebinski (left), current CEO of Leo Burnett Central and Eastern Europe, will lead the agency’s Asia-Pacific region (excluding China). Ziebinski will take over from Michelle Kristula-Green, who has been named the Global Head of HR (a position located in Burnett’s Chicago headquarters). Patrick Venetucci, the company’s existing Global Head of HR, will step up into a newly-created Deputy Chief Operating Officer role – reporting to COO Tom Dudreck. A search is underway for Ziebinski’s successor in CEE.
“The individuals involved in this move are some of our best, most successful leaders, each with an extremely strong track record,” said Tom Bernardin, Chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide. “These decisions demonstrate the importance of and our on-going commitment to talent mobility in our global economy.”
During his tenure as president of Leo Burnett CEE, Ziebinski expanded the agency’s geographical footprint from 11 to 16 countries, employing a total of 1,400 people. Over the last three years alone, he has increased the region’s consolidated revenue by more than 60% and doubled revenue in Russia. Under his leadership, Leo Burnett agencies in CEE were named Agency of the Year 42 times in their respective countries and won 13 Cannes Lions. Ziebinski himself has been named Ad Man of the Year and Ad Man of the Decade in Poland.
One of the Wall Street Journal’s “Women to Watch,” Kristula-Green was the first woman to run a multinational agency in Japan and the first woman to run an agency region in Asia. In addition to her business acumen, she is widely recognized by the agency network as a key driver of talent, having developed and implemented the agency’s most recognized talent programs. Because of her demonstrated capacity to groom talent, Kristula-Green will serve on a Publicis Groupe consultancy HR board in addition to her role as Global Head of HR.

CB Asia has already highlighted the Shan Shui print work from JWT Shanghai. Now here is the tvc that also continued to win big in both the Film and Film Craft categories at AdFest.
See the CEPF Shan Shui spot.
The spot won Silver in Film and Gold for Animation in the Film Craft category. The print campaign won Gold and 3 Silvers in Posters; Silver and the Lotus Roots in Press; 3 Golds and the Lotus Roots in Print Craft; and 2 Bronze awards in Outdoor. This combined performance also saw the China Environmental Protection Foundation named Client of the Year.
Credits: ECD: Yang Yeo, Art Directors: Lillie Zhong, Yang Yong Liang, Writers: Jacqueline Ye, Rafael Freire. Agency Producer: Jane Zhang. Client Service: Betty Tsai. Production House: ONE PRODUCTION (Beijing). Director: Hailong Li. Producer: Xue Wu, Yuncheng An. Editor: Chun Huang, Jing Li. Music Company: VISION UNIT PRODUCTION. Artist: Yang Yong Liang. Composer: Jiangzhou Feng.

Over the next week CB Asia will be highlighting some of the work that caught our eye at AdFest, starting with the Best of Year in the Outdoor category.
In China 21 million kids have been relocated to cities with their migrant working parents. A quarter of them have no hope of getting an education. Ogilvy Beijing and New Citizen Program commissioned local artists to create these powerful installation art pieces outside popular art galleries. People gathered to view the art and under each installation was a number to call to donate money. Enough money was raised to commission a new school and enroll 950 new students. The 'Barbed Wire' execution won the Best of Year Lotus and the 'Glass' execution picked up Silver. View vision of the idea here.
Credits:
ECD: Nils Andersson
CD: Forest Young
CW: Yuan Zhong, Matthew Curry, Song Yue, Kweichee Lam, Echoo Lee
AD: Forest Young, Nils Andersson, Lena Hou, Roky Ren,Yu Zhenhua, Billy Lu
Photographer: Johnny Pan, Wolf Liu

 

Doug Schiff Executive Creative Director at OgilvyOne, Beijing sat on this year's Cyber panel at AdFest. Here he gives an insight on the judging and a little theorising on why Japan kicks so much Cyber ass.

Judge Cyber and you earn your buffet breakfast voucher. There’s not a lot of sitting around contemplating the aesthetics of a retouched photograph. Or leisurely ruminating over the word choice in a headline. No, it’s more about wrapping your head around augmented reality systems, branded utilities and the freshness—or more likely staleness—of motion portrait technology. That’s why it was so satisfying to be gifted with what became the 2009 Cyber Best of Show: the Sagami Original .002 condom campaign, from GT Tokyo, titled ‘Love Distance’.
Selected from six Cyber Gold winners, there was unanimous agreement among the six judges. It would have been seven, but the jury president abstained, as he produced the work. In fact, with this egalitarian group, there was more infighting over the air conditioner settings than what was or wasn’t worthy of metal. (Those living in Northern Asia wanted to get a bit gamey for a change, while those living in the tropics seemed to covet their growing layers of epidermal permafrost.)
Huh? A condom campaign wins Best of Show?
Well, that’s just it. It’s not like any other condom campaign. It’s really more about love than sex. It had all that buzzy tech stuff covered: live streaming video, blogs, SMS and blind branded entertainment, but what this campaign really did so well was captivate and engage Japan with the well-told story of a separated young couple, and their month-long, millimeter by millimeter journey—complete with an ever-visible running millimeter countdown—toward being reunited on Christmas Eve. Documented in detail online, while stirring up huge amounts of speculation about who or what was behind it all, the couple was tracked for weeks running along highways, through rainy winter conditions across the expanses of Honshu, all in their flannel sleepwear, before they finally embraced at the foot of Osaka Castle— reducing the millimeter count separating them down to 0.0. The public then learned that the whole adventure was developed for a condom which measures only .02 mm, the thinnest ever. After they finished taping the story, they quickly and deftly edited a TVC, coating it in a gorgeous Ryuichi Sakamoto score that fit like, well, you know. And it turns out the campaign sold the crap out of the little strait jackets. So what’s not to like? Here’s their campaign presentation video.
There were a few others very well worth mentioning. Like the already well-known Axe Wake-Up Service, more drool-inducing Uniqlo micro-sites, and one of the rare non-Japanese winners, an entertaining viral showing some freshly produced, but aged and grainy-looking footage of Bruce Lee expertly playing ping pong with nunchucks for Nokia.
Of course, it hasn’t gone unnoticed by both jury and delegates that the Japanese seem to be wired to do this stuff at another level.
Roughly 70% of the Cyber winners were from Japan. But before actually making Darwinian conclusions, I’ll have a go at explaining the phenomenon: the Japanese have this combination of an affinity with technology (read: micro-electronics fetish) along with a simple, uncluttered, nearly always beautiful design sensibility.
The combination makes very complicated back end technology feel like slices of toro on the tongue. They seem to have an inherent understanding of how best to use the online medium. Never just throwing TVCs on a site and calling it a day, but rather making the most of the functions and advantages of the online world. And there seems to be one more thing: these young trailblazers still have something to prove back home. Since Japanese culture and the hierarchal ways of corporate life in Japan still afford those with the most age spots to call the shots, these digital wizards are all the more focused on breaking fresh ground. To prove their worth today, beyond where they had proven it yesterday. But, so, well can someone now hint to them that they’ve earned themselves a breather? Maybe have them just stay down here in Pattaya without their computers until after next year’s awards season.
A quick note about Adfest. While entries were down this year, and delegate numbers were down even further, the show itself was run amazingly well. They didn’t trim or skimp, or allow anyone to feel anything but grateful that Adfest is and will continue to be.

Despite the drop in delegate numbers there was no drop in the amount of fun being had at AdFest this year. The final day of the festival was Saturday. It began with some good speaker sessions and ended with the gala awards presentation.

The final night of AdFest was a big one for JWT. As a network they won 2009 Network Agency of the Year for the second year running and JWT Shanghai put in a great effort to win Agency of the Year. Campaign Brief Asia doesn't have access to any methodology or tallies by JWT Shanghai would have been in stiff competition for this award with BBDO Malaysia, Dentsu Tokyo and Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia.
JWT showed the depth of the network by winning awards across the agency (Shanghai, Beijing, Jakarta, Bangkok, Colombo, Mumbai and Chennai) and in almost every category from television to radio to Cyber.
“I believe JWT’s commitment to Passion, our regional creative review, is critical in maintaining our creative excellence and developing young creative talent,” said SheungYan Lo, Chairman and ECD, JWT China.
Three of JWT’s most awarded campaign’s are CEPF’s "Shan Shui" from JWT Shanghai, Nokia’s "Bruce Lee"  from JWT Beijing and The Times of India’s "Naaka Mukka" from JWT Chennai. JWT’s final medal tally included 7 Golds, 12 Silvers, 8 Bronzes and numerous Finalists.
Phenomena Bangkok was named Production Company of the Year (for the second year in a row)
Interactive Agency of the Year was Dentsu Inc Tokyo, while DM Agency of the Year was Clemenger BBDO Melbourne. Advertiser of the Year was the China Environment Protection Foundation.
All in all CB Asia thinks all delegates would have to agree that, despite the big drop in entries and delegates, this was a good festival. The award show presentations were better organised and the speeches were all of a high standard. The key, of course, is the judging, and across the board standards were very tough and jury selection was first class.
Well done AdFest.
This year was the 12th Asia Pacific Advertising Festival and the Gala Dinner announced the winners of this year’s Film, Radio, Outdoor, 360, INNOVA, Lotus Roots and Special Award winners.
CYBER LOTUS
This year, out of 305 entries, there were 5 Golds, 10 Silvers and 16 Bronze Lotus Awards in the Cyber category, in addition to 1 Best of Show. The Best of Show was awarded to GT Inc, Tokyo, which in addition won a Gold, Silver and Bronze Lotus Award.
The remaining Gold Lotus Awards were won by Dentsu Inc. Tokyo, Bascule Inc. Tokyo, JWT Beijing and BBDO Proximity Malaysia.
Japanese agencies continue to excel in the Cyber category, with an impressive 20 Lotus Awards in addition to 1 Best of Show. Of the 5 Gold Cyber Lotus Awards, 3 were awarded to Japan, which also won 6 of the 10 total Silver Lotuses. Other top performing regions included JWT Beijing, with 1 Gold and 1 Silver; while Singapore, Sydney and Seoul also walked away with a Silver Lotus Cyber Award each.
FILM LOTUS
From a total of 443 entries, 37 Film Lotus Awards were presented, including 1 Best of Show, 6 Gold, 16 Silver and 14 Bronze awards.
ADK Tokyo collected Best of Show for its ‘LaLa Reports’ campaign for LaLa Girls Comic Magazine. It also picked up 2 Silver Lotus Awards. The following six agencies won Gold: JWT Bangkok for ‘Eraser’ Chiclets Stick; Ogilvy & Mather Jappan KK Tokyo for ‘Great Supporting Role’ for Shiro Sake; George Patterson Y&R Melbourne ‘Burst’ for Schweppes; Lowe Indonesia Jakarta that created ‘Dojo’ for Lifebuoy Shampoo; Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok for ‘Melody of Life’ Thai Life Insurance; and Ogilvy & Mather Taipei for ‘Soap’ for Wego, which also won 1 Silver and 1 Bronze for entries from the same campaign.
Tokyo was the top performing city with 1 Best of Show, 1 Gold, 6 Silvers and 2 Bronzes, followed by Bangkok with 2 Gold, 4 Silvers and 4 Bronze. Other top performers include Melbourne with 1 Gold and 1 Bronze; Singapore with 3 Bronze; and India with 2 Silvers and 1 Bronze.
RADIO LOTUS
Out of 124 entries for Radio Lotus, 14 awards were presented including one Best of Show, 2 Gold, 8 Silver and 3 Bronze.
Leo Burnett Melbourne picked up Best of Show for its Connex ‘Busy Man’ campaign for SMS Updates. The agency also won Gold for its ‘Punctuation’ campaign plus 2 Silvers for ‘Pizza’ and ‘Words’, all for SMS Updates.
The second Gold Radio Lotus Award went to Rediffusion Y&R Mumbai for its ‘Themes’ campaign for Seventymm. The agency also won Silver for its ‘Vandana’ campaign for American India Foundation.
Other agencies to win Silver in this category include: Grey Melbourne for ‘Pictures of you’ Anti-Speeding Message, Publicis Communication Mumbai for ‘400 Times’ Mosquito Repellent, JWT Bangkok picked up 2 Silvers for ‘Argument’ Brasso and ‘Shortest Story’ Sorrento Highlight Marker, and Creative Juice\Bangkok, which also won 2 Bronze for its Malee Juice Mix Cool Max series.
The third bronze went to Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore for ESPN Radio.
OUTDOOR LOTUS
With 365 entries, there were 2 Gold, 5 Silver and 10 Bronze Awards in this category, plus 1 Best of Show. Ogilvy Beijing won Best of Show for its New Citizen Program series (see left), and also won 2 Silvers. Two Gold Outdoor Lotus Awards were presented to DDB Sydney for ‘Night Reflection’ McDonalds and ADK Tokyo for its IKEA Kansai store launch.
Three remaining Silver Lotus Awards were presented to Y&R Singapore, BBDO Guerrero Manila and Lowe and Partners Petaling Jaya, which also scooped 2 Bronze Outdoor Lotus Awards. The other top ranking agencies in this category include Aim Proximity Auckland and JWT Shanghai, with two Bronze Outdoor Lotus Awards apiece.
360 LOTUS
This year 52 entries were received to the 360 Lotus Awards but only three finalists were shortlisted. The 360 Lotus category was judged by the seven Jury Presidents: Sir John Hegarty, Chairman & Worldwide Creative Director at BBH, London; Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Chicago; Prasoon Pandey, Director at Corcoise Films, Mumbai; Selina Ang, Executive Director at OgilvyOne Worldwide Malaysia; Suthisak Sucharittanonta, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer BBDO Bangkok, Bangkok; Koshi Uchiyama, Creative Director at GT Inc. / (suit) men entertainment, Tokyo; and Vince Frost, Creative Director and CEO of Frost*Design in Sydney.
The Jury Presidents were disappointed with the quality of entries this year, but three agencies successfully made the Finalists: Dentsu Tec Inc for the SoftBank Mobile White Family Project, TWBA\Tequila\New Zealand for ‘This is not a Jersey’ for adidas; and McCann-Erickson Tokyo for ‘Mushi Battle Project’, Tokyo Hands.
INNOVA LOTUS
The INNOVA Lotus Award is given for outstanding innovation ideas for communication. It was also judged by the 7 Jury Presidents. Out of 48 entries received, the Grande INNOVA Lotus went to Dentsu Razorfish Tokyo for its ‘Melody Road’ safety awareness campaign.
Two INNOVA Lotus Awards were also presented to TBWA\Tequila\New Zealand for ‘adiThread’ for adidas and McCann Worldgroup Hong Kong for ‘Flirting with Sound’ for Elements shopping mall. There was also one Finalist: Aim Proximity in Auckland, for its ‘Yellow Treehouse’ campaign for Yellow Pages Group.
ADFEST 2009 SPECIAL AWARDS
Recapping the Special Awards:
Film Production Company of the Year was awarded to Phenomena Co Ltd. Bangkok, which was also the recipient of the award in 2008. Advertiser of the Year was presented to China Environment Protection Foundation.
Awards were given to Dentsu Inc. Tokyo as Interactive Agency of the Year and Clemenger BBDO Mebourne as Direct Agency of the Year. JWT Shanghai was presented with Agency of the Year, which coupled with JWT winning Network Agency of the Year for the second year in a row.
SPEAKER SESSIONS
The final day of speaker sessions kicked off in the morning with Berlin School of Creative Leadership’s presentation of violinist Miha Pogacnik, who delighted delegates with his performance, entitled ‘Passage through the Fire’ where he deconstructed and played a classical musical fugue that he used to illustrate different styles of creative leadership,.
Cheil Worldwide provided a glimpse into the future of mobile advertising with its seminar, ‘Riding the Korean Mobile Wave’.
After lunch, Jury Presidents Vince Frost, Mark Tutssel, and Sir John Hegarty each gave highly illuminating presentations called ‘360’, ‘Wildfire 2008’ and ‘What Makes Great Work’ respectively. Tutssel presented his seminar in conjunction with Contagious magazine’s Deputy Editor Jessica Greenwood.

It was a hectic time leading up to the final awards presentation gala. One of the highlights of the whole festival was the sensational Friday night Kodak party at the stylish Sheraton Hotel just down the road from AdFest headquarters. Kodak has staged the party for the past three years and it is a stylish escape from some of the other attractions of Pattaya.
The Campaign Brief Asia camera was working hard throughout the great night. Brilliantly organised by the Kodak team.

Mark Tutssel, worldwide creative director of Leo Burnett and Jessica Greenwood from Contagious magazine showcase what's new and powerful in the world of communications, on stage at Adfest held at Pattaya Beach, Thailand, March 21, 2009. View the presentation.

Here are some highlights of Day two at AdFest.
PRESS LOTUS
This year, out of 621 entries for Press Lotus, 29 Awards were presented including 1 Gold, 13 Silvers and 15 Bronzes. Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia won the only Gold Lotus in this category for its Silverfish Books ‘Page Numbers Campaign’. The agency also picked up 3 Silvers, plus 1 Bronze.
Leo Burnett Mumbai picked up 3 Silvers and a Bronze for its ‘Bajaj Exhaust Fans’ campaign, while Euro Singapore won 3 Silvers for its Nikon campaign.
Overall, Malaysia walked away with 1 Gold, 3 Silvers and 1 Bronze; Bangkok picked up 2 Silvers and 6 Bronze; followed by Singapore with 3 Silvers and 2 Bronze; Mumbai with 3 Silvers and 2 Bronze; Hong Kong with 4 Bronze; and Shanghai and Sydney with 1 Silver each.
There was no Best of Year awarded in Press. When questioned about it Jury head Mark Tutssel said that a Best of Year award needs to be something that is fresh with a brilliant idea, executed exceptionally well.
"I always ask myself 'do I feel jealous?' and in this case, unlike in the Poster category, the answer was no."
Tutssel said perhaps Silverfish Books would have taken Best of Show had the campaign been for Penguin Books as opposed to a book retailer.
"Our industry needs big ads on big brands, so certainly this took the edge off this campaign for me."
Tutssel said it was a curse on our industry that ads get branded as large advertisers , when they are in fact just a reseller of that brand and many others.
POSTER LOTUS
Out of 662 direct entries, 33 Lotus Awards were presented including 2 Golds, 18 Silvers, 12 Bronzes and 1 Best of Poster. BBDO/Proximity Malaysia won Best of Show for its Jeep ‘Two Worlds’ poster, and also walked away with 1 Gold and 1 Silver for two other entries from its Jeep campaign.
JWT Shanghai won Gold for its ‘Shan Shui’ public service poster series, and the agency also won 3 Silvers and 1 Bronze. Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia won 4 Silvers in total plus 1 Bronze, while Euro RSCG Singapore won 3 Silvers for its Nikon campaign and Leo Burnett India in Mumbai walked away with 3 Silvers and 1 Bronze.
Tutssel described the Jeep Best of Year winner as inspirational: "This is very intelligent work worthy of an iconic brand like Jeep. The auto category has had some brilliant work created for it and it is always a highly contested category. It's great to be able to award something fresh that stands out and this work (Jeep) does exactly that.
"I am jealous."
FILM CRAFT LOTUS
From 131 entries, there were 4 Gold, 5 Silvers and 10 Bronze Lotus Awards presented in the Film Craft category.
The four Gold Film Craft Lotuses were awarded to: IF WORKS Inc Tokyo, JWT Shanghai, George Patterson Y&R Melbourne, and Goodboy’Z House Bangkok, which also walked away with 1 Silver.
Other top performing production companies include GoodOil Films Sydney, which won 1 Silver and 1 Bronze, and Song Zu Sydney, which one 1 Silver and 1 Bronze.
Overall, production companies from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia and Auckland in New Zealand picked up the most awards, with 1 Gold, 2 Silvers and 5 Bronzes between them.
NEW DIRECTOR LOTUS
This year, there were only 11 entries for the New Director category. As a result, only one Bronze was awarded in this category to Cherub Pictures in Sydney for its ‘Soccer Can’ spot for Ballantine’s & Cola. Two other production companies were also shortlisted as Finalists: The Sweet Shop, Auckland; and HAT Inc in Tokyo.
SPEAKER SESSIONS
Speakers sessions for Day Two kicked off with a presentation by one of AdFest’s major sponsors, Sino-ADI, which hosted a panel discussion called ‘How to Innovate Ourselves Out of this Downturn’. The panel included Joe McDonagh, Worldwide Global ECD at Cheil Worldwide; Sheung Yan Lo, ECD at JWT North East Asia and Chairman JWT China; Akira Kagami, Executive Officer and Global ECD of Dentsu Inc Tokyo and Jay Benjamin, ECD at Leo Burnett Australia.
DDB’s John Zeigler then gave an great presentation called ‘The Gossip Principle: Reversing through an Age of Acceleration’. In the presentation Zeigler said that gossip was the foundation of all communications and without it society would not even exist.
"If we look back, we might see that the existence of everything we do today, has originated from a single human tribal behaviour, gossip. The new creative challenge is staying true to the core idea and the brand story, knowing full well that what we say will be morphed and changed by the consumer. Gossip in its basic form works the same way."
In the afternoon, Contagious magazine gave a trend briefing entitled, ‘Mass+Niche: The Art of Two-Track Branding’, presented by Deputy Editor, Jessica Greenwood.
The day concluded with Prasoon Pandey’s presentation of the Fabulous Four films, as voted by this year’s Film Craft and New Director Jury Panel. The Jury singled out a film by Japanese director Yuji Shiota of HAT Inc Tokyo for his short film called, ‘Sarah and Sandy’. The other Fabulous Four directors selected were: Sam Bryant, Luscious International Sydney; Brian Lucknasuwan, Big Blue Production Co Bangkok; and Nitiz Wongthed, director at The Bandits Co Bangkok.
This year, 53 scripts from 22 cities were submitted to Fabulous Four – up from just 14 script submissions in 2008. The four directors selected to take part in this year’s screening submitted the most compelling scripts based on the theme, ‘Made in Asia’.

 

Farrokh Madon, Executive Creative Director of McCann Erickson Singapore, gives some insights into the AdFest Print and Poster judging.

Ask Creative Directors from New Zealand, USA (via UK), Singapore, China, Korea, Japan and Thailand to agree on a dish they like and you could be waiting till the end of the world. Fortunately, getting them to agree on the best print ads and posters in Asia-Pacific proved to be a lot easier.
As I started to walk down the corridor looking at over 1,200 print ads and posters (substantially down from the number of entries last year) from Asia-Pacific, I was gripped by a gnawing fear that there wasn’t enough really exciting work in here. Had the economic downturn proved to be a cancer to creative brain cells across the region?
But after we’d gone through a culling process that revealed a short shortlist of the best survivors (Darwin would be proud), it was apparent that creativity was still alive in the region. One of the reasons why at first glance my outlook on the work had seemed a tad grim, was that the stellar pieces were ones that had already made their debut on the awards circuit & conquered at Cannes.
During judging, there may have been some fairly disparate opinions amongst the judges on work that got a Finalist or Bronze. But the jury was unanimous on the best work. The cream, as they say, rises to the top. And the Jeep Posters from BBDO Malaysia scaled the highest peak in Asian advertising to win the Best of Show. (The vote was so unanimous that an excited judge even raised both his hands!)
The next most acclaimed campaign was for Penguin Books from Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia. The stories appealed as much to art directors, as wordsmiths. Now that’s rare indeed.
The other work that was very popular was a charming campaign from Thailand that showed people writing in ink on clothes. The idea: The detergent washes stains in just 1 wash. Simple idea. Great photography.
Another favourite was the Nikon campaign from Singapore.
Yet another popular choice was a fresh campaign for Bajaj exhaust fans from India. While the other big market in Asia, China, had a stunningly art directed and illustrated campaign showing destruction to the environment in beautiful Chinese paintings. It was the best piece of work in our section to leverage on Asian roots and hence was deservedly nominated by the jury as the Lotus Roots campaign, in keeping with the Made in Asia theme for the show this year.
These were my Top 6 campaigns. And if you look at the total medal haul, it would seem they were the favourites across the board.
Despite the smaller number of entries this year because of the economic contagion in the world, it was apparent that creativity was alive in the region. It certainly wasn’t a banner year, but the best work this year would have been worthy winners in any other year too. So the standard amongst the very best was just as high as the other years.
The AdFest organizers did a wonderful job to fly in over 50 of the most respected names in the region to judge the work. And the fact that they didn’t cut corners or costs in these tough times is a testament to their intention to retain AdFest as a premier creative awards show in Asia-Pacific.
Personally, I thought the show was well organized; the organizing committee unfailingly courteous; the experience of interacting with the best creative minds in the region, truly stimulating; and the best work was without a doubt, truly world-class.
All this would make me want to come back again to AdFest. As a judge and as a delegate.

Six of the twelve categories at AdFest have been decided. Winner and finalist details for each are available here:
Press & Poster Lotus
Press-PosterLotus.pdf

AdFest held their first awards presentation last night and already stunned some of the delegates by moving whole categories to different nights. At last night's show The Young Lotus and Design categories were awarded as well as presentations for both The Cup 2008 and the Gunn Asia Pacific results, however the planned Design and Print Craft presentations were moved to tonight.
The reason given for the move was that the presentations had taken too long and AdFest wanted people to attend the scheduled Welcome Party.
It was also announced that the Cyber Lotus was to move from the Saturday gala presentation to tonight, but this has now been reversed and will remain as planned on Saturday night. Tonight's show will recognise the winners of the Press Lotus, Poster Lotus, Film Craft Lotus and New Director Lotus, in addition to the Design and Print Craft categories.
Here are some of the Day One Welcome Party photos from the Campaign Brief Asia camera.

McCann Erickson Hong Kong took out the only Gold of the night at the Direct Lotus Awards at AdFest last night. Australian and New Zealand shops also did well.
After going through extremely tough judging, only one Gold, three Silver and six Bronze Lotus were awarded - and there was no Best of Show.
McCann Hong Kong won for their Flirting with Sound Elements campaign which has previously won the grand Kam Fan at the Hong Kong awards held in November 2008.
AIM Proximity, Auckland won Silver for Yellow Pages 'iPhone Jonny' campaign and Bronze for The Warehouse 'The Love Conspiracy'.
Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne won Silver for their Four'N Twenty Meat Pies 'Magic Salad Plate' campaign and Bronze for Starburst 'Leftover Sugar', BMF Sydney won Silver for their Wonder Performance Bread 'Not for Ducks' campaign, and M&C Saatchi/Mark, Sydney won Bronze for Animal Rescue Shelter 'Throw us a bone'. TBWA Singapore won Bronze for their Millennium Development 'Well". Tokyu Agency Inc Quie Comparison Demonstration also won Bronze. As did the COTO-TAMA -Digital Art Advertisement from Hakuhodo Tokyo.

These posters were placed in high visibility areas and in subway stations with the highest flow volume of people in Shanghai. A film version is also being played in People Square, one of the busiest subway stations in the whole of Asia. From a distance these illustrated posters look like beautiful landscape paintings. Look at it closer and the shocking reality is that factories, cars and buildings are polluting and destroying the environment.
Credits:
Agency: JWT Shanghai
CD: Yang Yeo
AD: Lillie Zhong, Yong Liang Yang
CW: Jacqueline Ye, Rafael Freire
Designer: Sean Tang
Print Production: Hester Lim, Liza Law, Joseph Yu, Tao Shen
Phtographer: Yong Liang Yang
Illustrator: Yong Liang Yang

 

The 6th Young Lotus Workshop at AdFest 2009 was moderated by Dentsu Inc and attended by 26 young creatives from 13 cities: Bangkok, Beijing, Colombo, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Taipei, Sydney and Tokyo.
The winning campaign was Team Colombo: Ralston Joseph, Copywriter, and Sithum Walter, Art Director at JWT Colombo, Sri Lanka (pictured left), who received their award from Akira Kagami, Executive Officer and Global Executive Creative Director at Dentsu Inc. on stage at the ADdFest Awards Presentation on Thursday 19 March.
There were 5 other teams shortlisted:
Team Sydney: Iggy Rodriguez, Copywriter, and Justin Carew, Art Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia
Team Tokyo: Kazunari    Sakai, Art Director and Yuri Otsuki, Dentsu Inc. Japan
Team Hong Kong: Man Kit Lee, Copywriter, and Leung Chung, Art Director, Publicis
Team Jakarta: Dinah Maulianah Sumantri, Copywriter, and Sandru Prapanca Emil, Ogilvy & Mather Indonesia
Team Seoul: Cho Seo Rim, Copywriter, Daehong Communications; and Min Chung, Art Director, MBC Adcom.
The 13 teams had just 22 hours to create a multimedia campaign that would encourage young people who are currently not interested in advertising to choose a career at an agency. The Young Lotus teams said the challenge was particularly tough because they had to devise not only the campaign, but an entire strategy too, followed by a 10-minute presentation of their concept.
“It was a very difficult assignment, and the most impressive thing is that each team really made a good explanation of what our industry stands for,” says Kagami.
“All participants now understand the importance of Integrated Communication Design and why it is essential to our future. One medium is no longer enough to reach people – Integrated Communication Design requires something different for each media.”
The campaigns were judged according to three criteria: a unique core idea; good strategy; and ‘Integrated Communication Design’, which was the topic of Dentsu Inc’s Workshop.
Five executives from Dentsu Inc took part in Young Lotus 2009: Kagami; Kazunori Miura, Creative Director, Dentsu Inc Tokyo; Glen Hunt, Creative Catalyst at Dentsu Canada in Toronto; Koichi Yamamoto, Senior Research Director, Communication Lab, Dentsu Inc Tokyo; and Omar bin Shaari, Managing Director, Dentsu Utama, Kuala Lumpur.
Vinit Suraphongchai, Chairman of the AdFest Working Committee said, “The Young Lotus Workshop is the pride of AdFest as it is the direct result of our vision to create a learning forum for the creative community in Asia Pacific.”
“This year, we are also running the first-ever AdFest Academy for delegates aged under 30. It is another invaluable opportunity for young creatives to be mentored by the region’s top executives, and it further demonstrates AdFest’s commitment to nurturing future generations of our industry.”
The AdFest Working Committee is extremely grateful to Dentsu Inc for all the effort and resources they have donated to this year’s 26 Young Lotus Workshop participants.
Participants are selected by national advertising associations in the region, which then subsidizes travel to AdFest for their winning team. The workshop and attendance of participants is funded by AdFest.

TBWA\China was one of the big stars last night at the 2009 International ANDY Awards, held in New York. The ANDY awards is one of the most renowned and largest awards in the advertising industry and trendsetter as the first show of the awards season.
TBWA\China, took home a total of five awards: two Gold, one Silver and two Bronze, all for the agency’s work on adidas.
Winning in Malaysia was BBDO/Proximity in Kuala Lumpur, taking home a Bronze for its work on Chrysler Korea.
The GRANDY, the ANDY’s top honor as Best in Show, went to BBH NY for its groundbreaking integrated campaign “Dig Out Your Soul In The Streets” that launched Oasis’ latest album.
Mark Waites, Creative Director and Founding Partner, Mother London and Chairman of the International ANDY Awards said about this year’s judging and final results “it’s become very clear that new thinking in new media has replaced traditional ‘advertising’ executions. Clients and their agencies are becoming adept at embracing unusual approaches, concepts and mediums to transport their creative vision into work that makes viewers take notice and respond. Reaching consumers any place and any time has become a given but the most creatively open minds are setting their advertising apart, formulating unexpected ideas that are accessible to the audience.”
He went on to add “I’m extremely proud of the work we honor with an ANDY. It’s always inspirational, thought-provoking and an indicator of where our business is evolving. It’s been an enormous privilege to serve as the show’s Honorary Chairman for the past two years and I feel great excitement and optimism for how the challenges we face in today’s business climate will result in opportunity and innovation.”
The Awards Show and Party took place at Terminal 5 in New York City and was sponsored by Rackspace. The International ANDY Awards, now in its 45th year, is one of the world’s preeminent advertising industry awards shows. Famous for its outstanding senior caliber jury, the ANDYs  celebrate creative excellence in broadcast, print, interactive, outdoor and integrated advertising. It is facilitated by The ADVERTISING Club of NY.

It’s a very subdued AdFest.
Talk last night centred around how brutal the judges had been and how many delegates and entries the festival would attract this year. 50% down was the speculation.
As it turned out entries declined to 2004 levels with just 3,309 submitted over the 13 categories. It’s a large, but not unexpected decline on last year’s record 5,148 entries and 2007’s total of 5,012.
Delegate numbers are way down on previous years with only 693 attendees this year. This compares with 1266 last year and 1331 in 2007.
Japanese delegates are down from 401 to 221.
Korean delegates fell from 84 to 35.
Singapore down from 53 to 10.
Indonesia down from 60 to 32.
Malaysia down from 42 to 23.
The only large increase this year is from Sydney – up from 26 to 41 delegates.
With depressed delegate numbers and entries it also looks like the juries here have been very tough. One Gold in Print, two in Poster and just two in Film is the whispered bar talk.
But the winners are bound to be worthy with AdFest’s two big name jury heads Sir John Hegarty and Mark Tutssel gaining rave reviews from creatives that sat on their panels.
Day One started today with the traditional Gunn Report session hosted by Donald Gunn and Emma Wilkie. This year Gunn modified his presentation to highlight the Asia Pacific region. Some of the statistics were very interesting and point to the large contribution the region plays in world creativity. Japan topped the Asia Pacific Country ranking of creativity with 117 points, from Thailand (74), Australia (58), Singapore (53) and New Zealand (38). The top ranking agency was Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore followed by Dentsu Japan, Leo Burnett Malaysia, O&M Mumbai and O&M Singapore. In Networks Ogilvy again topped the table with Leo Burnett second, followed by Saatchi, JWT and then TBWA.
Ogilvy India Executive Chairman and National CD Piyush Pandey then took the stage to highlight the results of The Cup and talk about local insights and culture and how they can be used to make powerful advertising.
JWT presented the first session after lunch – The Dragon is Coming! The Wolf is Coming. Moderated by JWT China’s Lo Sheung Yan it featured Zhen Hua Li (Independent Curator MSG Production & BJ Art Lab) and Wuershan, a director at One Production. The session did not talk on advertising in China but rather looked beyond our industry to give insights into the history and emergence of contemporary art in China.
Nick Souter, Partner at Insideout Sydney then presented a model for agencies to build a creative culture and not simply a creative department in his talk on how to build a whole -brained agency.
Later today is the presentation of the Dentsu hosted Young Lotus Creative Competition followed by the first of the three AdFest awards presentations. The Welcome Party concludes the day.
At least, this year, the queues to the buffet and bar will be shorter.

AdFest has teamed up with D&AD to feature an exhibition of the winners from last year’s D&AD Student Awards. The awards showcase the best emerging creative talent from colleges and universities around the world.
Exhibited works will include first and second placed and commendations from nine advertising categories, including digital plus the Student of the Year category winner.
The awards are open to any full or part time students enrolled on recognised undergraduate, postgraduate and Higher Education courses worldwide.
 Laura Woodroffe, D&AD Director of Education & Professional Development, said: “For over 30 years, the D&AD Student Yellow Pencil has been one of the toughest student awards to win and one of the best first steps to a career in advertising and design. Our standards couldn’t remain so high without the industry staying closely involved to help encourage the next generation."

Campaign Brief Asia held a drinks night in Singapore last night and invited along  some of the creative industry working there. It was a big night with around 100 of our friends filling the rooftop bar at Rogues.
The drinks on the night were very generously sponsored by top Australasian photography agents Look and top New Zealand post production company, DigiPost. Once again Guy Venables (Look) and Stephen Douglas (DigiPost) did not hesitate in agreeing to sponsor the event and their continued support of Campaign Brief Asia and the industry in Singapore is very much appreciated.
It was a great opportunity for CB Asia to catch up with everyone so thank you to all the CDs and creatives who came along. Also big thanks must go to James Dickinson for his great planning and organization of the venue and the night. Lastly thanks to the team at Rogues who not only ensured we were well looked after but also joined in with Look and DigiPost to offer a special happy hour card to everyone who attended. This Happy Hour card offers happy hour prices at Rogues from 3pm-9pm daily for the rest of the year! A great benefit to round off what was a great night all round.

Steve Hough, one of Asia’s most highly awarded creatives, has left the Saatchi & Saatchi network after four years and has been lured back to Malaysia to work with Y&R.
On the move Hough told CB Asia: “The last four years has been a terrific and I will miss working with the Saatchi team immensely. But it just felt like the right time to move on and do something different. On the creative front, things are rapidly evolving at Y&R, It’s a perfect time to be joining and be a part of the resurgent Y&R brand. The network is definitely on a mission to become a really serious awards force, both regionally and globally. With Tony Granger at the helm  and Marcus Rebeschini running the region the passion to make Y&R a dominant player is amazing it’s a great time to be on board and be part of it”.
In the last three years, Hough has won many international awards, including a Gold Cannes Lion for the Amnesty International “Stamps” poster campaign, Silver lion for Wonderbra “3D” ( the 10th most awarded poster campaign in the world in the Gunn Report) plus three Bronze Lions: for Olay, Western Union, and the Cu Chi Museum respectively. Also in this time he has won a Gold Clio, and 3 Silver Clio’s and 4 Bronzes.
Y&R Malaysia’s Chairman Dato’ Rishya Joseph said: “We’re delighted to have Steve on board. He is a great asset for Y&R in Malaysia and his appointment will give us the critical mass necessary to push ahead with a strong creative agenda”.
Also, regional ECD Marcus Rebeschini commented: “Steve Hough is a great addition to the Y&R network. He brings a wealth of much-needed talent and expertise to the region. As we expand, we're hoping to attract more creative talent like Steve to usher in a new era for Y&R Asia. The creative bar in the Malaysian office is at an all time high, and with Dato' Rishya and Steve at the helm, things can only get better."

Indian telecommunications company BPL Mobile wanted to demonstrate the excellent coverage that their network offers, even when using a mobile phone underground. McCann Erickson Mumbai created this press campaign to depict the moment of truth when network coverage drop outs usually become a reality. These ads show security guards with a welcoming garland in basement parking lots and subways.
Credits:
Executive Creative Director: Prasoon Joshi
Creative Director: Ryan Menezes
Writer/Art Director: Ryan Menezes
Photographer: Ajay Salvi

50 creatives from around Asia and Australasia begin deliberating today for the first round of judging at AdFest. The jurists will represent 27 agencies from 19 cities.
Jury Presidents responsible for overseeing the 14 Lotus Awards categories are:
FILM LOTUS & RADIO LOTUS: Sir John Hegarty, Chairman & Worldwide Creative Director at BBH in London.
PRESS LOTUS & POSTER LOTUS: Mark Tutssel (pictured above), Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Chicago.
OUTDOOR LOTUS: Suthisak Sucharittanonta, Chief Creative Officer, BBDO Bangkok.
DIRECT LOTUS: Selina Ang, Executive Director, OgilvyOne Worldwide, Kuala Lumpur.
DESIGN LOTUS & PRINT CRAFT LOTUS: Vince Frost, Creative Director Frost Design in Sydney.
FILM CRAFT LOTUS & NEW DIRECTOR LOTUS: Prasoon Pandey, Director of Corcoise Films, Mumbai.
CYBER: Koshi Uchiyama, CD at GT Inc and (suit)men entertainment, Tokyo.
Entry and delegate numbers for this year's AdFest are not known at this stage but it is widely speculated that both levels will be down on previous recent years.
Several big-name ECDs have already indicated to CB Asia that they will not be attending this year due to economic cut-backs however some prominent creative directors will be there on the jury. From Singapore Ali Shabaz (ECD JWT), Richard Copping (ECD Saatchi & Saatchi), Farrokh Madon (ECD McCann), Terrence Tan (CD DDB). From India Santosh Padhi (ECD Taproot), Shalini Dam (National CD Grey). From China/Hong Kong Spencer Wong (ECD McCann China), Nils Anderson (ECD O&M Greater China), Yang Yeo (CCO JWT Shanghai), Ruth Lee (CCO DDB Hong Kong), Doug Schiff (ECD OgilvyOne Beijing). Yew Leong Tan (CD Leo Burnett) and Dave Ferrer (JWT Manila) will also be there, plus many talented CDs from Bangkok and Japan including Dentsu's Akira Kagami who will be running the Young Creative competition this year..
WHO ELSE WILL BE AT ADFEST?
CB Asia also hears David Guerrero (BBDO Guerrero Manila), Piyush Pandey (Ogilvy India) and JWT China's Lo SheungYan will make the trip. Of course, Campaign Brief Asia will be high profile at AdFest. This year you can come over and say hello (and Donald Gunn and Emma Wilkie) at The Gunn Report stand.
THE PRODUCTION CORNER
Some of the region’s top production companies are also attending either as delegates or via booths at the AdFest 2009 Production Corner. As a Platinum Sponsor, the NSW Department of State and Regional Development will showcase 20 production companies and post production companies that are based in Sydney. The Production Corner takes place at the Pattaya Exhibition & Conference Hall (PEACH) during AdFest 2009 on 19-21 March 2009. The production corner is a relaxed, friendly environment for meeting some of the region’s most inspirational producers, directors and production executives and is certain to be one of the most popular networking places this year. The few that we know that are definitely attending include:
Post Modern
Andrew Robinson
Mobile: +61 414 972 369
Email: akro@postmodernsydney.com
Arithmetic
Andrew McPhail
Executive Producer
Mobile: +61 417 244 861
Email: andrew@arithmetic.com.au
and
Wayne Maule
Director
Mobile: +66 8729 8067
Look Photography
Guy Venables
Executive Producer
Mobile: +61 418 884 882
Email: guy@lookproduction.com
Film Construction
Tom Gibson
Branch Manager
+61 438 183 418
Email: tom@filmconstruction.com
DigiPost New Zealand
Stephen Douglas
General Manager
Mobile: +64 21 643 110
Email: stephen@digipost.co.nz
IDC Photographers
Michele Richards
Agent
Mobile: +64 21 432583
Email: michele@idc.co.nz

Biba Cabuquit a copywriter at DM9 JaymeSyfu tells of the 26 hours of stress and over thinking that took place at the Young Creatives competition at the recent Kidlat Awards festival held in Boracay and run by The Philippines Creative Guild.

The theme song for our Kidlat Young Creatives experience was Bob Marley’s “Jamming.”
In the 26 hours given to us to come up with an award-winning idea, shoot and edit it, my partner Dee and I (pictured left) must have heard that song approximately 112 times.
Not only did it alternately soothe and rattle our already frayed nerves, but by the 9th hour, the song began to relate to our ordeal. It was as if Bob was jamming with us on the night of March 5.
“Ain't no rules, ain't no vow, we can do it anyhow
I and I will see you through”
The brief was deceptively simple: Save the white sands of Boracay Island.
There were no set perimeters; submit a 30-seconder TV commercial to discourage tourists from bringing home the powdery white sand.
“We're jamming, jamming…”
Dee and I brainstorm for a few hours and between bouts of self-doubt and pats on the back, we settle on what we think is a brilliant idea that may bring us fame, fortune and France. Or at the very least, some bragging rights.
“True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side”
Our story was very subtly titled, “Sex on the Beach.” It revolved on a couple having a go on the shore, with the girl turning out to be a tranny. The lead guy rushes on a plane back home, ending at the shower where he scrubs himself from filth and gallons upon gallons of sand. He is sobbing, feeling violated amidst the mountain load of sand he extracted from ever crevice of his clay body. Yes, we decided to go all-out and execute all this in claymation.
“Every day we pay the price with a little sacrifice
Jamming ‘til the jam is through.
The next few hours had us making little clay people, rolling around in the muck in the middle of the night, fighting off overly zealous onlookers (a few actually thought Dee and I were having our own little sex on the beach episode).
We were cursing ourselves by midnight on why we had to do it with clay, especially when the nipples and legs kept coming off, why it had to be a torturous process of stop-motion and why we were not accountants in the first place.
“No bullet can stop us now, we neither beg nor will we bow
Neither can be bought or sold.
We all defend the right, jah, jah, children must unite”
We plod on, telling ourselves this will soon be over. Of course, just to make things a little more exciting, there were a couple of power shortages, a gazillion technical mishaps and few panic attacks.
With 9 minutes to spare, Dee and I make a run for it. We barge our way through a throng of people, until we find Leigh, the judge who was calmly accepting entries.
“Yeah, we're jamming, jamming”
We made it! Frantic jumping and hugging ensue until our legs conk out on us.
“Holy mount Zion
Holy mount Zion
Jah sitteth in Mount Zion
And rules all Creation”
Come awarding, we couldn’t help but call on all the angels and saints we knew in our former lives as Catholic schoolgirls. We didn’t hear our agency called and, not to be melodramatic about it, but we were crushed.
“Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too keep you satisfied”
The adults that we are, Dee and I pout and make our usual faces. Our boss, Eugene, begins to explain how the supers couldn’t be read so the judges were left with the indelible visual of a hanging clay penis. Oh well. We tell ourselves we’re mighty proud of that clay penis.
“We're jamming, jamming
I'm jammed, I hope you're jamming too”
Our agency makes a decent showing at the awards night with 1 Gold, 3 Bronzes and 6 finalists. I manage to snag a bronze for a radio ad and receive the trophy from Stefan Sagmeister himself! Not too shabby!
Dee and I aren’t on our way to Cannes or Pattaya, but we did have a memorable romp at the beach with the inspiring and infuriating Mr. Marley…
“We're jamming, jamming
And I hope this jam is gonna last”

Could there be trouble for Asian TVC production companies on the horizon? As the US economy continues to tumble, Omnicom, the world's biggest ad agency holding company - housing networks BBDO, DDB and TBWA - is acting to limit its exposure to debt by enforcing sequential liability language in production contracts that may prove overwhelming for most production companies. Their payment stance, which may be introduced in other markets outside the US (Omnicom backed down in the UK), will hobble production companies, say industry players, in this report from Creativity

Sir John Hegarty, chairman and worldwide creative director, BBH, London, warns that scam advertising is a very serious problem, and if it continues, will undermine completely the value of awards and end up destroying them.
Hegarty, who received a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2007, is heading to Asia as the film jury president at AdFest 2009, taking place March 19-21 in Thailand. As a region Asia struggles with the problem of scam advertising, a practice that has been reduced in some other markets by stricter judging processes.
He told Campaign Brief Asia: “Festival organisers have to understand this. I’ve likened it to drug use in sport. The Olympic authorities have realised if they don’t stamp it out it will destroy everything they’ve built. The same applies to our competitions.”
He has no expectations over what the standard of work will be like at AdFest – whenever he sits on a jury he hopes to be surprised.
“To see some wonderful work that hasn’t been picked up by the media. That’s the upside of judging a show,” he says.
While the global financial downturn has created an atmosphere of gloom and doom in the global industry, and Hegarty says that like any agency, BBH is not immune to the recession, he argues that it is an expanding company with a robust vision of what the future is all about.
He expects that vision and the quality of BBH’s work to sustain them over the coming years.  
Hegarty says: “Whenever a recession occurs, this is my fifth, it forces companies to look at their product and ensure they’re offering genuine value for their clients. Value that can be translated into sales. The first thing all those agencies should do is stop doing scam work. Focus your creative department on turning out genuine ground breaking sales-related work. Not something that will be seen by a few awards juries and their friends.”
How does he expect the work at AdFest to compare to that awarded at the Cannes International Advertising Festival in June?
He says: “Cannes is naturally a global festival attracting awards from everywhere. AdFest is still seen as regional, although Asia is a pretty big region. So naturally Cannes will have the pick of all the best work. But if AdFest develops a global reputation that could change. Nothing is forever,” he says.
Recognised as one of the industry’s greatest statesmen, Hegarty’s advertising career started in 1965 as a junior art director at Benton and Bowles before joining Cramer Saatchi, which became Saatchi & Saatchi, as a founding shareholder. In 1973 he co-found TBWA London as creative director, leaving in 1982 to start BBH. His awards include two D&AD Golds and six Silvers, Cannes Golds and Silvers, and British Television Gold and Silvers. He was awarded the D&AD President’s Award for outstanding achievement in the advertising industry and the Lifetime Achievement award at the 2005 Clio Awards and has been appointed to the New York’s One Club Hall of Fame and the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame.

IN HONOR OF STEFAN SAGMEISTER WHO LOVES TO MAKE LISTS, DM9 JAYMESYFU MANILA'S LOUIE SOTTO MADE ONE OF HIS OWN AFTER RETURNING FROM THE KIDLAT AWARDS:

What I have learned in Boracay so far:
I. Complaining isn't always silly. I got upgraded to a better room.
II. Abusing the breakfast buffet can come back to you, as my partner later found out.
III. Not bringing a camera works to my advantage.
IV. The internet stifles a vacation. (Within minutes of landing, one of our Account Directors was hounding us to email revisions.)
V. Making a Hall of Fame t-shirt for our boss, Merlee, in one day is not easy. But thanks to iron-on decals it is possible. (Unfortunately, I don't think anyone got the Bob Marley reference.)
VI. Beer and mojitos do not mix.
VII. Trying to work on the beach is stupid. Especially when you have half-naked women all around.
VIII. Reef walking is a total waste of time when the reef's only as big as a coffee table.
IX. Droga unfortunately had to cancel and that was a drag. (We heard a member of his team got into an accident. Hope everything is okay.)
X. John Merrifield first went to Boracay, before many Filipinos had even heard of the place. (And before many of the young creatives were even born.)
XI. Stefan must have hated the design of our "Kidlat" trophy.
XIII. Stefan has a 3 month lead time per project. We're lucky to get 3 days! (On top of that, on every 7th year, they have a client-free year, working on anything they feel like. He showed us what he was working on at the moment, which was a coffee table for his office. It's brilliant!)
XII. Don't enter a young creatives competition if you're overage. It's unfair to your partner. (Unfortunately, the winning team was disqualified. And so was the second place team on account of a technicality.)
XIV. Having guts did work out! Took a chance and kissed the lovely awards presenters. (Sorry about that ladies.)
XV. Making a list about the Kidlat Awards is so much easier than writing a whole damn article.

Photos: Sotto is pictured in the middle of the top photo; The legendary T-shirt; DM9 with awards host BB. Gandanghari.

Five Gold awards were handed out at the 2008 Creative Guild Kidlat Awards for The Philippines industry held in Boracay.
The only multiple Gold winner was TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno Manila with two. Other Gold winners were Bates141, DM9 JaymeSyfu and McCann Ericson.
One of TBWA’s recipients for the gold was “Recycle” in the Design category. This was an eco-friendly bag that was produced for TBWA Worldwide’s Carbon Neutral Campaign. Stefan Sagmeister, one of today’s most highly regarded graphic designers and Jury Head for the Design category told the agency that it was his favorite amongst all the entries in the competition. The second gold was awarded to “Riles” in the DIWA TV Category. This was a TV spot for the University of the Philippines Population Institute that portrayed poverty in the Philippines.
Bates141’s gold was for a Woman Today Asia ‘Breast Cancer Flyer’. DM9 JaymeSyfu won gold in Radio for Prolife “Awake” and McCann’s won in the Integrated category for their I Am Ninoy “Project Yellow Glasses/Connections”.
To complete TBWA’s Kidlat performance the agency also scored 4 Silver awards and 6 Bronzes. BBDO Guerrero missed out on gold, but had a great night picking up 5 Silvers and 8 Bronzes. If you tally up awards won and finalists BBDO Guerrero had a total of 39 compared to TBWA’s 27.
Other agencies to do well include Leo Burnett with 2 Silver and 2 Bronzes. Lowe and Publicis JimenezBasic both picked up one Silver and three Bronze awards.
Adobo Magazines' Angel Guerrero, who was in Boracay for the awards, told CB Asia: "Public service projects swept the golds. A total of 48 medals were awarded, with BBDO Guerrero topping the count at 13. While no award was given, Agency of the Year honors would go to TBWA\SMP, which came second in medals but received two Golds. Big brands were also well-represented, with medals for Nestle, FedEx, McDonald’s and Gillette, among others."
The juries, headed by acclaimed international designer Stefan Sagmeister and star Thai creative Jureeporn Thaidumrong of Jeh United judged work in 21 categories across all media. The jury also included John Merrifield of TBWA\Asia Pacific.
In the Kidlat Young Creatives session BBDO Guerrero’s Rachel Teotico and Leah Mababangloob were selected to represent the country at the Asia Pacific AdFest in a competition that included 23 other young creative teams.
CB Asia is bringing you coverage of this Young Creatives Competition from the eyes of participant in another thread. Biba Cabuquit a copywriter at DM9 JaymeSyfu will tell of 26 hours of stress, over thinking, technical mishaps, clay and lots of sand!

PHOTOS:
1. (Above). Melvin Mangada with Stefan Sagmeister.
2. A jury of ECDs outside their natural habitat, with guest judges Stefan Sagmeister and a giddy Judee Thaidumrong. Photo by Andy Maluche.
3. “Raise your hand to vote ‘in’…”  An unorthodox venue for the final round of judging. Photo, Andy Maluche.
4. Creative Guild Chair David Guerrero (BBDO Guerrero) with awards night host BB Gandanghari, who was a male action movie star in a previous life. Photo, Andy Maluche.
5. Guest judges Stefan Sagmeister and John Merrifield get into the local spirit. Photo, Andy Maluche.
6. TBWA creatives celebrate their Kidlat! performance with TBWA Asia-Pacific’s John Merrifield.
7. TBWA Carbon Neutral Campaign that won a Gold for the agency.

This year AdFest will launch the inaugural AdFest Academy for delegates aged under 30. It will take place over two days of the festival from 11am – 1pm.
On Day One, Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer & Chairman/Partner at Taproot India Mumbai (pictured left), and Nils Anderson, Group Executive Creative Director for Greater China at Ogilvy & Mather China (pictured left, bottom), will each give one 30-minute lecture.
On Day Two, Corey Chalmers, Group Creative Director at TBWA\Whybin in Auckland and Lee Parkinson, Managing Partner at Newdialogue in Wellington will also give 30-minute lectures.
On both days from 2:30pm til 4:30pm, members of this year's Jury Panel will take part in a Portfolio Showcase. This will enable 60 young creatives with the rare opportunity to showcase their portfolios on a one-on-one basis to the region's top creatives and receive invaluable feedback on improving their work.
CDs taking part in these portfolio sessions include: Andrew Berglund, Global Digital Executive Creative Director at Cheil Worldwide in Seoul; Dave Ferrer, Executive Creative Director at JWT Manila; Jay Benjamin, Executive Creative Director at Leo Burnett in Sydney; and Joel Clement, Regional Head of Art & Deputy Regional ECD at Saatchi & Saatchi Asia.
Only 60 positions are open for the academy and the Portfolio Showcase, which are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Sign-up must be done prior to AdFest since confirmed participants must bring 3 of their best works to present to the juries to the Portfolio Review. To register participants must be registered delegates and under 30 years of age. Visit the AdFest site for more.

With all the gloom and doom of effects of the global recession it's nice hear a bit of a positive story. The organisers of the 2nd Dubai International Advertising Festival incorporating the 3rd Dubai Lynx Awards have announced that 2079 entries from a record-breaking 165 companies from 18 countries will be competing for Dubai Lynx trophies at this year’s event, an increase of almost 3% versus last year.
"Despite today's economic climate, we are truly delighted to still see a growth in the number of entries from across the region, particularly in Media and Outdoor. More importantly, though, is the increase of entrant companies taking part, up nearly 8% versus last year, an endorsement from the industry that after only three years since the launch of the Dubai Lynx Awards, a Lynx trophy is the most coveted prize to win and the Festival the premier industry event to attend in the region," says Steve Lane, Dubai Lynx Festival Director.
The winners will be revealed and honoured during the Dubai Lynx Awards Ceremony on the evening of 17th of March, which last year was attended by over 1600 guests.

Top Malaysian ad mag Adoi reports today that two prominent industry figures have received prestigious recognition being conferred Datukships for their contribution and success in the industry. Rishya Joseph (Pictured on the left in this photo from Campaign Brief's KL party last year) is Chairman of Y&R Group, and Shafri Mohamad Executive Chairman of Astana International are now the latest Yang Berbahagias on the Malaysian ad scene reports Adoi.
For further on this story go to Adoi.

It's not often radio commercials from Singapore get featured. Here's a campaign out of Ogilvy Singapore that caught our ear. Panadol Menstrual is a pain relief product formulated for women, obviously. Perhaps less obvious is the benefit that it can have for others. The spots were created by Ross Fowler, Cheyenne Yee and Greg Rawson and produced at The Gunnery. Paul Anderson was the creative director.
Listen to the first spot.
Listen to the second spot.
Listen to the third spot.

McCann Erickson Mumbai has created a new press campaign for Chlormint, a breath freshener brand of Parfetti Van Melle. The series of three ads feature garlic, fish and cigars in camouflage to demonstrate how the breath freshener can hide foul odors.
Credits:
Executive Creative Director: Prasoon Joshi
Creative Director: Ryan Menezes
Writer: Ketan Deshpande
Art Director: Milind Palav
Photographer: Sanjeev Angne

Singapore's Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather, is the President of both the TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor & Radio Jury and the Integrated Jury at the Dubai Lynx this year.
Khai Meng heads the panel that also includes former Leo Burnett India Chief Creative Officer Agnello Dias (who has now started his own agency called Taproot India).
The Dubai Lynx begins this week from March 15th and speakers for the festival include Bob Isherwood (former Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CD), Tham Khai Meng, Pyush Pandey (National CD O&M India) and Richard Pinder (COO Publicis Worldwide)
For more details go to the website.

JWT recently created an activation and multimedia campaign to create awareness that SilkAir is a full-service airline. The agency came up with the idea of taking over cinemas in Singapore to demonstrate the SilkAir experience. The cost was just $40,000 and you can see the idea here.

Credits:
Copywriter Clarence Chiew
Art director Liyu Minzie
Media agency Mindshare
Media planner Charmaine Deng
Director: Melvin Mak
Production company: Rushes
Post production: Iceberg

Cannes has extended the deadline for all entries in all categories to March 27th.
For details go to the entry website.

Lo Sheung Yan has been promoted to JWT China Chairman effective from March 1st.
In addition to continuing in his role as Northeast Asia Executive Creative Director, Lo Sheung Yan will oversee JWT Beijing and Shanghai offices along with Tom Doctoroff, Greater China CEO of JWT.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Lo Sheung Yan, known as Ma Yan among his peers, handed himself over to China’s advertising community when he joined JWT Shanghai in 1996.
Expressing his delight on Ma Yan’s new role, Tom Doctoroff says. “It's more than just a new title.  It's a signal that, now more than ever, we regard our financial performance and product quality as inextricably linked.” Then, Doctoroff continues, “Ma Yan is a rare individual, and an even rarer leader.  His blend of passion and pragmatism, wisdom and toughness, is an asset to both JWT and our client partners.”
During the last decade, Ma Yan has built JWT into the hottest creative shop in the Greater China region.  JWT often takes the leading position in creative office rankings, such as the global office ranking in the Gunn Report, the Mainland China Creative Ranking in Campaign Brief, Longxi Global Chinese Creative Ranking and etc. Not to mention the innumerous awards in international and regional advertising festivals.
With a strong sense of responsibility for developing the industry as a whole, Ma Yan’s footprints can be found in universities, creative forums, and advertising associations around China. He shares his ideas and experience without holding back.  In 2008, as a member of the Chinese creative industry, Ma Yan gave a speech -- “Beyond the Great Wall” in Cannes. The attention of the whole world focused on China once again.  Later that year, Ma Yan was awarded by “The Outstanding Contribution Award for Three-decade China Advertising.”
Being the leader of a multinational agency, Ma Yan gives equal attention to international brands and local brands. He has helped international brands to adapt to the local market with significant business growth, and he has also been instrumental in turning local companies into powerhouse brands.
In his new role, Ma Yan's centre of gravity will remain on JWT’s product, both from a strategic and creative perspective.  However, he will now proactively reach out to stakeholders outside of the creative realm to ensure harmony between all the pertinent pieces of the business.
Talking about his new role, Ma Yan says “I feel honored to work with such an outstanding team. We will keep on working as one to bring not only JWT or our client’s work, but also China advertising industry as a whole, to a brand new level.”

The London International Awards has introduced a Bronze Statue to its line-up of Gold and Silver Statues.
"The Silver Statue was introduced in 2007.  This year we are adding Bronze.  Everyone has been asking why we only have Gold and Silver?  So it is just a natural progression to add another metal to our show.  There will be a clear distinction between the metal Winners and Finalists," explained Barbara Levy, President of London International Awards.
This is the 24th year of the LIA and entries will be open from 24th April. See website for details.

The Creative Guild of The Philippines will be celebrating the 25th Ad of the Year awards this week from March 5th-7th. The Kidlat Festival is the longest-running, most celebrated advertising creative competition in the country. In recognition of today’s dynamic communications landscape the awards will feature the best of old and new.  From the 24 past presidents of the organization to the latest developments in media planning, interactive and design. And from the hottest new talent in the industry competing to represent the country in Cannes and Asia-Pacific AdFest to global superstars like Stefan Sagmeister (pictured left from Sagmeister Inc New York), John Merrifield (TBWA Asia) and Jureeporn Thaidumrong (JEH United Bangkok) as international judges. Due to an accident affecting a key member of his team, David Droga will not be able to attend the Kidlat Awards, as originally planned.
Building on last year’s success, The Creative Guild are hosting the event for the 70 member agencies of the 4As at the Regency Hotel in Boracay. Confirmed participants include: BBDO Guerrero, DM9 Jayme Syfu, Jimenez Basic, JWT, Lowe, McCann, Ogilvy, PC&V, TBWA SMP and Y&R.
"In all, we anticipate in excess of 200 delegates for the 3 day event, which will feature inspirational talks, a chance to see the best work of the year in 19 categories and countless networking opportunities," said organiser David Guerrero.
More information is available online here. 

Ogilvy & Mather Singapore has unveiled the new Visit Britain campaign that launched on February 26 in Singapore and Malaysia and in Thailand in the month to come. Part of a strategic branding initiative, the new campaign seeks to alter traditionally held perceptions of Britain as an old-fashioned and extravagant holiday destination.  The new website positions The Other Britain as the cool place to be- bustling with a vibrant arts scene, new music, home to some awesome fashion and one that throws up many pleasures for the young traveler.
Hannah Wykeham, Project Director on the campaign says, “Our aim is to show the younger generation what a diverse experience they could discover if they visit the UK. By guiding users through the wired and wonderful events, sports, food and culture from UK, we have given them an alternative to the expected visit to Buckingham Palace and Madam Tussauds. As they browse the site, they'll not only find the best place for fish and chips, but also a richer more cost effective view of the UK with experiences closer to that of a local, than a tourist.”  
Sumanthi Ramanathan, Marketing Manager, South East Asia, Visit Britain adds: "Britain is full of sights and sounds far beyond the instantly recognisable World Heritage sites, castles and countryside. The campaign concept invites the audience to explore contemporary Britain – stylish, provocative, vibrant and at times bordering quirky. From adrenaline pumping underground music festivals to alternative cutting edge fashion and arts, we want to share the side of Britain which is often experienced by the locals and missed by the tourist. The campaign is designed for the boldly adventurous and imaginative traveller who is seeking an original interactive experience and will also post travel blogs on facebook, making their friends green with envy. "
Targeted primarily at youth, the campaign uses the digital medium to diffuse the message, in both English and Thai- with the revamped website, viral videos, banners and e-dm. The creative plunges visitors into a cutting edge, uber-stylish, underground, yet in your face kind of Britain - a Britain most people would never get a glimpse of unless they were a part of that social scene.
Log on to the website. It lists up and coming pub basement bands, wild music festivals, hundred year old pubs and hundred year old locals, weird and wicked traditions, fetish festivals, REAL football, uncensored cinema, occasional sun and offers a healthy dose of unbridled British sarcasm.

Ogilvy & Mather Singapore is behind this new Maglite Torch print campaign.
Credits
Creative Team: Ross Fowler, Elyn Wong.
CDs: Eugene Cheong, Stuart Mills, Paul Anderson.
Photography/Digital Imaging: KC at Mirage Works.

TBWA\Vietnam has created a poster for Lego that pushes the innocence of young children to racism. The ad was created by creative team Apol Sta. Maria and Birger Linke, with photography by Teo Studios.

Two Asian based creative directors will sit on this year's One Show judging panel. JWT India's former chief creative officer Agnello Dias and Creative Juice Bangkok's executive creative director Thirasak Thanapatanakul will join the panel of 29 judges for the 34th annual awards show. Dias left JWT late last year to form his own agency, Taproot India, with former Leo Burnett India ECD Santosh Padhi.
The One Show, One Show Design and One Show Interactive honors the year's best creative advertising, design and interactive achievements worldwide. The complete international jury for the One Show will meet in New York City to select winners of the coveted Gold, Silver and Bronze Pencils. Winners will be announced at the One Show awards presentation ceremony on May 6, 2009 at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Winners in One Show Design will be honored at a ceremony on May 4 at the IAC Building in Lower Manhattan, and the One Show Festival week will conclude with One Show Interactive on May 8 at Terminal 5. Prior to the final One Show judging in New York on May 1-3, there will be two preliminary judging sessions in Hawaii and the Dominican Republic as part of the extensive selection process the judges participate in to determine the Pencil winners.
“An international talent pool of top creative directors make up the One Show jury for 2009,” said Mary Warlick, Chief Executive Officer of The One Club. “The One Show judges have a reputation of setting trends in their own respective countries and for upholding the quality of creative work around the world.”
Judges for The One Show 2009 are:
·         Sue Anderson – Wieden + Kennedy (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
·         David Angelo – David&Goliath (Los Angeles, USA)
·         Rafa Anton – Leo Burnett (Madrid, Spain)
·         Joaquin Bascunan – BBDO (Santiago, Chile)
·         Greg Bell – Venables Bell & Partners (San Francisco, USA)
·         John Boiler – 72&Sunny (Los Angeles, USA)
·         John Boone – BooneOakley (Charlotte, USA)
·         Susan Corbo – BBH (New York, USA)
·         Court Crandall – Ground Zero (Los Angeles, USA)
·         Susan Credle – BBDO (New York, USA)
·         Agnello Dias – Taproot ( India)
·         Cecilia Dufils – Scholz & Friends (Stockholm, Sweden)
·         Scott Duchon – McCann, T.A.G. (San Francisco, USA)
·         Rob Feakins – Publicis (New York, USA)
·         Mark Figliulo – TBWA\Chiat\Day (New York, USA)
·         Gerry Graf – Saatchi & Saatchi NY (New York, USA)
·         Ian Grais – Rethink (Vancouver, British Columbia)
·         Mark Harricks – DDB (Sydney, Australia)
·         Fredrik Jansson – Forsman & Bodenfors (Goteborg, Sweden)
·         Tina Johnson – The Richards Group (Dallas, USA)
·         Margaret Keene – TBWA\Chiat\Day (Los Angeles, USA)
·         Steve Mykolyn – Taxi (Toronto, Canada)
·         Paul Renner – Arnold (Boston, USA)
·         Tim Roper – Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Boulder, USA)
·         Thirasak Tanapatanakul – Creative Juice (Bangkok, Thailand)
·         Goetz Ulmer - Jung von Matt  (Hamburg, Germany)
·         Chris Wall – Ogilvy & Mather (New York, USA)
·         Ari Weiss – Goodby Silverstein & Partners (San Francisco, USA)
·         Nick Worthington – Colenso BBDO (Auckland, New Zealand)

AdFest is still finalising the program of events for the three day festival but already alarm bells are starting to ring about the final presentation night among some delegates that CB Asia has spoken to. At last year's AdFest the final awards show started at 7.30pm and didn't finish until well after midnight. By the time the night's top prizes were handed out more than half the audience had already left (including the Agency of the Year winners!) and had packed the bars in the Royal Cliff Hotel.
This year's final awards night looks like being a long night too based on the program as it currently stands on the AdFest website. In addition to speeches, dinner and a bit of entertainment awards will be handed out in eight categories - Film Lotus, Outdoor Lotus, Cyber Lotus, 360 Lotus, Innova Lotus, Lotus Roots (new this year), Special Awards and CB Asia's personal favourite, the Radio Lotus.
With AdFest reverting back to a three-day format it's a difficult task to fit in the growing list of categories, but hopefully the organisers have taken some of last year's criticism on board and found ways to streamline the Saturday presentation night.
AdFest runs from March 19th through to March 21st. See you there.

In India, the knife throwing game is quite popular in fares and circuses. In this tvc from JWT Mumbai a man is blindfolded and is asked to throw knives in the direction of a clap. The risk and thrill involved in this game is what makes it popular, until a mosquito gets involved.
The spot for Good Knight Insecticide was directed by Rajesh Saathi from Keroscene. View it here.

The Work 08 now out and available in selected bookshops around Asia or direct from Campaign Brief. The 400+ page hardback book features the best 387 ads and campaigns from 2008 from Australia, NZ and Asia.
The Work 08 again comes with 2 high quality DVDs that contains all TV, TV Craft, Integrated and Radio acceptances. This year 224 acceptances came from Asia, 98 from Australia and 65 from New Zealand.
As a network, BBDO bounced back to top position after two years running second to Ogilvy & Mather. Their 64 acceptances put them in front of JWT (48), O&M (47), Saatchi & Saatchi (44) and DDB (40) .
The top agencies overall were DDB Auckland and Saatchi & Saatchi NZ with 16 acceptances each. Colenso BBDO Auckland was ranked third with 13 acceptances and Clemenger BBDO Wellington equal fourth with 12. The top ranking agency from Asia was BBDO Bangkok with 10 acceptances, followed by Y&R Singapore and Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai with 9 each.
Once again two leading creatives were inducted into the Campaign Brief Hall of Fame for their contributions to creaivity in our region. This year Ogilvy's Tham Khai Meng and John Bevins (from John Bevins Advertising Sydney) joined previous inductees that include Neil French, David Droga, Bhanu Inkawat, Craig Davis, Yasmin Ahmad and Piyush Pandey.
Featured on the front cover of The Work 08 this year is an image from GPY&R Melbourne's highly awarded Schweppes 'Burst' commercial.
You can order copies of The Work 08 via: Basheer Books (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand), Asia Books (Thailand), Tower Books (Australia), Adobo Magazine (Philippines),  SBD Subscription Services (India) or via the PDF here.
THE-WORK-08_Order Form.pdf

TOP 20 AGENCIES IN THE WORK 08
1. DDB Auckland (16 acceptances)
1. Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand (16)
3 Colenso BBDO Auckland (13)
4 DDB Sydney (12)
4. Clemenger BBDO Wellington (12)
6. BBDO Bangkok (10)
6. JWT Sydney (10)
6. Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney (10)
9. Y&R Singapore (9)
9. O&M Mumbai (9)
11. Dentsu Inc Tokyo (7)
11. Clemenger BBDO Melbourne (7)
11. JWT Mumbai (7)
11. Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia (7)
15. Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore (6)
15. O&M Singapore (6)
15. Leo Burnett Mumbai (6)
15. M&C Saatchi Sydney (6)
19. BBDO Guerrero Manila (5)
19. BBDO Proximity Malaysia (5)
19. Creative Juice\G1 Bangkok (5)
19. JWT Shanghai (5)
19. JWT Singapore (5)
19. Lowe Bangkok (5)
19. O&M Shanghai (5)
19. TBWA\Tequila Singapore (5)