UPDATED STORY: Campaign Brief Asia has done the maths for the D&AD awards and the final tally for Asia is 26 Nominations and 98 in-book acceptances. Yellow & Black Pencils are still to be determined.
As a country Japan lead the way with an excellent performance that included 12 Nominations and 21 Acceptances. The next best country was Malaysia with 5 Nominations and 15 Acceptances. Singapore was third with 4 Nominations and 18 Acceptances. Overall, Japan ranked as the third best performing country at D&AD. Australia was fourth and Malaysia was a very creditable 7th. Singapore ranked 9th and China put in a top performance to rank 11th (see table).
The best performing agency was BBDO\Proximity Malaysia with an incredible haul of 5 Nominations and 6 in-book acceptances for their Jeep "Bushman/Eskimo" "Husky/Camel" campaign.
Here is the Asian country-by-country breakdown:

Yvonne Chia and Loh Weicheng have joined Euro RSCG as a creative team. Chia and Loh began their careers at Ogilvy, where they first collaborated as a team. Over the years, they have worked together and separately, with Loh at Y&R and Chia at BBH, before teaming up once again at Fallon. Most recently, Chia was working on the Bud Light account at DDB Chicago.
"I'm looking forward to Weicheng and Yvonne bringing their creative edge to our growing department. Together with our recent hires (ex Batey), Tony Ting and Yan Ng, we are bringing in quality creatives with a passion to excel. Our attraction of top talent is testament to the visibility of our creative resurgence," said agency ECD Victor Ng.

BBH Asia Pacific has launched a digital campaign to support the National Committee of UNIFEM Singapore's ongoing Day Off campaign - which calls for all employers in Singapore to give their maids a regular rest day off. The campaign launches in conjunction with UNIFEM Singapore's one year anniversary of the Day off campaign that coincides with the May 1st Labour Day holiday. The campaign, consisting of a micro site and viral videos, aims to raise awareness and educate employers about the need to give their maids a day off.

BBDO/Proximity Malaysia is the world's second most nominated agency at this year's prestigious D&AD Awards with their highly-acclaimed Jeep print work picking up five Nominations.
The campaign titled "Bushman/Eskimo" and "Husky/Camel" got two Nominations in the Art Direction - Poster category and single nominations in the Poster Campaign, Poster - Point of Sale and Art Direction - Press categories.
In total agencies and design studios from our region picked up 27 Nominations.
Dentsu Tokyo picked up 3 Nominations. Other multiple winners were McCann Worldgroup Hong Kong with two (Nike Basketball), GT Inc Tokyo got two for Sagami Condom "Love Distance', Projector Tokyo two for UNIQLO and Asylum Creative Singapore won two in Environmental Design.
Single Nominations recipients are: Lowe Bangkok, BBH Singapore, Hakuhodo Kettle Tokyo, Dentsu Kansai, JWT Shanghai, JWT Beijing, Work Advertising Singapore, Good Design Tokyo, Masami Design Tokyo and Bascule Tokyo.
You can download the full list of Nominations here.
D&AD_Nom_09.pdf

DDB London ECD Jeremy Craigen and O&M Worldwide ECD Tham Khai Meng will join other prominent world advertising leaders heading the various juries for this year's London International Awards. This year all the juries will judge together in Las Vegas and the results will be announced at the London Awards presentation on Monday November 16th.
Yesterday the London International Awards launched their new website and issued their Call for Entries. The deadline for entries is June 19th.
LIA is introducing a "NEW" Category, recognising ideas and executions without boundaries. This category will be led by the yet to be named "NEW" Jury President. The "NEW" Jury will honour work that merges the power of an original idea with a relevant compelling execution - emotionally inspirational, imaginative work, effectively creating new dialogues, creating new spaces of interaction, altering perceptions, setting new benchmarks that invite and reward at every level of engagement.
All work entered to LIA is prepared and presented to each of the Jury Presidents and their respective juries. After all work has been viewed by each Jury, their collective votes and voices will determine the Gold, Silver or Bronze LIA winners. Bronze is a new level that LIA has introduced from this year. Each Jury has the opportunity to award a Grand LIA, although it is not mandatory.
From this year the London International Awards will count in the Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings.

BRANDZ TOP 100 MOST VALUABLE GLOBAL BRANDS NOW WORTH AU$2.74 TRILLION
Google is the world's first AU$140 billion brand - number one for the third year running
 
The fourth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking published today by Millward Brown Optimor reveals that brands sustain their value, despite the tough economic environment.

The complete BrandZ ranking, including regional and category breakdowns, is available online. The rankings are also available as a free iPhone app from these sites and from the iTunes store.  Download the Top 100 Brands PDF
BrandZ-2009 - top 100.pdf

Bestads Top 6 Commercials of the week in the world now ready to view, reviewed by Dennis Ryan, chief creative officer of Element 79, Chicago: http://tr.im/fopw

YouTube and the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival have partnered to search for two young creatives to win a trip to this year's Festival and fill a new 38th place as Team YouTube in the 2009 Young Lions Film Competition.
Next month YouTube will be running a 48-hour viral film contest - the first of its kind on YouTube - to create an ad for a well known, international charity whose identity will be kept under wraps until the launch of the contest on 15th of May. On the 17th May, the competition will close and contestants will then have two weeks to generate as many views possible. Two winners will be selected by a panel of experts who will judge the ad based on creativity, number of views and video ratings. The winners will unite and receive an all expenses paid trip to Cannes to attend the International Advertising Festival and a chance to compete as the 38th team in the prestigious Young Lions Film competition.

This new Castrol GTX film out of Ogilvy & Mather Singapore celebrates the evolution of one car over 40 years. Each of the owners treats the car differently - while some are careless with it, some clearly adore it. And yet after 40 years, the car is still running and in extremely good condition. That is a feat that can be achieved because the owners used only one fuel - Castrol GTX. View the spot here.
Special effects for the spot were created by Sydney post house, Post Modern and the spot was directed by Sam Bennets from The Feds, Sydney.

Every fortnight Campaign Brief Asia is turning the spotlight on a hot director that is currently in the news. This new feature to the website will portfolio their work and give an insight into how they operate. Here we look at one of last year's most awarded.

Simon McQuoid, ranked number three director in the world in the 2008 Gunn Report, has signed with Revolver for representation in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. McQuoid's X-Box Halo 3 launch films, won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes 2008, along with the Film Grand Clio, a D&AD pencil, and several Gold One Show pencils. The native Australian began his career in Perth as an art director. In 1995, he relocated to the US, working his way to a group creative director position for TBWA/Chiat/Day in New York. In 2003, he transitioned into directing. He's represented in the US by Imperial Woodpecker, a new production company launched by Stacy Wall.

Hip hop superstar and Hollywood film star Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges will present The One Club's first-ever 'Green Pencil' award honoring excellence in the field of environmentally conscious advertising at the 34th Annual One Show on May 6th.
The One Show is the centerpiece of an ambitious festival celebrating all forms of creativity called 'Creative Week NYC'.  The week's events take place in New York from May 4-8th at several venues around the city. Creative Week NYC includes three prestigious awards shows honoring the year's best achievements in advertising, integrated branding and design in addition to events devoted to digital, music, film and the fine arts.
The Creative unConference hits New York for two days (May 7 & 8) marking the first time ever that the advertising community in New York has hosted this hip and unique event.  For complete information, www.creativeunconference.com.

Here's something that really appeals to all of us at Campaign Brief. Created for Tribal DDB, Amsterdam, this awesome interactive campaign promotes Philips' latest entrant into the television market, the CINEMA 21:9.
Since the television's 21:9 frame lends itself so readily to film, Tribal DDB, Amsterdam commissioned Stink Digital to create a piece of filmed content that could hold its own with Hollywood's best.
Stink Digital director Adam Berg responded with an idea for an epic 'frozen moment' cops and robbers shootout sequence that included clowns, explosions, a decimated hospital, and plenty of broken glass, bullet casings and money. The film, titled Carousel, is the centre piece of the project.

Mike O'Sullivan, executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand was foreman of the Ambient Jury at D&AD, which convened last week in London. Here is his report, exclusive to Campaign Brief.

Being asked to be foreman of a D&AD jury came as an unexpected honour.
When Toby Talbot, Paul Catmur and I were working in London, getting into 'the book' was an act of God. When the letter arrived that said your work has been 'accepted into the annual' it was enough for any creative to throw a party. Thankfully, Catmur and I weren't that talented. On our 10,500 quid year salary, we could afford few parties.
Before I start, I'll tell you what a jury foreman actually does. My official role was to inspire debate, ensure a thorough session, and make everyone stick to the rules. My other duty is to attend the Black Pencil judging in early May. That's when all the jury foremen convene to decide on D&AD Gold.
 Every show has its own unique style, and D&AD is no different. In the next few paragraphs I'll try and bring to life my experiences of the last few days. So far a few people have blogged and posted photos of their jury experience, so I'll keep my diary short and simple.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) China is using a world first mobile application that literally puts the fate of wildlife in your hands. The campaign, featuring a mobile game with a conservation message, uses a groundbreaking technology - the Shijie Lens Technology - developed by social digital nature system (SDNS) company Qdero, and is the first and only mobile application where the real world and virtual world meet in real time.
Central to the mobile game is a virtual bear that represents wildlife whose survival and natural habitat is constantly threatened. The bear struggles to adapt to an unfamiliar habitat - the surroundings  of your office, home, or city seen through the eyes of your camera phone.

Each week Campaign Brief Asia sits down with a prominent creative talent from our region and gets to know them better. Next up in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is Kevin Lee, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I worked as an illustrator.
How did you first get into advertising?
I knew a lot of creative directors through my freelance illustration job.
Who gave you your first big break?
Kins Lee, the creative director of Spider Network (a creative hot house in Malaysia at the time) hired me as an Art Director.

Former Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore copywriter Dejan Rasic is Australia's jury representative on the D&AD Integrated Jury. He is now creative partner at CRC, Sydney and here he gives an insight into the judging process for the CB Asia Blog.

After a cup of coffee and a quick briefing session, we were tucked into an odd little inflatable structure to watch all the entries. The voting system was via iPod touch and remarkably simple.

Tay Guan Hin is this year's D&AD jury foreman for the Poster category. It's a big honour for JWT's Regional ECD South Asia. Here Guan gives his views on his second day of judging.

Last day D&AD poster judging.
I was anxious to see what finally made in, so arrived earlier to have a quick look. Apparently, others beat me to the chase. This time it didn't take much effort to walk around since there were considerable less. About 60 percent of what I liked remained.
As expected, most of the highly suspicious pieces didn't make the cut. It goes to show that if it looks 'guilty', not even an approval letter from client's global headquarters can save it. Even work coming from big brands are not spared if the personality and values of what they know about the brand is not relevant. In short, a well-know logo is not enough these days. To take it to the next level, both scale and brilliant executions are essential. Highly detailed art direction that has heart usually makes it through even if the ideas are slightly expected. Simply, craft and ideas are inseparable.

Despite cutbacks to the big parties in Cannes several agency networks are still investing in their sessions and workshops. Y&R is continuing their tradition of flying in big name speakers with their presentation this year featuring legendary rocker Roger Daltrey and one of the music industry's top impresarios, Harvey Goldsmith.
From his early days as the iconic frontman of The Who to his solo efforts, from his acting triumphs to his philanthropic roles, Daltrey remains one of rock 'n roll's most enduring and most exciting artists.

The Spikes Asia Festival is now open for delegate registrations. The three-day Asian Advertising Festival will take place at Suntec City in Singapore, 16-18 September 2009.
This year the Spikes will inaugurate as an Asian Advertising Festival offering a three-day programme, instead of being fundamentally an awards show for the past 23 years.
Full registration is priced at SGD$1,150 with a Young Creatives package offered at SGD$650.

Legendary director Tarsem has directed a new Bajaj DTSi spot for the Indian market. Created by Leo Burnett Mumbai, it's objective is to create preference for Bajaj DTSi range of bikes. In this spot three bikes transform and take each other on around a basketball court. DTSi is an advanced twin-spark technology that massively improves a bike's performance. View the spot.
Credits: Agency: Leo Burnett Mumbai. ECD & Writer: KB Vinod. Director: Tarsem. Production: Stratum India & @Radical Media UK. Executive Producers: Avinash Shankar & Tommy Turtle. Production manager: Ray Leakey. Post: Glassworks London. VFX producer: Phil Linturn. VFX supervisor: Alastair Hearsum. Concept Art: Marc Gabbana. Editor: Ben Stephens. Music: Ram Sampath.

Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia ECD Adrian Miller is in London for the D&AD judging and is writing about the experience on the Press Jury for CB Asia.

Entering the Olympia on day two, I was greeted by a rather shocking sight. 1267 entries had been whittled down to a paltry 45 entries.
One of the British judges walked up and down the single wall of remaining print ads and said, "we can cut this down to about 11".
Now I'm all for quality control, but this seemed a little over zealous. Thankfully he was sidetracked by a cup of tea and forgot that he cracked that joke.

This new Penguin Books campaign via DDB Hong Kong features avid bookworms reading in the middle of what should be the busiest locations in Hong Kong. However, to show that the readers are in their own worlds, the photos are completely devoid of people, cars and even life. You just see one guy or girl reading a classic Penguin novel. The campaign idea: A great novel has the power to transcend you into your own world.

Cannes has announced the jury members for this year's Design, Direct and Outdoor Lions and, of course, Asia is well represented.
Akira Kagami, Executive Officer & Global Executive Creative Director, Dentsu - is Jury President of the Outdoor Lions, becoming the first Japanese to ever lead a Jury at Cannes. KS Chax (DraftFCB+Ulka, India), Victor Ng (Euro RSCG Singapore) and James Dennis Makanas (BBDO Bangkok) join Kagami on his panel.
On the Direct Jury are Farrokh Madon (McCann Erickson Singapore), Ronald Ng (BBDO/Proximity Malaysia), Masaru Kitakaze (Hakuhodo), Leena Basrur (Direxions Marketing Solutions, Mumbai) and Dominic Stallard (Lowe Bangkok).
The Design Jury has Ali Shabaz (JWT Singapore), Morihiro Harano (Drill Inc, Tokyo) and Sujata Keshavan Guha (Ray+Keshavan, India)

With the re-alignment of Batey into Grey Group, Koh Hwee Peng has been appointed Creative Director of the overall Batey creative operations. Currently Creative Director of Grey Singapore, she will now oversee Batey's creative and design departments.
"Hwee is a trusted Batey hand. She spent a significant part of her career with Batey and has a deep understanding of what makes us tick," says Alan Fairnington, Batey CEO.
"With someone of her calibre onboard, we are confident of integrating Batey's excellent creative output with the through-the-line capabilities of the Grey Group", he said.
Under the new Grey Group structure, Batey will continue to operate as a separate brand, yet allow it to fully take advantage of Grey's specialist digital, activation and healthcare divisions.
"The Batey culture has always been about the quality of the creative work," says Hwee. "I'm thrilled to be part of Batey again, and look forward to producing cut-through work for our local and international clients."

Australia's jury representative on the D&AD Cyber Jury is Mark Ashley-Wilson, digital director at Three Drunk Monkeys, Sydney, who reports daily from London, exclusively for the CB Asia Blog. For more D&AD insight Follow him on Twitter.

Day 3

By the time we got started today it seemed like we had been here for a week. As a group of jurors we have become a close bunch of mates. We have spent over thirty hours over the past three days in a small dark room together talking about what all of us are seriously passionate about - websites. The 'group' are a collection of CD's, ECD's, Strategists from the best interactive agencies across the globe - they are all amazing people.

Tay Guan Hin is this year's D&AD jury foreman for the Poster category. It's a big honour for JWT's Regional ECD South Asia. Here Guan gives his views on his second day of judging.

By the time I arrived at the judge's lounge it was packed. The crowd has been growing. There are more judges turning up today to judge their respective categories.
I tried to quickly catch up with some familiar faces before our Jury manager summoned us to our 'Pod'. As we got to our area, something was missing...in fact 900 odd pieces have disappeared from the poster walls and only 233 pieces remain.

Going for Gold Eight-Volume Box Set:
SPECIAL DISCOUNT - Save 35% off the original price.

Determined to document the very best creative work of the Asian and Australasian advertising industry in 2008, AWARD assembled a jury of the highest calibre and put them through a grueling 14,400 minute adjudication process. The result is Going for Gold. A startling eight-volume magazine series that comes housed in a magnificent red box set holder. Showcasing the finest TV, Craft in TV, Print, Integrated, Poster & Outdoor, Ambient, Print Craft, Radio, Direct Marketing, Design, Interactive and None of The Above work, this unique collection is also accompanied by two DVDs containing over 400 minutes of dazzling finalists and awe-inspiring winners.

Australia's jury representative on the D&AD Cyber Jury is Mark Ashley-Wilson, digital director at Three Drunk Monkeys, Sydney, who reports daily from London, exclusively for the CB Blog. For more D&AD insight Follow him on Twitter. Look out for other daily reports from Dejan Rasic and Mike O'Sullivan later this week.

Judges Diary - Day 2

This morning was buzzing because the remaining juries arrived and the lounge area was packed. Interesting to note that the interactive jury is the largest out of any category this year for the first time.

Tay Guan Hin is this year's D&AD jury foreman for the Poster category. It's a big honour for JWT's Regional ECD South Asia. Here Guan gives his views on his first day of judging.

Garrick Hamm, D&AD President, made a good welcome speech at the judge's lounge.
With over 280 creative leaders on 29 different juries, this could be the biggest judging panel in D&AD. About a third of the judges are from overseas.
This year, Graham doesn't think there's anything as big as this. To him it's an absolutely monster of an event.

Bestads Top 6 Commercials + Print of the week now ready to view, reviewed by Joel Clement, deputy ECD at Saatchi & Saatchi Asia.

Download the free weekly  BESTADS PODCAST
Follow Bestads on Twitter

The 2009 AWARD Call For Entries will open Tuesday, 19th May. Entries submitted by May 27th receive a 10% early bird discount. Deadline for all entries is Tuesday, 30th June 2009. Eligibility: Any work first published or aired between 16th July 2008 and 8th July 2009. Full details on the AWARD site.
The 2009 AWARD Awards Presentation Evening will be held on Thursday 12th November 2009 in Sydney.

Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia ECD Adrian Miller is in London for the D&AD judging and is daily writing a diary of his experiences on the Press Jury.

At 9:06am I found myself standing in front of 1267 print ads. Our jury coordinator then proceeded to tell us that last year there were 1800 entries and 45 made it into the book.
One of the British judges shook his head in dismay and muttered something about the jury being overly generous last year.
Another British judge saw this as a chance to admonish any ads made for Scrabble. I looked up and in my line of sight were three campaigns for Scrabble. I silently said my goodbyes.
Then the conversation turned to scams. Apparently they are okay as long as they are brilliant and not for board games.  
Also, the ads must have run and been signed off by the client. FP7 aside, I'm sure this is standard practice across the world. Perhaps no one sent the guys in Doha the memo regarding this rather touchy subject.
I made a mental note of the expectations and walked off into a sea of print ads. Ad number 1 was for a torchlight. Out. Next, an ad for a humanitarian organization that looked like an ad for a torchlight. Out.
I wandered past one of the British judges and he asked me why the Cluedo (board game) client would run a full colour double page spread ad. Not knowing the Cluedo client personally I had no answer for him. Out.
The next four hours looked something like this. Knife ad, out. Highlighter ad, out. Travel agency ad, out. Harvey Nichols ad, in. Pen ad, out. Pen ad 2, out. Pen ad 3, out. WWF ads 1-29, out. Scrabble ad, in (I was feeling rebellious).
Lunch was a solemn affair. It consisted of fish cakes, salad, a couple of boiled potatoes and a discussion about the decline in quality of print advertising. One of the judges remarked that we should immediately throw out any ads for torches. Another said he didn't like boiled potatoes. I couldn't decide whom to agree with.
After lunch we continued to slaughter and maim print ads. As I marked the last ad on my list (out of course) I felt that maybe, just maybe we had been unreasonably harsh.
For a fleeting moment I wanted to return to the beginning, to that very first torchlight ad and vote it in. Then I remembered this is D&AD.
Unreasonably harsh isn't harsh enough.

Australia's jury representative on the D&AD Cyber Jury is Mark Ashley-Wilson, digital director at Three Drunk Monkeys, Sydney, who reports daily from London, exclusively for the CB Blog. For more D&AD insight Follow him on Twitter.

Judges Diary - Day 1

Today was fast and furious, jet-lagged and scary.

We all met in the hotel reception at 8am and introduced ourselves. The juries are made up of the best people in our industry from all over the world (you know like the people you have watched and admired from afar for years) and I quickly made my way to a small dark corner until the taxis arrived.  Luckily I had 5 people in my taxi who were all very big in their fields from Crispin's, R/GA, Weiden's etc who also happened to be very nice - no egos here which was so great! Everyone is just as intrigued in what I do as I am in them. Phew! So we are headed to Olympia, a major exhibition center in the heart of London. Just the scale of the outside of the place and the street posters (like the street flags on Macquarie St when something's on) all around it yelled "this thing is big".

Each week Campaign Brief Asia is going to sit down with a prominent creative talent from our region and getting to know them better. Next up in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is Sheungyan Lo (or Ma Yan to his friends), Executive Creative Director, JWT North East Asia & Chairman, JWT China.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I was a secondary school teacher and a part-time residential tutor of a hostel in University of Hong Kong.
How did you first get into advertising?
I like writing stories. I enjoy the process of creating something from nothing. I thought of becoming a film script writer but at that time the film industry was controlled by triad, then I heard that Agency need someone to write their slogans and headlines for the clients, and Advertising was still a "glamorous" industry to join.

You know the Cannes organisers are worried about numbers this year when they send emails like this out

Resorts World, a Singapore Casino is about to acquire a whale shark to put on display. Whale sharks never survive long in artificial tanks but can survive well over 100 years in the wild. It's a gamble few people should be prepared to take. If you are against this click here and place a bet on how long this whale shark will survive.
The "game" was developed by Jagdish Ramakrishnan and his team at BBDO Singapore. Make the effort to visit the site.

CB Asia loves this new campaign of two spots from BBH London. Beautifully handled by Chris Palmer of Gorgeous Films, these are two very funny ideas that fit the mixed up fruit drink, J2O.

View Riviera Truck Stop. Or low res here.
View A Horse Called Cynthia. Or low res here.

How do you sell a pair of Low Rise Jeans to the youth? Simple, give them a sexy rear view. JWT Delhi did exactly that with this print campaign for Levi's.
Credits: Creative Directors: Swati Bhattacharya, Anirudh Verma. Creative Team: Sandeep Salariya, Chirag Bhasin.

Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia has launched a new tv push for Tiger Beer. New Zealand post production company Oktobor helped Saatchi rebuild three iconic cities of the world (London, Paris, New York) for their 'winning over the world' Tiger campaign.
Credits: Executive Creative Director: Adrian Miller. Head of Art & Design: Gigi Lee. Senior Art & Design: Nazly Kassim. Senior Writer: Primus Nair. Agency Producer: Shirren Lim. Production Company: Oktobor NZ. Director: Damon Duncan. Music: Liquid Studios, NZ. Client: Asia Pacific Breweries, Tiger Beer Regional.
View London.
View Paris.
View New York.

New York - From can't-live-without mobile apps to offbeat guerilla marketing campaigns on Facebook, the nominees unveiled today for the 13th Annual Webby Awards reveal how interactive advertising is increasingly shaping popular culture.
Hailed as the "Internet's highest honor" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, online film and video, interactive advertising, and mobile Websites.

The Spikes Asia Festival will introduce a Design category this year. The inaugural Design Jury will be chaired by design expert Rodney Fitch CBE, Chairman and CEO of Fitch Worldwide.
With a distinguished career in design that has spanned nearly 40 years, Fitch has served as a member of the Design Council and as a past president of the Chartered Society of Designers, D&AD and Cannes Lions in 2008. In 2005 he was inducted into the Legion of Honour and Hall of Fame of the American Institute of Store Planners, the most prestigious award in retail design for an individual, and in 2006 was a finalist for the Prince Philip Designer's Prize. He was awarded a CBE in 1990 for services to the British Design industry.

The  BESTADS PODCAST brings you the Best 6 Commercials in the World every week on your iPhone or iPod. It's the #1 video ad podcast in the world, which has just passed two million downloads, six months after launch. It's in the iTunes Top Video Podcast Charts in Australia (#7), New Zealand (#2), UK (#23), Ireland (#7), Canada (#13), Greece (#9), Portugal (#3) and Finland (#14). Unfortunately, there are no iTunes charts for Asia but from our own tracking we're sure to be right up there.

Not with Apple? Get the Bestads Podcast HERE

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Each week Campaign Brief Asia is going to sit down with a prominent creative talent from our region and getting to know them better. First up in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is Tay Guan Hin, Regional Executive Creative Director at JWT Asia.


What did you do before getting into advertising?
Working as a Tank Mechanic in the army.
How did you first get into advertising?
I took part in the first Los Angeles Student Competition while studying in Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Won the Best of Show.
Who gave you your first big break?
One of the judges in the student competition hired me immediately. She was Jean Craig. The copywriter who came up with the famous tagline for Sunkist orange: "You have our word on it". She also happens to be the president of the agency - Kresser/Craig.

Randy Rinaldi, creative director at JWT Indonesia, has resigned and will join Publicis-Metro Indonesia as ECD. He previously worked at Leo Burnett from 1999 working his way up from senior writer to creative director, before joining JWT in 2007.

Rediffusion DY&R Mumbai picked up two Golds at the recent GoaFest Indian awards festival. The awards were for this Sanctuary campaign that illustrates the plight of animals using money notes and a Books & Beyond campaign that humorously points out that reading books is good for children.
Sanctuary Credits:
Art Director: Suketu Gohel
Account Mgt: Anish Daryani
Creative Directors: Tony Pereira, Saurabh Karandikar
Chief Creative Officers: Ramanuj Shastry, Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar.
Books and Beyond Credits:
Creative: Rajat Dawar, Kunal Mhabadi
Client Service: Anish Daryani
Chief Creative Officers: Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, Ramanuj Shastry.

Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie creates chocolate that is partly dark and partly sweet as this new campaign from JWT Singapore shows.
Credits. Creative Director: Ali Shabaz, Writers: Elisa Tan, Arron Phua, Art Director: Ed Cheong, Illustrator: Joseph Griffith.

A new campaign from for Morphy Richards Irons from Contract Advertising Mumbai.
Credits ECD: Ravi Deshpande, Creative Directors: Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat, Writer/Art Director: Gautam Wadher.

The "FIRST CUT" for the One Show has been announced. These entries have made it to the final round of judging which will take place May 1-3.
Download the pdf here 
OneShow-firstcut.pdf
Note that this is not a winners list and does not guarantee a Pencil or Merit.

While totals don't count for much at this stage it is worthy to note that Asia has performed very well in terms of quantity of shortlists. Here's Asia's top 5 performers at One Show so far:
1. Singapore - 43.
2. China - 38.
3. India - 37.
4. Thailand - 35.
4. Malaysia - 35.

BBH Chairman & Worldwide Creative Director Sir John Hegarty was the keynote speaker at this year's AdFest. He presented his views on "What makes great work". He broke it down to seven factors:
The power of Advertising.
The power of Strategy.
The power of Ideas.
The power of Fame.
The power of Truth.
The power of Irreverence.
The power of Product Demonstration.
Download a Quicktime of his presentation here.

The deadline for entering Cannes has been extended by an extra two weeks. You now have until 24 April to enter your work. Enter now
If you have any questions, please email Cannes or call +44 (0) 20 7728 4040.

The entry deadline for the 11th annual Young Director Award has been extended to Thursday, April 30, 2009.
The award has a simple submission rule: films that are submitted have to be among the first four commercials ever made by a director and have to have been made during the year preceding the award. 

This spot won a Silver for Film and Bronze for Film Craft at Adfest this year and last week won a Silver at India's Goafest.
A short film initiative to revive the Lost Art of Patta Chitra Katha. This became a campaign that refreshed a thousand year old traditional folk art of storytelling in the original visual language, featuring exotic illustrations of characters from ancient Indian Mythology, hand printed on sun dried patta leaves. View the commercial.
The illustrative process involves mixing tamarind seed paste with rice powder and applying it on the patta leaves to create the canvas. And then finding fine natural brushes that are dipped in vegetable colours to imprint each image. 4320 Patta Chitras were hand crafted in the making of this first ever handmade version of The Great Indian Yellow Pages.
In the spot Arjuna the Mythological Archer from the epic "Mahabharatha" decides to use his expertise in archery to strike the business bullseye with his quiver of internet arrows. He moves up from a cycle to a bike to girlfriend to wedding to car to house to bigger house to kids to family, all the while shooting arrows at the bullseye in the sky, in a vivid story that simplifies online yellow pages and encourages online transactions through the life of Arjuna in today's world.

The The Institute of Advertising Singapore's Advertising Hall of Fame Awards has introduced its first 'Asia Pacific' award category. The 'Most Promising New Media Creative in Asia Pacific' Award, establishes the importance of recognising new media channels and their impact on the industry. This award is preparing to unearth and honor the region's next creative talent from the digital world. Participants from the region will be asked to submit a 30 second video or animation piece that captures the essence and energy of this year's theme, "Fame".

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai has a beautifully illustrated campaign for Sour Marbels that humorously demonstrates just how sour these sweets are.
Credits:
Executive Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Creative Directors: Abhijit Avasthi, Rajiv Rao, Anurag Agnihotri
Copywriter: Saurabh Kulkarni, Nasrullah Husami
Art Director: Ashish Naik
Illustrator: Deelip Khomane

Eight Asian based creatives have been named to sit over the three Cannes Lions juries (Cyber, Promo and Radio) announced today. They are: Koichiro Tanaka, Projector Tokyo, Benjy Choo, Kilo Studio Singapore, Meera Sharath Chandra, RMG Connect India, Yoo Shin Lee, Cheil Worldwide Korea, Yoshiki Seki, Asatsu-DK Tokyo, Atul Nath, Candid Marketing India, Ashish Khazanchi, Publicis Ambience and Dave Ferrer, JWT Manila.

This is a JWT Mumbai commercial that Campaign Brief Asia first saw at AdFest. It was the Lotus Roots winner in both the Film and Film Craft categories. It made us laugh.
'Naaka Mukka - A Day in the Life of Chennai' presents a short satire on the life of a giant cardboard cutout character, through the course of one day in the life of Chennai. A roller coaster of a journey through the ups and downs of cinema and politics, the two sides of almost every actor in the Cinema Cutout Capital of the world - Madras/Chennai.
The client is The Times of India. View the commercial.
A Lotus Roots winners at AdFest means that the ad has been singled out for their ability to use local culture, customs and traditions in fresh and inspiring ways to build stronger connections to their target market. Lotus Roots celebrates the diversity of cultures throughout the Asia Pacific, and is a response to the homogenization of ideas that can result from a globalized world.

It may now be just a distant memory but at AdFest this year the big social highlight of the Festival was the Kodak Party at the Sheraton Hotel. Campaign Brief Asia has already featured photos from our camera on this site, however Kodak has just released more on flickr. See here.

'Much Effort, Little Effort' is the tagline of a new tvc campaign from Ogilvy Singapore for SOYJOY nutrition bars.
The campaign aims to communicate the core benefit of SOYJOY - that it is a healthy, low GI snack that keeps your blood sugar steady and your waistline happy - to the target audience: the working woman in Singapore.
It plays up the extreme methods some women use to stay slim, which require 'Much Effort', and juxtaposes this against the 'Little Effort' expended when eating SOYJOY Low GI, a snack that helps to keep their waistlines slim.
Say Takuya Matsuo, Maurice Wee and Troy Lim, the creative trio behind the campaign: "The two TV spots 'Office' and 'Tattoo' were shot entirely in Tokyo because SOYJOY is 100 percent Japanese. We are also riding on the Singaporean fascination with Japan and its products. The result is a memorable, quirky campaign that carries a distinctly Japanese sense of humour."
View Tattoo.
View Office.

D&AD held a very interesting discussion panel in Tokyo recently. 'Creative Faces' is something new from D&AD.  It's their way of highlighting up and coming talent in different regions producing great creative work. The first outing was in Japan, while launching the D&AD exhibition at ADMT.
With Akira Odagiri of Ogilvy & Mather Japan as Chairman of the panel, D&AD invited 2 top creatives from Japan and 2 from the UK to take part. Each judge championed a creative team or person they admire.  Each member of the panel brings a different area of creative expertise to the selection.
The exercise gave a great insight into some of the emerging talent in Japan. Here's what the panel highlighted:
- Akira Odagiri selected Oshiuri
- Garrick Hamm, D&AD President and Creative Director at Williams Murray Hamm selected GT Inc.
- Joe Ferry, Head of Design at Virgin Atlantic selected Hironao Tsuboi Design
- Koichiro Tanaka, Creative Director at Projector, Inc selected W0W.
- Soeda Takayuki, Founder of Soeda Design Factory selected Home Inc

Myriam Coupard, previous Head of Delegates for Cannes Lions, Eurobest and Dubai Lynx, has been appointed Festival Director of the newly launched three-day Spikes Asia Festival, which will combine the already established top creative awards show in Asia with the new networking and learning platform for the advertising and communications industry.
Coupard joined the International Advertising Festival seven years ago and has headed the Delegate Department for the last five years.
Debuting in September, the three-day festival is a joint venture between the International Advertising Festival and Haymarket Publishing and will bring to the region a series of high-profile seminars and other initiatives aimed at giving creative inspiration, learning and networking opportunities to the advertising and communications people working in the region and from around the world. The festival will culminate in the Spikes Asia Awards.
For more information see the Spikes Asia website.

Jason Zhao is to join Cheil Worldwide China as COO and Executive Creative Director.
Zhao was most recently working for Publicis China Beijing as Executive Creative Partner. He is also co-founder of Ignite China (2004) where he served as Executive Creative Partner. In 2000, he was relocated for four years to Canada where he was Executive Creative Director at CanAsian, followed by Founder/Creative Director of Vistagic Canada.
He will be based out of the Cheil Beijing office.

Brand Republic, the UK advertising and marketing website reports Justin Billingsley, the brand director at Orange UK, is leaving the telecoms company to take on the role of regional chief executive for Saatchi & Saatchi Asia. See Brand Republic for the full story.

UPDATED STORY: BBH Asia ECD Steve Elrick has today posted a detailed reply in response to comments made on this story. CB Asia thought it worthy of re-posting this story again instead of it being 'lost' in the archive. Click on the 'Comments' link below to read Steve's post.

(Feb 25th, 2009) Anyone else notice that big full page ad in Media from BBH Asia-Pacific?
The ad carried the headline "What would happen to our business if all the agencies in Asia stopped doing scam ads this year?" and then presented several senarios for the industry to contemplate.
BBH has always held a non scam policy - even, dare we say, if some of the creatives working there have dabbled in the practice in former lives.
As it is a topical ad, CB Asia was intrigued and contacted the agency for comment.
BBH Asia-Pacific regional ECD Steve Elrick said the question raised was just one in a series of provocative questions that they might be pushing out to the Industry.
"Scam is a hoary old topic which has dominated much of the industry in Asia - and we think BBH's position on it is pretty clear," said Elrick.
"However, we thought it was an opportune time to question the value of this seemingly sometimes desperate need to gain awards points how it is actually affecting our credibility as a serious business. But maybe, more importantly, question how it's affecting people's lives in these challenging times. Imagine you were the person 'let go' from an agency because they say times are tough and they had to tighten their belts - whilst at the same time the agency was spending countless hours creating work for ghost clients and hundreds of thousands of dollars on award schemes?
"At the very worst we thought it might be dismissed - or people would misunderstand it as raising the simple scam debate again. At best.... Hey, perhaps some agencies might pause for a second... and not sacrifice some people's livelihood's at the altar of the creative league tables."
Agree?
Disagree?

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 six (the final day) of his list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

7) As we started our final day of judging, I thought about the true value of award shows. Without bona-fide competitions, there would be no encouragement, no disappointment, no envy, no chip-on-the-shoulder, no discovery, and no universal proof of prowess.
6) Advertising needs award shows, but don't let award shows be our advertisement.
5) A few judges exercised their wild card option to pull back one entry for the panel's consideration, just in case we missed out something.
4) A Grand Clio should be the single most outstanding piece of work that becomes the landmark in its category. We wanted to be very sure of the signals that we are sending to the industry.
3) At last, our duty was done. Every judge was interviewed by a small TV crew on what their favourites were and why. An edited video will be shown at the award ceremony in Las Vegas.
2) This is by far my most satisfying judging experience. The winning ads were brilliant; the process was managed with professionalism and integrity; and I learnt a lot in one week.
1) I hope it won't be another 50 years before I get to judge the Clio again. :)

Two Indian agencies have looked outside of the country to bolster their creative offering.
JWT Delhi has hired DDB Singapore creative group head Priti Kapur as ECD on the Airtel account. Kapur previously has worked at Leo Burnett Singapore.
BBDO Mumbai has also hired Raj Deepak Das to be ECD. He joins from BBDO's Bangkok office where he has worked as a creative group head for the past four years.

Saatchi & Saatchi Vietnam has created new print work for Tamiya scale models. The campaign shows Tamiya models "making history".
Credits:
Client: Tamiya Nam Quang
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Vietnam
Creative Director: John Childerhouse
Copywriter: Steve Hough
Art Director: John Childerhouse
Photographer / DI: Graeme Farr

Six of the best agencies in Bangkok are involved in tutoring this year's AWARD School course.
On Thursday evenings during the course local CDs will conduct sessions and then on Monday evenings students will hear lectures from the industries top creative leaders and innovators. The all-star lineup includes; Subun Khow - BBDO Bangkok; Thirasak Tanapatanakul - Creative Juice/G1; Rerngchai Prompicharn - Euro RSCG Flagship; Warawut Kaennakham - JWT; Jureeporn Thaidumrong - Jeh United; Sompat Trisadikul - Leo Burnett Bangkok; Chatpong Somthip - Lowe Bangkok; Kittinan Sawasdee - Lowe Bangkok; Dominic Stallard - Lowe Bangkok; Passapol Limpisirisan - Monday; Apichai Inthutsing - Publicis Thailand; Kitti Chaiyaporn - Publicis Thailand; and Trong Tantivejakul - Y&R.
On Thursday night AWARD School students, tutors and lecturers, all came together to celebrate the opening of the ideas-based training program.

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 five of his list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

22) You might notice the jump in the number of thoughts I'm sharing today. Hey it's metal discussions - it's winnin' time.
21) Think of a jury as an orchestra, and its jury chairman as the conductor. All the talent and expertise are meaningful only if someone sets the tone and gets every individual to play together. Enter maestro Marcello Serpa.
20) The man is incredibly clear and focused on the task at hand, like he has done this a million times. (He probably has.)
19) He was firm with the jury when he needed to get an important point across, yet sensitive to diffuse any potential tension with his timely wit and personal charisma.
18) Here's how we did it: every ad in the shortlist was displayed and the jury will collectively decide the award (if any) with a show of hands for Gold, Silver and Bronze. Simple and effective.
17) Any judge can openly raise a discussion about the work before moving on to the next entry. The spirited and respectful debates on the work are probably the most valuable part of this judging experience.
16 - 14) We took the Great PC vs Mac debate to a new dimension altogether; challenged the definitions of innovation versus integration; and even spat in the eye of seemingly award-worthy ideas created without respecting consumers and cultures. Not for the faint of mind.
13) Marcello means business when he said, "We have to be fair to the work, that's what we are here to do."
12) Every decision that might affect the fate of an ad was decided by the panel's vote count; every score was made transparent for all to see on big TV screens; every judge abstained from have any input on his agency's work by immediately leaving the room, Marcello included.  
11) After completing a category, we reviewed the board of winners and any judge can propose an upgrade or downgrade till the panel collectively agrees on the final tally.
10) While it was a diverse group of judges with many different perspectives, it was always near-unanimity when we came to the very best ads in the categories.
9) Did the number of entries dip? Honestly I don't know. But I don't think it affects the quality of the competition, as the impressive line-up of winning work will prove. Agencies will always enter their best work, a budget cut should affect mostly the fringe entries anyway - not really a bad thing if we think about it.
8) Tomorrow, Grand Clios.

 

David Guerrero has defended Asia's creative reputation in a piece he wrote for excellent UK creative blog Scamp. The recent FT7 Doha debacle at the Dubai Lynx (see previous posting) saw the old "Asia is the king of scams" argument get thrown around on the blog with Scamp stating here that Asia was the "epicentre of scam".
Scamp contacted Guerrero (Chairman & ECD at BBDO Guerrero Manila) for comment and he gave what CB Asia believes to be a very good reasoning on the issue. In return Scamp published a very flattering photo of David taken sometime in the 80s (not the one used here).
Here's a reprint of Guerrero's piece:

The FP7 situation is a debacle, and I don't want to look like their apologist... which I'm most certainly not.
However, there is a genuine distinction between what they did and the genuine push for innovation that agencies everywhere undertake for major clients.
I think there's a lot of self-righteous bullshit about Asia being a scam factory coming from London (and other first world locations).
A flick back through old D&AD's will reveal all kinds of dodgy executions for car repairs, fish and chip shops, TV repair shops, school plays, architectural historians etc.
However it does have to be said that Jim Aitchison, Neil French and many others since have made a lot of ads for a lot of smallish clients out of Singapore which picked up a lot of metal at global shows back in the 90s.
And since then a steady stream of Aussies, Brits and Yanks have made their way there seeking to emulate their stellar rise to international stardom or even just a nicer job when they go home after a few years. I interviewed Jim Aitchison about this a few years ago for Campaign Brief and he said that the secret of Singapore is simply that there's nothing else to do at weekends except work on ads and get them into shows.
However to write off the entire continent of over 2 billion people because of a few expats in one city-state is going a bit far. Thailand has developed a truly vibrant and highly recognized TV industry with at one point two out of the top 10 directors in the Gunn Report coming from there. There's no suggestion that this is scam because you can see the work on TV every night and clients have come to demand great work.
Basically small clients and initiatives to big ones are seen as ways of raising the bar for creative teams and for clients themselves.
Western Multinational clients (with some honorable exceptions) in Asia tend to be extremely risk averse and prone to formulaic work. There are exceptions obviously but they themselves are subject to a lot of regional and global controls on the process. Locally-headquartered Asian clients can vary greatly in their appetite for interesting work. Local entrepreneurs tend to be braver because they think (rightly) that it will work better for them. However as they get larger they start to want to imitate the Western Multinationals clients...
So as far as a 'philosophy' goes it's probably something like: the only way we're going to compete in international shows is to push work to mainstream clients when circumstances allow and keep one or two projects on the go with pro-bono clients and/or Small and Medium size businesses in the hope that a) they will allow the agency to do more interesting work and b) that they will someday get bigger.
Our agency just launched a pilot scheme where we approached a local business organization and asked them to put themselves forward for 3 months free work from a junior team of creatives, planners and suits in the agency. They then pitched to us and we selected three of them (a chain of car repair shops, a high-end boutique cosmetics firm and a small chain of clothing stores.) Our teams (composed of around eight or so 'rising stars' were then set loose on these accounts with minimal supervision from senior management. We'll see the work before it gets presented - and then catch up with the client at the end of the program. If they want to continue the relationship they pay us at our regular rates. If not then they are free to take the work we've done for them and use it.

No doubt this story will pick up quite a few comments from the Brits so check out Scamp's post tomorrow.

Jordan Hsueh has joined Euro RSCG as Chief Creative Officer for Beijing and North China.  Hsueh will report into recently appointed North Asia Chief Creative Officer & Co-Chairman, CC Tang and will be responsible for driving the creative output in North China while developing and building the creative teams. Most recently Hsueh was ECD at JWT.
"Jordan's appointment adds real firepower to our creative teams. Not only is he an excellent talent but he is also a strong leader, and this is especially important. We were looking for someone who has brilliant ideas, but being a CCO is more than great ideas, it's about building a great team. I'm confident Jordan is the right fit, and I'm glad to have him onboard," said Tang.
"I'm really pleased to be joining the Euro RSCG China team, they've had a string of important business wins and strategic hires which makes this an especially exciting time to join the agency," said Hsueh.

It was only a matter of time.
Sadly, one of Asia's icon agencies has seen a restructure after falling on down times over the past few years. Today it was announced that Batey Singapore will be housed within sister WPP network, Grey Group Singapore as part of a "strategic realignment".
Founded in 1972 by Ian Batey the agency is highly acclaimed as the mastermind behind the iconic Singapore Girl, an instantly recognisable symbol for Singapore Airlines. As Singapore's leading homegrown agency, Batey has become one of the most awarded agencies in Asian advertising history, working on accounts including Singapore Airlines, Singapore Tourism Board, StarHub, Tiger Beer, OCBC Bank and Raffles Hotel. Many of Asia's most awarded creatives forged their reputation at Batey.
"In today's competitive environment, it is critical that a creative agency has a breadth of resource which meets the needs of a changing marketplace", said Alan Fairnington, Batey's CEO. "Being part of the Grey Group gives Batey direct access to these resources and enhances our brand building capabilities."

AWARD Committee members, students, tutors and lecturers, all came together in Kuala Lumpur this week to celebrate the opening of Award School in Malaysia. Speakers included Danny Chin, AWARD School graduate and award-winning Art Director at Naga DDB, Malaysia and AWARD school co-heads Tony Savarimuthu - CEO, McCann Worldgroup Malaysia, and Ted Lim, ECD, Naga DDB Malaysia.
Six of the best agencies in Kuala Lumpur 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; Yasmin Ahmad - ARC/Leo Burnett Malaysia; Chin Weng Keong - Arachnid; Ronald Ng - BBDO Malaysia; Ajay Bakhshi - Bates 141 Malaysia; SP Lee - Dentsu Malaysia; Mun Tuck Wai - J Walter Thompson; Ng Heok Seong - Lowe & Partners, Malaysia; Tony Savirumithu - McCann Worldgroup; Abhinav Sharma - McCann Worldgroup Malaysia; Ted Lim - Naga DDB; Danny Chin - Naga DDB; Daniel Comar - Ogilvy & Mather; Jeffrey Orr - TBWA-ISC\Malaysia.
Dave Droga, Craig Davis and Leo Premutico are just three world-renown creatives to get their start from AWARD School. See here.

 

Seven Asia based creatives will sit on the prestigious Film Lions and Press Lions juries in Cannes this year.
Agnello Dias (TapRoot India), Toshiya Kono (Hakuhodo, Tokyo),  Sompat Trisadikun (Leo Burnett Bangkok), Tiger Fu (Lintas China), Abhijit Avasthi (O&M India), John Merrifield (TBWA Singapore) and Wiboon Leepakpreeda (Monday, Bangkok) will join the panels, headed by David Lubars, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, BBDO North America. Former Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore creative Ted Royer is also on the jury.
The full jury members are:

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 four of his list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

29) After three rigorous days of filtering the Outs from the Ins, ladies and gentlemen, we have a "long-list".
28) (Big deal, you'd say. But the long-list is nothing to scoff at -- just ask the guys whose work didn't get on it.)
27) Today we've cut this list to a more conventional and infinitely more popular "Shortlist" - from which shiny Statues will be awarded to the most deserving, rated on a scale of 1 to 10. But first, some random observations:
26) Tale of the Tagline: At least three solid visual-led print ads were let down by poorly-crafted taglines. Conversely, there were a few superb taglines that dragged simple visual ads through, with the might of a Russian strongman.
25) The thickest foam board I saw was about an inch and a half thick. It didn't get in.
24) In print there were quite a handful of GPS, washing powder, human rights, car braking, courier delivery and Ikea ads. It'll be interesting to see which will rule its respective product category.
23) Now I can almost see the Clio annual. It may not be very thick but hell it will be quite a read.

In this spot from Creativeland Asia, Mumbai a pint sized man runs across a hot, crowded and noisy Indian beach dragging his pants. Fights waves, stray dog, balloon kid and toy parachute man to reach his lemon refresher.
Ram Madhwani from Equinox Films directed the spot, which can be viewed here.
Said CCO Sajan Raj Kurup: "8 days of shooting on a crowded, noisy, hot and sunny beach in Mumbai. Creating 8 feet tall waves. Making gigantic jeans, paper-cups and toy parachute-man. Teaching dogs, fish and local fisherwomen to act. And shooting every single thing live and putting them together over 7 weeks made us lose water and shrink to the size of a 500 ml bottle. But when we saw our final product we got refreshed and flipped back to our original sizes."

The Association of Accredited Advertising Agents (4As) has decided to postpone the Singapore Creative Circle Awards (CCA) to 2010. The current global economic crisis is the reasoning for the decision.
Linda Locke, Chairperson of the 4As Creative Advisory Panel (CAP) said, "In view of the down turn in the global economy, the financial pressure it has placed on agencies and the subsequent reduction in advertising, as well as the density of award shows at the end of the year, the CAP committee has taken the decision to move the CCA to April 2010. This will be the new official month for the CCA."
With this postponement, the cycle of the awards will be reset. By resetting CCA, the qualifying period for 2010's CCA will be increased from a 12 month to a 16 month qualifying period. This extension of time will ensure the industry's ability to fully participate in CCA.  

The organisers of the 3rd Dubai Lynx Awards have withdrawn the Agency of the Year award from FP7 Doha and the trophy will subsequently now not be awarded this year.
Investigations after this year's award show have revealed numerous examples of work from FP7 Doha that did not meet the Dubai Lynx entry criteria and subsequently these 18 submissions and the associated seven awards have been withdrawn. Those awards were: 1 Gold Print campaign, 1 Gold TV/Cinema campaign, 3 Silver Print campaigns, 1 Silver Outdoor campaign and 1 Bronze TV/Cinema campaign. In addition, ten pieces which were shortlisted in the Print and Outdoor sections were also disqualified. FP7 is part of the Interpublic Group.
UK trade website Brand Republic carried a story two days ago on a scam controversy featuring a Samsung ad that was not authorised by the client. Brand Republic quotes the client Sunny Hwang, the president of Samsung Electronics Levant, who stated: "At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns." See full story here.
"Even before the awards night we had withdrawn a number of pieces of work from the competition but subsequently our investigation has found other pieces that were presented to the jury that infringed our requirement that all work presented must represent the client who approved it. Our rules are very clear with regards to this, and we have no hesitation in withdrawing these awards," said Philip Thomas, Dubai Lynx CEO. "The Dubai Lynx Awards exist to celebrate and raise the creative bar of genuine work of the region. Activities like this show a disregard not only for the Awards but more importantly for the juries who work so hard judging the event. Due to the scale of withdrawals we feel it inappropriate to honour FP7 Doha as Agency of the Year and so will be withdrawing the prize. I hope that this swift action makes clear our determination to build an award with true integrity for the region," continued Thomas.
The Dubai International Advertising Festival and Lynx Awards, which took place earlier this month, are held in association with the IAA - UAE Chapter. Dr. Lance de Masi, Chapter President, commented: "In taking such swift action the Lynx organisers have demonstrated their understanding that in order to fulfil the purpose of incentivising and rewarding creative excellence in the region, Lynx must safeguard compliance with the stated conditions of eligibility. To do otherwise would be to undermine credibility."

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 three of his list of 50 thoughts on the Clio judging experience.

36) As we wrap up the "In or Out" stage for all categories (Print, Poster, Billboard, Innovative and Integrated), I did a quick-now-no-thinking-gimme-3-ads-I-remember exercise.
35) "Million" is a big idea -- the kind of work that makes your mum proud, with or without an award.
34) The latest Harvey Nichols work continues to enthrall with its unique visual voice. That the agency has remained consistently brilliant with this brand through the years is especially laudable.
33) The Little Book To Saving Trees is a gem of a direct idea. I can't decide if it's a better ad or book, and I mean that as a compliment.
32) The staff behind the scoring system made all the difference. They are responsive and understand how ads should be judged for complete impartiality. Kudos to them for keeping things running like clockwork.
31) Overheard on the way to dinner: "I hope this restaurant we're going to doesn't come with an integrated video."
30) What you didn't know about the jury - one came down with flu, another shaved, someone lost a wedding ring (and thankfully retrieved it), two will share a birthday tomorrow - see, judges are human too.

Corbis it is holding its unique Creatives Behind the Lens competition for the first time in Asia.  The highly-regarded competition, which originated in France and has been held in Europe repeatedly in recent years, recognizes the photographic talent of creative professionals who work in advertising, marketing and media.
The Creatives Behind the Lens competition is open to all non-professional photographers working in the creative industries across Asia Pacific, including China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. This year's competition is supported by several prominent media partners including AdAsia, Campaign Brief Asia, China Advertising, Milk X Magazine, Best X Club and Longyin Review.
The call for entries is opening today, and those interested in entering the competition may do so by visiting the website, which is available in English and Chinese. The call-for-entries continues through 15 May.
The pictures will be judged first by a local panel of esteemed industry professionals in China, Hong Kong and South Asia, and then by a regional panel including Jens de Gruyter, Vice President of Creative Photography, Corbis; Bentham Liu, Chairman, Greater China of Conde Nast and Tay Guan Hin, Regional Executive Director, JWT.  
Hong Kong jury includes Gavin Simpson, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong; Jerry Kan, Executive Creative Director, McCann Taiwan; Linghu Lei, Creative Director, Modern Media China; Spencer Wong, MD/Executive Creative Director, HK & EVP, McCann China and Clara Williams, Director of Photography, Corbis Singapore Pte Ltd.
South Asia jury includes Eireen Ooi, Creative Director, Blu Inc Malaysia; Lester Ledesma, Photo Editor and Photographer, Ink Publishing Singapore; Raymond Quah, Creative Director, Publicis Modern Singapore and Tan Yew Leong, Creative Director, Leo Burnett, Malaysia.
China jury includes Tif Wu, Creative Partner, Euro RSCG Shanghai/ Editorial Consultant of Longyin Review; Ken Tao, Executive Creative Director, Energy Source China; Jason Zhao, Managing Partner & ECD, Publicis Beijing & Publicis Modern China and Ng Fan, Executive Creative Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Great Wall Advertising Guangzhou.  
Winners will be announced in July, and their work will be featured in a series of events across Asia throughout July and August. Winners works will also be published in a Creatives Behind the Lens book.  
"We have no doubt that there are fantastic budding photographers throughout the creative community in Asia," said Sophia Yu, Vice President, Sales & Services, for Corbis in Asia Pacific. "Through the Creatives Behind the Lens competition, we wish to bring to light the hidden talents of the people with whom we work very closely in the design, advertising and media world."
For more information or to enter the competition, visit www.creativesbehindthelens.com.

Leo Burnett Mumbai has created a campaign for Bajaj Exhaust Fans. This campaign has already won 6 Silvers and 2 bronzes in the Print & Poster categories at the recent AdFest in Pattaya.
Credits:
ECD: KB Vinod, KV Sridhar
Art Director: Deepak Singh
Writer: KB Vinod
Photographer: Lai
Studio: Groovy Studios
Digital Imaging: Procolor, Bhushan Patil.

Jureeporn Thaidumrong's very hot Bangkok agency celebrated its fourth birthday with a party in downtown Pattaya. Held over the AdFest Festival, JEH took over the very cool rooftop bar at the D2 Baraquda Hotel and partied all night with staff, clients and friends that were in town for AdFest.
It was a huge party that didn't end until the sun rose...