May 2009 Archives

As you all know, Australian men are sensitive beings that are easily offended!
A TV ad in Australia has been pulled from the screens after complaints were received because it ridicules and shows contempt for men suffering from premature ejaculation. The spot shows a couple in bed getting raided by the bedroom police who warn the man with a threat of a "speeding ticket".
"The board considered the tone and content of the advertisement clearly had the potential to impact on men's self-esteem and cause shame, embarrassment and undue distress," the Advertising Standards Bureau ruled.

Saatchi & Saatchi Guangzhou has created a new Safeguard print campaign that illustrates that to children everything is a toy.
Credits: ECD: Ng Fan. CD: Popo Wu, Samuel Lau. Copywriter: Akon Li, Dang Lei, Arthur Tsang. Art Director: Feel Fu, Jo Jong, Willyes Lam, Ng Fan. Photography/Digital Imaging: David Chen, James Chan.

To promote Tonka's mighty machines, Y&R Singapore transformed a construction site in Singapore into an enormous sandpit.  See the video.
Credits: ECD: Marcus Rebeschini. Copywriter: Edward Ong. Art Directors: Kirsten Ackland, Alvin Yeo, Zoe Ong. Producers: Goh Shii Hua, Michael Kan, Gina Tan.

Saatchi & Saatchi has just released a short film as the final call to entry for this year's New Directors' Showcase at Cannes. The film asks 'Can you make anything happen in front of the camera'?
"The Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase is all about uncovering the best talent out there.  Recently, we have found more and more seriously exciting work through places like YouTube rather than just through the more traditional channels such as production companies and film schools.  The style of our film reflects this shift and shows that anyone, not just those who have formal training, can be inspiring and can enter the New Directors' Showcase," says Paul Silburn, Creative Partner, Saatchi & Saatchi London.
The creative team, Jesper Lonnqvist and Joakim Hutchison were behind the idea which was directed by Tony Barry through Academy.

The Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings hits the streets later this week. There is 32 pages of Rankings coverage in this edition of the magazine including: a comprehensive ranking of the Top Agencies in Asia (from No1 to No187); an exhaustive ranking of the Top Creatives in Asia (from No1 right down to No1533); A ranking of the Top 20 Agency Networks in Asia; a very interesting ranking of the Most Creative Countries in Asia; and country by country breakdowns of the Top Agencies and Top Creatives in each individual country. Plus lots more commentary.

The Creative Rankings tabulate all Asian winners from the 8 most important international and regional creative awards shows. To get the full details of this year's Creative Rankings make sure you are a subscriber by downloading the subscription form, or order your copy now from your local stockist of Campaign Brief Asia.
 
Download the Campaign Brief Asia subscription form here:
CB_2009_subscription_form.pdf

To whet your appetite for this edition, the following chart is an alphabetical listing of the creatives and creative directors that make up this year's Top 25 Creatives in Asia chart in the Creative Rankings....

Check this out - Jorge Colombo drew this week's cover of The New Yorker using Brushes, an application for the iPhone, while standing for an hour outside Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Times Square.

Bestads Top 6 Commercials of the week in the world now ready to view, reviewed by Jonathan Cude, partner and chief creative officer of McKinney, Durham, North Carolina: http://tr.im/fopw

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Saatchi & Saatchi has just released a short film as the final call to entry for this year's New Directors' Showcase at Cannes. The film asks 'Can you make anything happen in front of the camera'?
"The Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase is all about uncovering the best talent out there.  Recently, we have found more and more seriously exciting work through places like YouTube rather than just through the more traditional channels such as production companies and film schools.  The style of our film reflects this shift and shows that anyone, not just those who have formal training, can be inspiring and can enter the New Directors' Showcase," says Paul Silburn, Creative Partner, Saatchi & Saatchi London.
The creative team, Jesper Lonnqvist and Joakim Hutchison were behind the idea which was directed by Tony Barry through Academy.

Specially engineered cloth banners were suspended by ropes connected to three corners. Despite the absence of support on one corner, the banner still stayed in shape, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of Revive fabric stiffener. Credits: Agency: Publicis Communications, Mumbai. National Creative Director: Ashish Khazanchi, Prasanna Sankhe. Copywriter: Karunasagar Sridharan. Art Director: Dipti Deorukhkar. Production: Shireesh Sabnis, Santosh Shetty.

BBDO/Proximity Malaysia has come up with a direct marketing idea for the owner of Century Fiesta Costume Shop, which has the largest collection of costumes in Malaysia. The agency took the cue from that and designed a poster that doubled as business cards for the owner. The perforated poster is made up of many cards that each highlighted a different costume available in the shop. Credits: Creative Director: Ronald Ng, Mun. Art Director: Mun, Pebble Goh. Copywriter: Joanne Chow. Designers: Pebble Goh, Eric Hor, Mun.

The Art Directors Club has established an arm in China. Based in Beijing, The Art Directors Club of China (ADC) was set up to foster creativity and set new standards in media and advertising in Greater China. It will also mentor young creative talents in China to develop their own unique creative style whilst meeting international advertising standards.
Six leading admen have been appointed as ambassadors of ADC China to lead the process and act as an inspiration for students to enter the field of advertising.
These are Dan Mintz, founder and chief creative officer of DMG (Dynamic Marketing Group), Amir Kassaei, president of the Art Directors Club Germany and chief creative officer of DDB Group Germany, Michael Dee, chief creative officer of DDB China Group, Kevin Lee, executive creative director of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Yang Liu, founder of Yang Liu Design and Doug Schiff, executive creative director of OgilvyOne. More ambassadors are expected to be appointed in the near future.

Leading New Zealand post production house Digipost has again enhanced their VFX offering adding two creative talents from the UK and a new Flame suite to their Auckland facility.
Senior Flame artist Richard 'Ritchie' Betts joins fresh from seven years of creative graft with London top shop The Mill.  Betts' memorable work has traversed the globe.  His impressive credits include the likes of Nike 'Evolution', Sony PlayStation 'Mountain', Mercedes 'Clouds' and music clips for cult heroes Prodigy and Bloc Party.
James 'Jimmy' Corden also spent time at The Mill before becoming a hit on the London freelance circuit.  Corden's gun-for-hire Flame skills have been in high demand with the likes of MPC, Glassworks and Absolute.  His credits speak for themselves, including international icons Sony Bravia 'Play Doh Bunnies', Nike 'Ronaldinho' and music clips for global pop icons Madonna and Kylie.  Corden joins in a senior role also.

Each week Campaign Brief Asia sits down with a prominent creative talent from our region and gets to know them better. This week in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is one of the Edmund Choe, who last year moved from Malaysia to be the Regional Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi China.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I was a studio assistant - spending most of my time retouching photographs (no Photoshop back then so we had to do it by hand) and cleaning airbrushes.
How did you first get into advertising as a career?
I was making around $130 a week at the studio, so when an ad agency offered me a job for $750 a month as FA artist, I jumped on it.
Who gave you your first big break?
Mr.Goh the studio manager. He liked my drawings so he made me storyboard artist. This new job put me in front of the ECD frequently - a couple of months later an Art Director screwed up and I was given her job.

Every fortnight Campaign Brief Asia is turning the spotlight on a hot director that is currently in the news. This week Campaign Brief Asia speaks to the New York-based Australian expat director, David Gaddie.

Last September, David Gaddie signed with The Sweet Shop reuniting him with CEO/managing partner Paul Prince, who he had worked with at SilverScreen as a fledgling director in Australia and New Zealand. When Gaddie left for the US, where he was represented by Partizan, they stayed in contact. Then, Stephen Dickstein, who had recruited Gaddie to Partizan, joined The Sweet Shop as global president and managing partner manager to establish their New York and Los Angeles offices and everything just fell into place for the young Australian director.

Spikes Asia is now open for entries. Work can be entered in the categories of TV/Cinema, Outdoor, Print, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo, Integrated, Media, Craft and, for the first time, also Design. To be eligible, the work must have run in Asia between 1 January 2008 and 1 August 2009. Entry Deadline is 24 July 2009.
Six juries made up of 42 leading creatives, media, design and craft specialists from 17 different countries - both regional and international - will meet in Singapore to vote, discuss and award the very best work in Asia.
All entries can be viewed during the three-day Festival, which takes place at Suntec City. The winners will be revealed during the awards ceremony on Friday 18 September. For further information about how to enter and register to attend the Spikes Asia festival, please go to the website.

The AWARD Hall Of Fame, with principal sponsor adstream, will be held Thursday August 6th in Sydney at the stunning new Centennial Parklands Dining for the AWARD membership and industry luminaries. AWARD Members are being called upon to nominate the Hall Of Fame inductees, by Monday 25th May.

"AWARD Hall of Fame sets out to recognise the best of the very best. It's for those who've defined a generation of advertising," says Richard Maddocks (pictured), AWARD Chairman. "Those that have shaped creativity .Those that we look up to. That inspire us. That have done what few others have ever done or could ever do. Entry is for the exclusive. For those that have pioneered. Those that have been on top, stayed there and will always be there. The very few we can call legends. AWARD Hall of Fame is for those whose remarkable creative contribution needs to be recognised now, and always."

Bestads Top 6 Commercials of the week in the world now ready to view, reviewed by Steve Red, president and CCO, Red Tettemer, Philadelphia: http://tr.im/fopw

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"Right now America is like a company teetering on bankruptcy -- we have lost so much credibility and brand currency over the past eight years." This is the opening line of a new rebranding America exercise undertaken by Paper Magazine for their annual Design issue of the magazine.
They didn't mess around when it came to getting top advertising talent involved asking Dan Wieden, Kevin Roberts and Alex Bogusky to join in the exercise.
Each (and other non advertising creative thinkers) were asked how would they rebrand America: "We certainly need it desperately!" explains Paper Magazine's Kim Hastreiter. "How would you make people love us again? How would you change our brand image? Our perception abroad? How could you project our future to our citizens? If America had a new ad campaign, what would it look like?"

Hungry Man, one of the premier production companies in the world, has expanded its geographic reach by signing with Australian-based production company Prodigy.
Prodigy commenced operation more than 30 years ago and now boasts offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland with a dozen award-winning directors and a thriving production services business. This supplements Hungry Man's offices in London, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Formalising the relationship means Hungry Man's roster of directors will have greater access to work in Australia, New Zealand and Asia, including Japan and China where Prodigy has been active since the late 1970's.
In return, select Prodigy directors - most notably Tim Bullock - will be represented in Europe, the US and South America by Hungry Man.

Leo Burnett Bangkok wanted an eye-catching promotional idea to launch the Heineken GreenSpace Beer Park located on the rooftop of the CentralWorld Plaza in Bangkok. The agency created 'green men' and formed them into the shape of the Heineken bottle and used it as a directional installation that pointed to the location of the bar day and night.
Credits: Executive Creative Director: Keeratie Chaimoungkalo, Sompat Trisadikun. Creative Director: Sahaath Limlucksana. Copywriter: Taksina Singhawas. Art Director: Vorachai Sooksai, Sahaath Limlucksana. Illustrator: Patima Design

Publicis Ambience Mumbai demonstrates how slim the Sansui Slimmex LCD television is with these two executions. Credits: National Creative Director - Ashish Khazanchi, Prasanna Sankhe. Art Director - Ashish Phatak. Copywriter - Denise D'silva. Illustrator - Balraj Shetye, Milind Aglave.

BBDO Guerrero Manila has released new TV and print campaigns for Bayan Telecommunications. The campaign urges people to speak their mind rather than hold it all in.
The TV work was produced by production company Abracadabra. The creative team was Rey Tiempo and Gary Arce.
See the "Love" spot here.
See the "Promotion" spot here.
See the "Guitar" spot here.

Craig Davis, former chief creative officer worldwide JWT and former regional ECD of Saatchi & Saatchi in Asia, has been appointed the Chairman of Judges of this year's AWARD Awards. Davis is one of the global advertising industry's leading and award-winning talents.

The AWARD Call For Entry opens today, May 19th - visit www.awardonline-cfe.com
AWARD Judging will be held in Sydney, September 8th until September 18th. Finalists will be released in October, and the winners will be heralded at the AWARD Awards Presentation Evening on Thursday November 12th at The Overseas Passenger Terminal, Sydney.

"To be the best regional show you need the best judges and it all starts with the Chairman. We're obviously delighted to have someone of Craig's calibre in that role", says AWARD Chairman Richard Maddocks. "Craig will bring both a wealth of experience and a global perspective to the judging process. He'll set the highest standard which is exactly what AWARD is about."

Asia's final total from the Clio Awards Festival that concluded on Friday was 9 Gold, 12 Silver and 26 Bronze awards. See the chart for the full breakdown.
The only multiple Gold winner was BBDO/Proximity Malaysia with two for their Jeep print campaign. Other Gold winners were: Leo Burnett Bangkok (WMF Knives), Lowe Bangkok (Breeze 'Torture Test'), O&M Taiwan (Wego 'Soap'), Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia (Guinness 'Stop'), Dentsu Razorfish (Dunlop 'Melody Road'), O&M Japan (Esthe WAM 'Beauty Bowling'), and Contract Mumbai (Aadhar "Family Name').
Most of these have been featured over the past week in previous Clio Awards postings. If you have not seen it yet, O&M Taiwan's Wego Hotel short film deserves a viewing - this branded content film picked up a Craft Gold and Silver at Clio. See it here.

Each week Campaign Brief Asia sits down with a prominent creative talent from our region and gets to know them better. This week in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is one of the legends of Singapore advertising - Linda Locke, former Regional Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett, Asia. Locke made an enormous contribution to Leo Burnett's creative reputation and inspired a generation of creatives in Singapore.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I was a graphic designer working for a Savile row fashion house. And before that I had aspirations of running a hotel and trained to do so.
How did you first get into advertising as a career?
I found graphic design in those days lacked enough depth of thinking both strategically and from a business point of view. It was also a bit dry and narrow compared to the avenues that advertising offered.

For the first time in its history, the 2009 New York Festivals (NYF) Advertising Awards will host a series of award ceremonies and speaker series around the world enabling many people the opportunity to see the World's Best Advertising™ closer to their home. Awards presentations will be held in Chile, China, India, Philippines, Spain and the USA along with a THINKBIG™ Speaker Series about Digital, Interactive, Avant-garde and Social Medias. All award winners will be invited to attend the international award ceremonies taking place in their region.

YouTube and Cannes Lions have launched a global competition for young creative talent aged 28 or under to attend this year's Festival and compete in the Young Lions Film Competition. Get the full brief here 

Dentsu Razorfish Tokyo is Asia's only Gold Statue winner from the Interactive Media category at this year's Clio Awards - presented an hour ago in Las Vegas. Dentsu Razorfish won for their innovative Dunlop Tire safety awareness 'Melody Road' campaign. The idea saw the agency cut grooves in a dangerous road for driving. When driven along at a safe speed the grooves made a tune.
Ogilvy Beijing picked up a Silver Statue in Innovative Media for their New Citizen Program - Illiterate "Barbed Wire" (pictured). McCann Worldgroup Hong Kong picked up another Bronze for their Elements Mall "Flirting with Sound" (see previous story) and Publicis Mumbai won Bronze for Wespro Digital Cameras 'Sports Capture".

New York based Aussie shop Droga5 has taken out the Content & Contact Grand Clio for their New York Department of Education 'Million' campaign at the 50th Annual Clio Awards, presented tonight in Las Vegas.
'Million' also won one of only three Gold Clios in the Content & Contact category. The agency also scored one of two Silver Clios in the same category for their 'The Great Schlep' campaign for Jewish Council for Education and Research.
Only nine Clio Statues were handed out in this prestigious category (3 Gold, 2 Silver, 4 Bronze). In a big coup for Hong Kong, McCann Worldwide Hong Kong collected one of the 4 Bronze statues for their Elements Mall 'Flirting With Sound'. This was the only winner from Asia in this category.

BBDO/Proximity Malaysia was again the star for Asia at the first awards show of the three day Clio Festival. The agency's work on Jeep continues to attract top marks from judges with two Clio Gold Statues - one each in the Press and Poster categories, announced just moments ago at at The New Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas.
Day One at Clio saw the Communications award show which recognizes Print, Direct Mail, Radio, Poster and Billboard mediums, as well as the NEW Strategic Communications/ Public Relations medium.
In total Asia scored six Gold Statues, with Lowe Bangkok, Leo Burnett Bangkok, Contract Advertising Mumbai and Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia also securing Gold.

Mother London's new TV commercial for Coca-Cola titled 'Yeah Yeah Yeah, La La La'. View the spot  features some cute creatures acting and playing instuments.
Believe it or not, but each of the creatures has a name and a bio on flickr.
And you can make Enufsaid, Stretch, Cretin, Mrmaster and the gang dance and get more information on them from cokecreatures.com.

Tom Ormes is the Joint Creative Director at iris Singapore. Two weeks ago he spent several days in Sri Lanka on the judging panel for their local awards show - The Chillies. Here he gives an account of his experience there.

It isn't Cannes, D&AD, One Show or the CLIO's, but then again, it's not the Botswanan Golden Mongoose's either.
This is Sri Lanka, and it's the Chillies - the big local creative award show.
There's a buzz of anticipation in the air concerning the horrific 25 year-old civil war that's hopefully about to come to an end. Not too surprisingly, it makes what we do seem a tad trivial in comparison.
Nonetheless, we've been in town all week, and enjoying every minute of it. The international jury is made up of industry heavyweights (and very nice people): Masako Okamura, Agnello Dias, Senthil Kumar, Graham Kelly ... and then there's me (pictured below).

BBDO Bangkok has served up a fresh new Tesco Lotus campaign. This campaign again follows the 'Always Fresh' theme of recent campaigns for the client from the agency.
Credits: Agency: BBDO Bangkok. ECD: Suthisak Sucharittanonta. Creative Director: Subun Khow. Art Director: Ariyawat Juntaratip. Copywriter: Chanatthapol Tiensri. Photographer: Anuchai Secharunputong (Remix Studio).

May 15th is the final deadline for entries for the unique Creatives Behind the Lens competition, being held for the first time in Asia.  The highly-regarded competition is run by Corbis, and 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.
Those interested in entering the competition may do so by visiting the website.

Each week Campaign Brief Asia sits down with a prominent creative talent from our region and gets to know them better. This week in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is Ronald Ng, Executive Creative Director, BBDO Proximity Malaysia. Ng and his agency have had a spectacular 12 months at the award shows with their Jeep print campaign.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I went to Journalism School. But I wouldn't have gone there if I hadn't flunk out of Business School. And before that, Social Sciences School. And Law School.
How did you first get into advertising as a career?
I took the JWT Copy Test. They must've liked my work a lot because I was offered a lucrative monthly salary of RM600 (USD$180) which I grabbed without hesitation.

Here's something to cure the Monday blues: Coca-Cola Great Britain's summer campaign, via Mother, which launched on the weekend, is centred on a TV commercial titled 'Yeah Yeah Yeah, La La La'. View the spot

NEW YORK - Japan scored 8 Pencils and 18 Merits to rank third in the world at the 2009 One Show Interactive Awards in New York last night. Japan only had the USA and Sweden in front of them on the leader board. Australia ranked sixth with 4 Pencils and 5 Merits and China ranked ninth with 3 Pencils and 3 Merits. Now in its 12th year, One Show Interactive reflects the expanding realm of online and digital work.

New Zealand also performed admirably, winning three Pencils and five merits, and was placed equal seventh with Brazil.

Japan scored 4 Silver and 4 Bronzes with ONIQLO work figuring in 3 Pencils. Dentsu Tokyo picked up two Silvers. The only Gold award for Asia Pacific at the One Show Interactive went to JWT Beijing for Nokia "Bruce Lee - Pingpong".

Here's an ambient campaign from Publicis Ambience Mumbai that really caught Campaign Brief Asia's eye. Gutkha, an indigenous form of tobacco, has become a fixture in the mouths of millions of Indians causing 80,000 cases of oral cancer annually. After Gutkha is consumed, the leftover juice is usually spat onto a wall, causing an unsightly red stain that stays. These stains have become a part of the landscape. When Cancer Patients Aid Association wanted to make the masses aware of the evils of Gutkha, they used these stains to advantage and created graffiti around them that looked as if the Gutkha user was puking blood. Even with a miniscule budget of just $3000 the message spread over 23 cities.

For the second consecutive year, Euro RSCG was the most awarded network at the Golden Award of Montreux international Advertising Festival, taking home a total of 15 Gold Medals at the award show. Euro RSCG was also the only agency in APAC to pick up any golds, with Singapore and Kuala Lumpur winning one each. Singapore picked up a gold in the Print Advertising/Posters/Direct Mail category for the "Book Sculptures" campaign for bookstore Books Actually - one of nine golds picked up by the network in that category. In the Television/Cinema category, Euro RSCG Kuala Lumpur won a gold for "Fish," for Mr. Potato Chips. The Books Actually campaign was created by Victor Ng, Wong Wai Ling and Joel Ng.

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai created an origamic hoarding over a five day period to promote the Hobby Ideas retail chain. Each day the billboard underwent a change with the final reveal being a butterfly shaped poster.
Credits: Creative Directors: Piyush Pandey, Abhijit Avasthi. Creative: Ganesh Nayak.

A billboard was tilted at an angle to provide shade to pedestrians and thus demonstrate what Garnier Sun Control Daily Moisturizer SPF 20 offers - protection from the sun. The billboard was created by Publicis Communications, Mumbai.
Credits: National Creative Directors: Ashish Khazanchi, Prasanna Sankhe. Creative Director: Bapi Bit. Copywriter: Karunasagar Sridharan. Art Director: Dipti Deorukhkar

JWT Mumbai brought alive the brand promise of protection in a stark and simple manner that finds immediate relevance in a category like life insurance. The creative challenge was to change the way people perceive insurance advertising and juxtapose the message within the everyday environs of the target audience.
The setting was aptly the suburban railway system of Mumbai which doubles up as the city's lifeline and transports about 2.7 million commuters everyday. The idea was in establishing life and insurance as the thin cautionary platform line that keeps the commuters a safe distance away from the tracks. With the frequency of the rail-related accidents going up every year, the commuters are adequately sensitized about the vagaries of being too close to the tracks.
The creative team at JWT is Shounak Guhathakurta and Samrat Rane.

A few years ago Campaign Brief Asia regularly ran a section in the magazine called "Deja View". It was extremely popular and we had a bit of fun with it. CB Asia is resurrecting it today as we couldn't believe our eyes when these two commercials popped up in our inbox.
Now if you are going to resort to copying an existing ad we would have thought that the first rule, in fact the only rule, is to make sure your ad better than the one you are copying. Clearly the creators of this Colgate Toothpaste spot have failed miserably when they set out to copy a Dentiste Toothpaste spot from Thailand.
Jeh Bangkok's work for Dentiste ran in Thailand and Hong Kong in 2004 and won it Silver at AdFest, an award at the Spikes, and was accepted into The Work - so it was fairly well-known internationally. The Colgate spot is new this year and is apparently running in The Philippines and Vietnam - it is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the Dentiste spot.
View the Dentiste spot.
View the Colgate spot.
Apologies for the quality of the Colgate spot but the only version we have was captured on a mobile phone.
Unfortunately, we don't know which agency is responsible for the Colgate copy. Do you?

It was a big night for BBDO Proximity Malaysia at The One Show awards today in New York when their Jeep campaign for Chrysler Korea picked up five Pencils. The agency's haul included two Golds, one Silver and two Bronze Pencils. The two Golds were in the Newspaper Campaign and POP & In-Store Campaign sections.
Only five other Asian agencies scored Pencils: Lowe Bangkok picked up a Silver for Unilever 'Torture Test' and single Bronzes were awarded to Leo Burnett Bangkok (Italasia "Fish"), Creative Juice Bangkok (Thai Yellow Pages "Roundabout"), Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore (Wonderbra "Boardroom") and DDB Mudra Mumbai (Islamic Research Foundation "Bush).
Only 14 Gold Pencils were awarded this year.

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 portfolios their work and gives an insight into how they operate. Here we look at one of Australia's best emerging directors.

Amy Gebhardt won the 2008 Kodak Young Director's Award and was included in the 2007 Saatchi & Saatchi New Director's Showcase, accolades that have helped her make the transition into directing commercials. Represented by Australian-based Exit Film, she has just wrapped her first major campaign, VB's 'Raise a Glass', commissioned by David Nobay founder of Droga5 Sydney. After graduating from a Bachelor of Laws and Arts majoring in film in 1998, she became a writer/director/cinematographer in both drama and documentaries. In 2005 Gebhardt enrolled in a Master's of Directing at the AFTRS, graduating in 2007. Here she directed three short films: 'Look Sharp', 'Walnut' and 'Pleasance' (see trailers for all three here). She also completed a mentorship with renowned director Jane Campion and is currently developing her first feature.

They say a picture says a thousand words. Yet what if there were no more forests to photograph? No amazing shots of animals to be found? No tigers. No orangutans. No trees. Sometimes no image can say even more than a picture.
This new campaign for Greenpeace out of Bates141 Singapore is a fresh way to use a photo search site and was only possible with the cooperation of Yahoo. Banners and key words promise amazing pictures of Indonesia's natural beauty. However, the photos on the search site cannot be found. You are then given a choice: Help Greenpeace save the animals. Or do nothing and resume your search. It seems most people are choosing to do the first. Take a look at the site and sign the petition.

Bestads Top 6 Commercials of the week in the world now ready to view, reviewed by Noah Regan, creative director of Three Drunk Monkeys, Sydney: http://tr.im/fopw

Get the Bestads Podcast HERE

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There's nothing like a good sing-along.
For those that haven't seen it here is the extended version of the Saatchi & Saatchi London orchestrated Trafalgar Square sing-along for T-Mobile. Held three days ago, the event attracted more than 13,000 people including US rock star Pink.
Partizan used 24 cameras and 200 microphones to record the commercial which was aired during ITV's "Britain's Got Talent".
View the commercial.
View the teaser.
View some of the crowd reaction.
This is the second big event for T-Mobile in the UK this year. In January Saatchi & Saatchi took over Liverpool Street Station and put on a dance.

Fred Koblinger, CEO of PKP Proximity and BBDO Holding Austria, has been appointed this year's Spikes Asia Jury President for the Digital, Direct and Promo jury. Koblinger has twice been a jury member in Cannes as well as Direct Jury President for Cannes Lions in 2005, Eurobest in 2007 and Dubai Lynx in 2007.
After working in Paris for the Austrian National Tourist Office in charge of Marketing and Sales Promotion, Fred launched his career in Direct Marketing in 1982 as Managing Director of Interhome Austria after which he started up Ogilvy & Mather Direct. In 1991 he founded Palla, Koblinger & Partner, which has since been Austria's number one relationship marketing agency with a strong focus on creativity (more then 120 National DM Awards, 15 Best of Europe, more than ten Echo Awards, four Cannes Direct Lions). After selling PKP to BBDO in 2000, Fred Koblinger co-founded the Proximity network with the agency changing its name to PKP Proximity. He is member of the Proximity WW Board and since 2002 he also became CEO of BBDO Holding Austria.

13th ANNUAL WEBBY AWARDS UNVEIL WINNERS FOR BEST INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING - R/GA Takes Agency of the Year Award with Most Wins followed by New Zealand's Hyperfactory with six awards

With eight wins, R/GA New York will be presented with the first-ever Webby Agency of the Year Award at the 13th Annual Webby Awards, organizers announced today. 

The new award recognizes the most successful agency across all Webby categories, including, interactive advertising, websites, mobile sites, and online film and video. Other multiple winners include: New Zealand's Hyperfactory (6); Goodby Silverstein and Partners (3); Wieden + Kennedy (2), 42 Entertainment (2), The Netherland's Achtung! (2), Japan's Less Rain (2); Grow Interactive (2), Razorfish (2); and the Atmosphere and Clemenger offices of BBDO (2). Of the big four advertising holding companies, Omnicom and Interpublic tied with eight awards each, followed by Publicis with three wins.

The final shortlist for The One Show has been announced and Malaysia leads the region with a total of 23 finalists. The One Show pencils will be revealed Wednesday night in New York but it must be assumed that both Saatchi & Saatchi and BBDO/Proximity Malaysia perform very well. Saatchi Malaysia has 14 Finalists and BBDO/Proximity has 5.
Thailand is the next best performing Asian country with 20 shortlists. Singapore is third with 17.

The International ANDY Awards has named Ty Montague, Co-President and Chief Creative Officer of JWT North America, the Show's new Chairman. Montague takes over the position from Mark Waites, Creative Director and Founding Partner of Mother London, who has served as ANDY Chairman for the past two years.
"We are very pleased that Ty has accepted his nomination as our new Chairman," says Gina Grillo, Executive Director of The ADVERTISING Club, which produces the International ANDY Awards. "The criteria for our decision was based on the fact that Ty has not only been a positive influence as a past juror but is one of the most accomplished global creatives in the business, committed to industry excellence and the growth of the Show. Our team is very excited to work with him and look forward to his creative plans for the 2010 ANDYs."

The 2009 One Show Design Awards has proven a bonanza for Asia with the region accounting for 30 of the 63 Pencils awarded. The international design competition honoring the year's best in print design, environmental design, corporate identity, publication design, and package design, was held  Monday night at the IAC Building in New York.
Japan was the second best performer behind the USA (17) with 13 Pencils, followed by India and Malaysia with 6 and 5 Pencils respectively.
The top Pencil winners at this year's One Show Design were: Dentsu  Network: 6 total (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 3 Bronze). BBDO Network: 5 Total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze). And Ogilvy & Mather Network: 3 total (1 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze).
The list of Pencil winners is here:
OSD-winners.pdf 

New Zealand is one of the very few countries outside the USA invited on to The One Show Jury, represented by Nick Worthington, ECD of Colenso BBDO, Auckland. After selecting the long shortlist in Hawaii, the jury are back together in New York deciding what gets metal and Merits. Here is Nick's diary, exclusive to the Campaign Brief Asia Blog.

First up, Australia has played a blinder. Pretty much put NZ in the shade this year as far as I can see.
The Hamilton Island "Best job in the World" idea was the most discussed going into the "Best In Show" judging, with most of the Americans and international judges raving about this. They've seen it, heard about it and like it. It's lower key in Aus and NZ, but it's hitting its target overseas, which is the point of a tourist campaign. So awesome work there. No idea what we all did in the private vote, but as I say, it was up there at the top.

Each week Campaign Brief Asia sits down with a prominent creative talent from our region and gets to know them better. This week in this regular "10 Minutes With" column is Gavin Simpson, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong.

What did you do before getting into advertising?
I was a bartender for nearly five years. The last two of those five years were spent going to college in the day and working at night.
Why did you first get into advertising?
I was told it pays well.
Who gave you your first big break?
It's an endless list...
Kurt Crocker gave me my first job in Ogilvy & Mather Direct.
Luke Bailey made the effort to see me three times to rework my book.
Ted Lim gave me the chance to work in mainstream.
Sonal Dabral inspired me to think big.  
Tham Khai Meng built my resilience to brutal honesty.

Because Campaign Brief Asia loves charts, Maeve at D&AD has done all the number crunching to compile a chart of top nations at D&AD this year especially for Campaign Brief Asia, which shows that Asia put in a stellar performance.
In terms of Nominations Japan leads the Asian countries, placed #3 in the world, followed by Malaysia at = #7, Singapore at #9, China and Hong Kong at = #11 and Thailand at #17.
In terms of Nominations and In-Book (total entries) Japan is #4, Singapore is #6, China is #7, Malaysia is #8, India is #15, Thailand is #17 and Hong Kong is #19.

Campaign Brief Asia has just received this message from Fabio Fernandes (pictured) President / Creative Director of F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Brazil, obviously in response to the world economic crisis, which should worry the Cannes organisers....

F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi and the festivals of 2009
In 2009, F/Nazca will not submit its pieces to any festival that charges registration fees.
Our decision is in line with a broader objective for the agency in 2009--to focus on the qualification of our professionals, their well-being, agency growth, expansion of our facilities and double our attention on everything that is really the core of our business.