DDB team at Adfest: “Is doing a recruitment campaign for McCann breaching our contracts?”

DDB Sydney’s Ryan Fitzgerald (near left) and Jim Curtis (far leftt) were picked by Campaign Brief to represent Australia at AdFest’s Young Lotus competition held over the last few days in Pattaya, Thailand. Here’s their report, exclusive to CB.

Before we begin, we’d like you to listen to this to provide some background music. It’ll help set the mood.

Okay, is it playing? Good. Welcome to Pattaya.

DAY 1:

Pattaya is 152km from Bangkok. Our taxi driver achieved the voyage in a mere one hour and 12 minutes (including a bit of traffic). So it’s fair to say he was a punctual man.

After reapplying underpants and taking a quick dip in the hotel pool with a bunch of Soviet Comrades, we headed to the Young Lotus Welcome Dinner. Historical note: in the 80’s Pattaya was engulfed in a pretty ugly spat between the Russians and the Germans as they toiled for control of the strip. Now it is a beachside haven to escape the harsh Siberian winter.

The dinner was like a weird version of Noah’s Ark. Two by two, each country took their seats – interacting as if it were a scene from Cool Runnings; “Hey Australia… Can you pass the soy?”

The next morning the Young Lotus workshop commenced. As it was sponsored by McCann, all the speakers came from senior positions across McCann’s Asia/Pacific agencies.

Topics discussed included the importance of storytelling, partnerships (be nice to suits and planners), big sexy clients are not required to produce good work, creative effectiveness and tomorrow-ism. The highlight was a great talk from John Mescal via Skype, complete with the sound of F1 cars in the background.

That night we had a roof top dinner with all the teams beside another pool filled with Russians. As the conversation flowed, we learned that advertising problems are the same the world over. Clients and cash – the issues that transcend boarders.

DAY 2:

Day two started super early at the convention centre. We first heard from McCann’s chief talent officer about the importance of maintaining a good personal brand within the industry. Then we got a quick promo from Getty, before receiving the brief. We were given two choices:

1.  Create McCann’s next Christmas card

OR

2.  Create a recruitment campaign to bring creative talent to McCann

A vote decided on the recruitment campaign. An eerie silence fell over the conference room as each team quietly counselled and wondered “is doing a recruitment campaign for McCann breaching our contracts?”… Either way it was better than the Christmas card brief.

DAY 3:

The presentations kicked off at midday. Each team presented to both the judges and all 16 Young Lotus teams. It was awesome to see how differently each team approached the brief – especially since each team was from a completely different market.

After a quick spot of lunch (which included neon pink noodles) the three finalists were announced and unfortunately… we were not one of them. Bugger.

We were beaten by a great insight from Malaysia, a very clever idea from our Kiwi friends and some A-Grade weird from our Japanese counterparts. Strangely, after the announcement a lot of people came up to congratulate us (thinking we we’re the Kiwis). Eventually we stopped correcting the well-wishers and just accepted the misdirected praise – which acted as Tiger Balm to our bruised egos. After a quick debrief, we dove into some Singha’s and slowly replaced the stench of failure with a waft of booze.

That night we all headed out for dinner at the intriguingly named ‘Cabbages & Condoms’. Yep – ‘Cabbages & Condoms’. Contrary to our imagination, it was a tree house-styled restaurant sprawling down through thick jungle right onto the beach.

After dinner we headed to a nice area of town called ‘Walking Street’. It was filled with really lovely people who were more than welcome to Ryan and I. We played connect four, jenga and pool deep into the night – managing not to win a single game. Our only criticism would be that each bar is strangely over-staffed. Literally 25 waitresses to each patron. Weird eh?

The night finished off with finally bumping into someone taller than both of us (her name was ‘Flower’) and munching down a couple of scorpions. Yum.

Now it’s time for Adfest…