AdFest wrap

1. Creative standards under the spotlight

Advertising Despite a strong showing of entries to this year's Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (AdFest), judges were highly critical about the lack of breakthrough work.

Tay Guan Hin, regional executive creative director at JWT South East Asia and Jury President of Outdoor Lotus, said this year judges stuck firmly to the "reinvention" theme of the festival and did not budge from the festival's usually high standard.

"Re-invent may have been this year's theme, but most of the work was re-cycled," he said.

"All in all, the standard wasn't high this year; the other jury members echoed this. I was expecting more innovative work that made better use of new media."

This year's Outdoor, TV and 360 Lotus categories all failed to product a Best of Show.

In the Radio category alone, more than 13 sectors including fashion & cosmetics, automotive, tourism, retail, corporate and electronics, all missed out on taking a Gold Award.

On the winners front, Tokyo was a big winner with Ground Tokyo taking the coveted Grande Innova Lotus and an Innova Lotus Award - as well as a 360 Lotus - for its Nissin Cup Noodle ‘Freedom Project' campaign.

The Innova Lotus is given for outstanding innovation ideas for communication. The judging panel also presented three Innovas to Projector Inc. Tokyo for Casual Wear ‘Uniqlock', Leo Burnett Sydney for ‘Earth Hour' and Hakuhodo Kettle Tokyo for Sony Bravia ‘Color Tokyo'.

The 360 Lotus Award went to Drill Inc. Tokyo for Yurakucho Marui New Department Store's ‘Fashion Therapy' and TBWA/WHYBIN Auckland for Adidas' ‘All Blacks Rugby Apparel'. There was no Grande 360 Lotus given this year.

On the Design front, Publicis Singapore won Best of Design and Gold for its "Stadium" work in Packaging Design. Best of Press and two Golds for single and campaign went to JWT Kuala Lumpur for its work entitled ‘Oil' for Scott Kitchen Towels.

IN the Radio category, Y&R Malaysia took Best of Radio and a Gold for its commercial "Brushing" for Colgate 360 Toothbrush in Health & Personal Care.

Best of Direct and a Gold went to Leo Burnett Sydney for its widely awarded Integrated Direct Campaign work for Earth Hour.

This year's ADFEST attracted a total of 5148 awards led by Singapore, Tokyo and Malaysia. This year's festival saw the introduction of two new categories, the New Director Lotus and the Design Lotus, on top of the three categories - the Radio Lotus, the 360 Lotus and INNOVA Lotus - added last year.

AdFest president Jimmy Lam stressed it was not the quantity of delegates or award entrants, but the quality and diversity.

"Being the president of AdFest, I look at it as a brand, just like any brand we are working on, at my day job. As a brand, AdFest must never [be in a] complacent mode, and always needs to improve itself, to move forward with time, to reinvent, not just this year, by year on year," he said.

"I am a veteran ad man. And like all creative guys, I am never happy with what I have done yesterday and want to do it better today, and looking forward to the chance to push it further."

2.Adidas takes AdFest top client award

AdFest Global sports apparel and footwear maker adidas was awarded the 2008 Advertiser of the Year Award at the 11th Asia Pacific Advertising Festival.

Adidas was widely recognised for its Olympic work, taking a Gold in the Poster Lotus category for Best of Sport for its "Olympic Launch- Hu Jia" campaign, as well as six Silvers, one Bronze and five finalists nominations.

Celine Del Genes, adidas brand marketing director, said the AdFest recognition was important, as the sports brand has made creativity a central part of its brand strategy.

"Creative work has an impact on consumer perception, which is what attracts people to our brand and ultimately our products," she said.

"What's important for us as a brand is that we want to have cutting edge work and we want to have cutting edge products.

Del Genes added the award was also recognition of its strong partnership with TBWA worldwide. She said a key ingredient in maintaining its creative strategy, was building a of trust with its agency.

"We don't consider them [TBWA] our agency, they're more a part of our team. We have them involved all along the way of the creative process, which is important for them to see the bigger picture, and not just little bits along the way."

Meanwhile The 2007 Gunn Report named adidas' arch rival Nike as the most awarded advertiser in 2007.

The bulk of its awards were for its Nike+ campaign, a collaboration between Nike and Apple's iTunes. The Gunn report said the campaign has been the biggest marketing idea since Nike's Michael Jordan campaign.

 

3. Top agencies, cities and a client honoured at ADFEST

Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore was the most awarded agency at ADFEST 2008, with a haul of 21 medals, while Bangkok was the most awarded city with 50 medals in all.

Some Gold's Saatchis Singapore picked up this year were for Thai SPCA's ‘Pet Adoption' campaign and Wonderbra 3D. The agency also won the accolade of Agency of the Year, one of six Special Awards given out.

Of the remaining five Special Awards, Network Agency of the Year was awarded to JWT, Direct Agency of the Year was Leo Burnett Sydney, Interactive Agency of the Year was Bascule Inc. Tokyo, Film Production Company of the Year was awarded to Phenomena Bangkok.

ADFEST re-introduced its Special Awards this year to recognise outstanding contributions at the ADFEST LOTUS Awards from agencies, production companies and advertisers.