AdFest 2013: Winners of Film, Direct, Promo, Outdoor, Integrated, Effectiveness and Roots – McCanns ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ wins Grande in Film; David Droga named AdFest’s Legend
The 16th Asia Pacific AdFest wrapped up this year’s three-day Festival with an Awards Presentation at PEACH, Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand.
1,146 delegates from 56 cities in total attended the event which attracted 3,507 entries across 17 awards categories. This year’s entry levels were the highest since 2008 and up nearly 700 on last year’s 2,819 entries.
“For me, our theme Connect the Dots echoes what AdFest is all about, as does this year’s jury selection,” said Jimmy Lam, President for AdFest.
“It is important that we celebrate diversity and bring together the different cultures that make our region so unique. For the last six or seven years, AdFest has always invited top-notch creatives from the Asia Pacific region to judge the Lotus Awards as they understand the nuances of local advertising in their own markets. This year is no different, but we are also lucky to have Graham Fink (pictured above) as Grand Jury President. Not only is he one of the most awarded creative in the world, but he has direct experience of working in Asia through his role as Chief Creative Officer for Ogilvy & Mather China in Shanghai.”
The final awards presentation announced winners in Direct, Promo, Outdoor, Radio, Film, Effective, Integrated, Innova Lotus, Lotus Roots and Special awards before delegates were treated to a festive finale party held at the atmospheric Infini Pool at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort.
“I have genuinely enjoyed my first experience of AdFest. It has a unique flavour that comes from the mish-mash of all the different cultures that are represented here under one roof. I would describe it as a ‘cultural emporium’ of creativity,” said Fink, who was also genuinely impressed by the friendliness of the Festival both in terms of organisation and judging.
Film Lotus
Out of 226 TV entries received, 30 Lotus Awards were given out, including 4 Golds, 7 Silvers and 18 Bronzes. This year, the Grande Lotus award went McCann Melbourne for Metro Trains ‘Dumb Way to Die’.
In his capacity as Grand Jury President for the Film category, Fink explained, “There was a lot of variety of different cultures in the film entrants so it was hard to judge. I encouraged a lot of discussion but in the end a few things stood out about the winning work, but mainly strong ideas with a fresh approach. We chose Metro Trains for the Grande Lotus as the idea was the opposite of what you would expect people to do. It was dark, funny and really engaged the teenage audience that it was aimed at. A very fresh and memorable piece of work.”
The 4 Gold Lotus awards were presented for a diverse range of work from different cities and cultural backgrounds.
Clemenger BBDO Melbourne won Gold for Carlton Draught’s ‘Beer Chase’ while sister agency BBDO Guerrero in Manila won another Gold for Saridon ‘Pound/Stamp/Wash’.
The third Gold was presented to Taproot India, Mumbai for its work on Mumbai Mirror ‘I am Mumbai’ (above), while the final Gold went to Cheil Worldwide in Seoul for Samsung Camera ‘INsight’ (pictured left).
Radio Lotus.
Radio was weakly represented in the Lotus awards tally this year. From 126 entries received, only 3 Bronze and 1 Silver were awarded in the category. The Silver went to Leo Burnett Sydney for Bundaberg Red ‘Butterfly/Catfish/Pig’.
“There were lots of different languages and lots of translations but this was mainly not a very strong category. What stood out about the winning Radio category work was the quality of the script writing,” said Fink.
Outdoor Lotus
This year, out of 646 entries for Outdoor Lotus (the largest category in the awards festival), 37 awards were presented including 4 Gold, 10 Silvers and 22 Bronzes, plus one Grande Lotus.
The 2013 Grande Lotus for Outdoor was awarded to Dentsu Inc., Tokyo for Solar Energy Solutions ‘Eclipse Live from Fujiyama’.
Naoki Ito, Chief Creative Officer and Founder of PARTY, Tokyo was a surprise choice for Grand Jury President for Outdoor Lotus. “When Jimmy invited me to be Grand Jury president for Outdoor Lotus, I thought he had made a mistake as I do not have experience of billboards. But this category is changing so fast due to the influence of ‘physical computing’ [digital out-of-home], so now I understand his reasoning! This is a very interesting category and I am happy it is adopting the power of digital and moving in this direction.”
2 Gold trophies were handed out in the Outdoor category to Cheil Worldwide, Seoul for Samsung Life Insurance ‘Bridge of Life’ and Emart ‘Sunny Sale’.
Another Gold went to INNOCEAN Worldwide, Seoul for Public Service Advertising, ‘Love Parking Campaign’. The final Gold was picked up by Leo Burnett Thailand Group, Bangkok for CPCR Brand Corporate ‘A Girl/A Boy/A Girl2’.
Direct Lotus
Out of 261 entries for the Direct Lotus, a total of 18 Lotus Awards were presented. These included 9 Bronze, 7 Silver, and 2 Gold. There was no Grande Lotus awarded by the jury.
Direct Lotus & Promotion Lotus Jury President, Dave King, Joint-CEO and Executive Creative Director, M&C Saatchi New Zealand based in Auckland spoke for the Jury Panel when he said, “The Direct Lotus category was incredibly tough to judge because they were so many sensational works. In the end the winners overshadowed other entries that had won at other international award shows due to their quality of engagement.”
The 2 Gold awards for the category were won by JWT Singapore for Singapore Red Cross ‘Rapid Rescue’ and Havas Worldwide Australia, Sydney for Virgin Mobile ‘Fair Go Bro’.
“The winning work for Fair Go Bro was a charming and endearing campaign. The fact that it got so much press coverage for so little dollar spend also made it stand out,” said King.
Promo Lotus
King also chaired jury for the Promo category, where there were 307 entries. Overall, 23 Lotus Awards were awarded including the Grande Lotus, which was won Whybin\TBWA\Group, Sydney for NRMA Insurance ‘NMRA – Car Creation’.
4 Golds were awarded. Leo Burnett Melbourne won a Gold for SEEK Volunteer ‘Volunteer to promote Volunteering’, as did George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne for Defence University Sponsorship ‘Mobile Medic’.
The other 2 Golds went to DDB Group Singapore for Courts Online Store ‘Demolition Site’ and DDB DM9JaymesSyfu, Manila for Fight Against EVAW (Electronic Violence Against Women) ‘Bury the Past’ (left).
In addition, AdFest gave out 10 Bronze and 8 Silver Lotus Awards for the Promo category.
“It was a tough decision to choose between Mobile Medic (Army) and NRMA car insurance [for the Grande Lotus]. In the end, it was about the big idea and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people could interact with it. Not only was NRMA a sensational idea, it was also a really good looking campaign that is relevant to people,” said King.
Effectiveness Lotus
For the first time, AdFest has introduced the Effectiveness Lotus into its awards family. There were 40 entries hoping to win an inaugural award. Farid Chehab, Honorary Chairman and Advisor to the Board for Leo Burnett MENA in Beirut had the honour of being the first Grand Jury President for this new category.
The jury decided to give out 4 Effectiveness awards. These went to Leo Burnett Thailand Group, Bangkok for Sunsnack ‘Bejing Duck’, McCann Worldgroup (Hong Kong) for Coca-Cola ‘Chok! Chok! Chok!’, Belgiovane Williams Mackay, Sydney for Selleys ‘Using the Power of Impotence’ and BBDO Mumbai for Gillette ‘You Shave, I Shave’.
Farid Chehab explained, “Our overall feeling at the end was that we could not find a Grande Lotus winner but the winners we have selected exemplified interactivity, lightweight solutions and very creative executions.”
Integrated Lotus
This year, 360 Lotus has been re-named Integrated Lotus. AdFest received 81 entries in this category, almost double the number from last year (42). The Jury Panel gave out 3 Integrated Lotus Awards plus a Lotus Grande this year.
The Integrated Lotus Grande was awarded to Whybin\TBWA\Group, Sydney for NRMA Insurance ‘NMRA – Car Creation’.
2 Integrated Lotus awards was given out to McCann Worldgroup, Melbourne for Metro Trains ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ for Integrated and Earned Media categories. The final award was given to Havas Worldwide Australia, Sydney for Virgin Mobile, ‘Fair Bro Go’.
Graham Fink, presiding over Integrated, INNOVA Lotus and Lotus Roots said, “Integrated was a hotly debated category with a lot of questions about what ‘Integrated’ actually means. We choose the winning work simply because we thought it was done in a difficult industry market and was a strong idea completely integrated across different channels.”
INNOVA Lotus
The INNOVA Lotus Award is given for outstanding innovation ideas for communication. Out of 57 entries received, there was only one INNOVA Lotus award presented to Clemenger BBDO Sydney for TEDxSydney ‘Mimeisthai’. No Grande Lotus was given.
Grande for Humanity
The Grande Lotus for Humanity went to Leo Burnett Melbourne for its work in the Promo category for SEEK Volunteer ‘Volunteer to promote Volunteering’.
Lotus Roots
AdFest introduced the this category to recognize ideas inspired by local cultures. Agencies from Mumbai made a clean sweep in this category for 2013. From 135 entries, the Grande Lotus Roots ADFEST 2013 went to Taproot India, Mumbai for Mumbai Mirror ‘I am Mumbai‘. The agency also won one of the two Lotus Roots awards for Save Our Sisters ‘Abused Goddess 1-3’.
The other Lotus Roots award was presented to McCann Worldgroup India, Mumbai for Yatra.com ‘Bindi/Aarti’.
Lotus Legend
In its second year of existence, Lotus Legend it is given in honour of long-serving creative excellence in the region. To be considered as a recipient of the Lotus Legend, candidates must first be nominated by an AdFest judge. Each of the 56 judges on this year’s Lotus Awards Juries was asked to put forward one contender. He or she had to be a creative leader, who has achieved creative excellence while working in the Asia Pacific region as well as being a role model for junior creatives.
This year’s Legend award was awarded to David Droga, Creative Chairman of Droga5, New York. During his tenure as Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore and Regional Creative Director of Saatchi Asia, he was instrumental in making Saatchi the region’s most successful network. Under Droga’s watch Advertising Age named the Singapore office International Agency of the Year.
Akira Kagami, Global Executive Creative Director, Dentsu Inc. was last year’s recipient of the Lotus Legend award. He praised David’s contribution to the region. “Words cannot describe what he has done to up lift the creativity of the Asia Pacific region. David did some truly groundbreaking work while he was in the region and now he is a creative beacon that everyone in the world looks towards. Without doubt, he is one of the most influential individuals in today’s marketing communication industry.”
New Director and Fabulous Four
There were 13 entries for AdFest’s New Director Lotus category and the Jury awarded 1 Silver and 2 Bronze Lotus. The Silver was awarded to Leo Burnett Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur for Petronas ‘Strangers’.
The commendation in the New Director category went to Fab Four Director, Mohammed Kamruzzaman Ratan from Dhaka for his work on the AdFest 2013 theme, “Connect the Dots”, entitled ‘Unsolved Stars’.
Speaker Sessions
The final day of speaker sessions for AdFest 2013 kicked off in the morning with “Short Films by the Fabulous Four 2013”, moderated by John Park, Jury president of Film Craft and New Director Lotus. Next came ‘It Takes Two – The Importance of Collaboration’, moderated by Lyndy Stout from 1.4. David Guerrero moderated the Jury Presidents Crossfire, which was the first session after lunch, The group examined some of the work that stood out in each of the Lotus Award categories. Farid Chehab, Jur
y president for Effective Lotus presented ’10 Ways for 1 Million Returns’, followed by Graham Fink, Grand Jury President who took the last slot of the day with his session on ‘Connecting Cultures’.