Day Two at AdStars Festival in Busan: Money has no ideas; Making magic; Don’t make the same shit

The Sweet Shop’s Executive Producer, Asia and MENA Claire Davidson is at the AdStars 2013 International Advertising Festival in Busan, South Korea.  Here is Claire’s Day Two report of the speaker program.

First things first today. A big congratulatory shout out to Campaign Brief Asia’s own Kim Shaw who at last night’s Opening Ceremony was awarded an Achievement and Contribution Award – in recognition of his support for the festival during the past six years.  Nice work Kim!

Before the speaker rundown for the day, I thought we might have a few stats. 2013 has seen AdStars receive over 12,000 entries from over 59 countries. Stiff competition indeed. Preliminary online judging was held in July, and final judging earlier this week.  Best of luck to all of those in the running. Go for gold.

Thomas Hong-tack Kim (left), ECD from Cheil Worldwide, was on the stage again this morning, delivering an address on “Digital + Creativity for Enhancing Brand Values”. We’ve come a very long way from when the printing press was first invented and the Bible went into circulation.  Mass printing of the Christian holy book was the beginning of reason-based thinking, but gradually over time there was a movement away from blindly obeying God’s orders.  Everyone thought, and everyone tried to face real facts by themselves. Communication was changed.  And haven’t we come a long way since then.

Communication from print to TV to social has transformed the landscape, and it will never be the same again.  Thinking and interaction has changed, and responses are now instant. These responses have a huge impact on what in turn is said on social media. Today’s media is hugely different to traditional media.  In the past we pushed the message, communication was a one-way flow, there was broadcasting to reach the punters, and it was one campaign.  Today we have digital, social media, collaboration, crowd sourcing, collective intelligence and the list continues.  Today we upload and communicate via YouTuble, Hulu, Potcast, Vice, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs.  Today we talk about Beyond The Line.  Today it’s a holistic approach and integrated campaigns.  Today we create platforms.  It goes beyond promotion.  We create shared values.

In our industry, we tend to gauge our worth and standing by our biggest festival – the Cannes Lions.  As a case study, we can see that the Cannes Lions itself has changed for today, in their approach and strategy. Cannes is no longer known as The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. It’s now The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. It’s now an Ideas Expo focusing on new ideas, innovative concepts and new applications.

Robert Wong, ECD of Google Creative Lab, tells us “If your goal is to win a Cannes Lions, this is not the place for you. Our goal is to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”  He’s saying that today we need to create values and to touch the human heart. Google incidentally won 35 awards at Cannes Lions. Cheil won 21.

Today advertising is no longer about a unique creative output. It’s about a unique creative solution. Digital is not only about technology, but about ecology. How do we reconcile the technology we have with our human hearts?  We need to systemize to connect the left and the right brain. Thomas went on to show various case studies from Oreo, Samsung, Google, Adopt A Dog, Burger King, Toyota, Band Aid, Mercedes Benz, E-mart etc showcasing this.

Thomas summed up by stating that today communication needs to be an emotional connection with technology and creativity combined.  We design that code to create values.

Andrew Hovells (left), Board Planner at Jaywing, brought us “Making Magic – Creating Sparks Between Brands and The World’s Youth”.

Think about What Matters to Me? Family, friends, entertainment, sport. knowledge. Most people don’t care that much about brands. 80% of a brand’s buyers know little or nothing about brands. Think about how ingrained Pepsi is in the youth market. However, 72% of those Pepsi buyers also buy Coca Cola.

Most people don’t interact with brands. They are happy to watch. They really just aren’t that interested. (shock, gasp!)  This is glaringly obvious with our youth.  For a brand to connect with youth, it has to make them care. Youth today watch what they want to watch, talk about what they want to talk about, and listen to what they want to listen to. If they’re not interested they won’t engage. So brands have to be relevant. You have to be interesting. You have to be cool. You have to make some magic.

Work backwards. Rather than beginning with marketing then working out to culture, do the opposite. Start with culture and work backwards to marketing. Don’t follow traditional research. Go to the jungle rather than the zoo. At the same time of course you will have to understand the business. But why not focus on the cultural insight, rather than the consumer insight to engage with our youth.

Think of brands as an iceberg.  Below the surface 95% of brands are all scrambling around under water trying to stay afloat, tapping into trends and doing the same stuff.  The top 5% – on the surface – are those making a cultural contribution.  Where do you want to be?

Andrew left us with a quote, “Engage me, move me, add something…  or fuck off”.

And that wasn’t the end of the naughty swearwords for the day. Morihiro Harano (left), Creative Director and CEO of Mori Inc, opened his entertaining talk on “Storytelling, Technology and Market” with “Do not make another shit for shit”. 

I last saw Morihiro speak at Dubai Lynx earlier in the year.  He went on to beg us not make another waste for waste. You get shit briefs from shit clients and every year you go to Cannes to and you see a lot of shit advertising.

He then went on to tell us the key to fresh and new ideas for storytelling in today’s market is to search in the right place; not the bright place. When Mori gets a brief, he doesn’t think ‘what type of ad should I make’.  He doesn’t think ‘what type of app should I make’.  He thinks ‘what type of story should I tell’. 

You create a process that becomes a story. New storytelling is derived from new technology, by focusing on the changing market ecosystem. It’s this accommodation of the ecosystem that also causes changes. Mori summed up by telling us to ‘create to create’ and to ‘just make it’.

Kitty Lun (pictured on the right), Chairman and CEO of Lowe China brought us her seminar on “Populist Creativity – The China Way”.  Populist Creativity is a phrase coined by Lowe Worldwide, with a philosophy of creative development and reach without compromise.

China has opened its market to the world for the past 30 years. But during the past 10 years, a lot of consumers have started saying that they want something else. They want to go back to basics. They want to come back to Earth. There is a trust crisis in China, and they want self expression, they want honesty.  Social media can help this. Consumers are nostalgic – they like to look back and see how far they have come.

Taking note of these attitudes requires a laser-like analysis of the core problems and an insight into Chinese contemporary culture to then act to change behaviour online and offline.

We want communication to grow out of local popular culture. We want connection to the people. We want connection to the earth.  Kitty showed us case studies by Alipay, Buick, Clarks Shoes and Plan Biaag.  Many of these are in competition in this year’s festival. Good luck China!

The final keynote speaker today was Jacques Seguela, Vice President and CCO of Havas.  Not only was Jacques an Executive Judge this year for Film / Radio / Outdoor but he even has his own Special Exhibition here at Adstars, showcasing his work throughout his very prestigious career.

At 80 years old, Jacques says that old age only begins when regrets overcome dreams.  He demonstrated to us that he can still dance Gangnam Style.

Today, Jaques brought us “Money Has No Ideas. Only Ideas Make Money.”  He started by telling us that creativity is a vital necessity. Nothing great is ever achieved without passion. Advertising is only great when it is driven by passion. Today we live in the 3rd revolution of the modern era.  We saw the commercial revolution in the 19th century, the industrial revolution in the 20th century, and today it’s the immaterial or digital revolution. Today customers think differently, spend differently, communicate differently, live differently and consume differently.  Buyers no longer just observe, they act.  They are active.  We’ve moved from the age of mass-media to the age of social media. The audience are creators – they often supply us with the information – and brands need to perceive these changes.

We’ve had to re-think what tools are required for the modern age, to bring relevance to creativity, innovation, imagination, and talent, and even to define modern human relationships. We speak less. Connectivity has changed. The internet is not something real or tangible, yet it dominates human beings across the globe. The space of the internet is now part of our daily lives.

What is today’s civilization of consumer conversation? Value needs to be re-thought as well.  The function of a brand is to sell, and through this selling there is possibility to help and develop humanity.  So our advertising needs to be ethical and effective, sociological and social, economic and ecological.  Platforms are required to roll this out.

Jacques then went on to compare advertising to sperm. Ummmmmm…. He said there are countless little sperms out there, but only one in a million fertilizes the egg that goes on to become an embryo then a baby which then goes on to grow and flourish.

Tonight is ‘Networking Night’ – let’s see what it brings about (just quietly, I’m hoping for some K-Pop).

Claire Davidson, Executive Producer ASIA & MENA @ The SweetShop, reporting for Campaign Brief Asia at AdStars 2013.