Laura Geagea’s Ad Star’s Diary: Day 1 and 2

Laura Geagea, Managing Director and Executive Producer of China, Asia & MENA at Sweetshop (pictured left on the right) reports for Campaign Brief Asia from AdStars 2018 in Busan, South Korea.

DAY 1:

“Share creative solutions, change the world.”

Not an easy endeavour for this year’s Adstars conference.

Here we are all in lovely Busan with a typhoon threatening to hit, but still staying just far enough way for all the delegates, judges, speakers and guests to enjoy a few days by the sea.

A packed three days at the Bexco Convention Hall of Busan brings speakers from across the industry together to talk on three stages: The Creativity stage, the Adtech stage and the Open stage.

I myself decided to stick with the Creativity Stage this year and started the festival by sitting in on a couple of talks.

Focus Media, Tracks & Fields & Noah’s Ark all had speakers on the first day. Creative Vice President Andrei Ivanoff from Mullen Lowe Mexico, kicked off with the topic ‘Pay Attention. What Do Consumers Really Want?’

We are in an age where we are all hyperconnected. So how do we compete for consumers’ and viewers’ attention when they are surrounded by a multitude of distractions making advertisers’ jobs even more difficult?

Andrei brought our attention to a list that Business 2.0 Magazine put together 20 years ago defining the 10 driving principles of the new economy: Matter, Space, Time, People, Growth, Value, Efficiency,   Markets, Transactions and Impulse.

Things have obviously changed over the past 20 years, but it’s interesting to see the difference between then and now, as this allows us to understand where things have really changed and how out of that change we can create value for a brand!

Andrei discussed how the 10 principles would fall short if they were applied to 2018:

~ Cloud Computing and SAAS (software as a service)

~ The death of print publishing

~ Social media and social networking

~ The rising importance of digital marketing

~ Crowdsourcing and the peer-to-peer economy

~ Location-based services and mobility

~ The explosion in user-generated content

So how do we go about creating more value for our brands? And if the product value of your brand is related to the output, what is the success defined by?

Andrei referenced some campaigns as examples, including Pedigree, Omo ‘Dirt is Good’ and Asics ‘Perfect Race’. All campaigns that tend not to focus on the product, and rather on the communication and what’s important to the consumer. It’s about not just relying on how strong your brand itself is, but rather on how you can connect with people, the product itself and through the platforms you are advertising on.

Cinzia Crociana, Global Creative Director from Energy BBDO Chicago next took to the stage for to talk about a more heart wrenching topic: “Can creative marketing help solve the Opioid Crisis?”

Cinzia is Italian and has been based in the US for many years. She walked us through the Opioid problem in the US, which sees 22,000 Americans overdosing every year. There’s the common misunderstanding that all people addicted to Opioids are “junkies”, however the issue is much more complicated than that. Most of the prescribed medicine is for pain, however many people are not aware that taking the drug can become a serious addiction.

Cinzia and her team built a huge wall covered with the tiny faces of all the victims of the Opioid epidemic. Joining the dozens of stories of families that have been affected by the issue, they wanted to prove that it’s a far-reaching problem. Through the creative project they wanted to build awareness and to reduce the number of victims. A very touching project, which received a lot of attention for a cause that is still ignored by many, and that hopefully helps to create a brighter future!

The Opening Gala and Kick-off Party brought the delegates together to watch a few performances, have a few drinks and hide indoors while the typhoon was still circling the city!

DAY 2:

My second day at the Creativity stage started off with a nice therapy session led by Andreas Krasser, Chief Strategy Officer at DDB Group Hong Kong entitled, “Strategists & Creatives: A Couples’ Therapy Session”.

Andreas’ message was clear from the very start. Strategists and Creatives need to have a better relationship within an agency. They need each other to make the best work possible. So, it’s about finding the best way to create stronger, more adaptable relationships between both.

He defined a plan with an obvious analogy to relationships. Solutions ranged from drinking together, bonding, talking and karaoke, in order to somehow get to a place where the two teams share the same goal.

Andreas explained, one of the most efficient ways to achieving this more effective relationship, is by creating a new seating plan. Instead of separating the Creatives and the Strategists, at DDB they have now mixed everyone together. The challenge is finding  different approaches to working together.

Andreas’ “relationship” advise also included:

1- Create a common agenda: If planners and creatives don’t have the same agenda, they won’t be to achieve a common goal without having to deal with unnecessary frictions

2- Mix things up a bit: Putting people with different mind frames together is always an interesting experiment. Start with something simple, like re -eating everyone so that they mix

3- Learn each other’s craft: And this not just for the juniors!

It’s obviously much easier to be done with the juniors as they are more adaptable / eager to learn, but this ideally should be done across the board. Perhaps we call it “receiving inspiration from each other, “Andreas says

4- Don’t take yourself too seriously (it’s only advertising!)

Peter Grasse, Executive Producer at Mr+Positive, a newly opened production company in Tokyo, Japan, spoke to us about production in the country and the best approach to the work in the “Land of the Rising Craft”, as he calls it.

The industry in Japan is always a very interesting one to outsiders. Directors sometimes seem to have more freedom in Japan, but like everywhere, it comes with its challenges.

Next up were some panel discussions.

Listening to Gabriel Grunewald Louro (Adnews), Lenilson Lima (Agência Um) and Andrei Ivanoff (MullenLowe Mexico) talk about what the industry is like in Latin America made me feel a bit like Westerners must feel when we tell them about Asia.

The challenges, limitatio
ns and differences in the culture shape campaigns, but also define how campaigns get made. Latin America still struggles with a lot of technological challenges across the territory. Some campaigns were nevertheless shown to illustrate that beautiful and effective work can still be made.

The all-ladies panel that followed later in the afternoon moderated by Laura Swinton Editor In Chief of Little Black Book, took us into another world which is more centered around women’s’ place in our industry. How offices are looking for more diversity, not only in gender, but also in race, ethnicities, religions and culture.

Anna Qvennerstedt (Forsman & Bodenfors) spoke from a Swedish perspective, Satoko Takada (McCann) from a Japanese and Vasudha Misra (BBH) spoke from an Indian perspective.

The panel touched on workplace questions: Securing an equally safe working place for men and women, working hours, expectations, and most importantly, having the work and life balance we all strive for in our industry.

Fascinating to dive into different countries and cultures and learn how each of them tackle some of the questions with more ease, while some seem to struggle. The panel agreed that it is a matter of management and it’s about finding the right balance, so the output of work isn’t affected, but made even better.

Day 2 comes to and end as we get ready to have a few cocktails at Adstars’ Network Party at Restaurant Mini, which is followed by the Campaign Brief Asia Legendary Party, hosted by Pixelbox, MPC, Hotshot and Think Tank!

Hoping the typhoon steers clear of Busan tonight. One more day to go tomorrow before we hit the awards show in the afternoon!