AdFest’s 20th Anniversary: Ted Royer + Jeremy Craigen review AdFest’s Film Grand Prix awards
On Monday Campaign Brief Asia posted the list of the top winners from the Film Category at AdFest from the first festival in 1998 through to last year. The best of the best judged each year.
Already Mark Tutssel and Donald Gunn have past judgement. Today we have this year’s overall AdFest Jury President Ted Royer and last year’s Jury President Jeremy Craigen. Each of them review the Film winners from the past 19 years of AdFest and give their comments:
Ted Royer, Chief Creative Officer Droga5 New York
Each winner is fun and unique in its own way. But one really stands out for me. (This is of course excepting “Dumb Ways to Die” the one of the biggest hits our industry has ever produced, and a song that was played to my young son many times. It’s marvelous and doesn’t need much more written about it).
Smooth E’s Love Story is head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. It’s so great on so many levels. It’s grounded in a simple premise, constantly funny, and very inventive (the frozen fight scene is a great moment). It’s episodic in the best way, you have to watch more. And it’s unmistakably Thai while being very relatable to anyone around the world.
I’d be delighted if the work in the show this year reached this height.
Jeremy Craigen, Global Creative Director Innocean Worldwide.
Wow, this is hard to pick my top three (but it won’t be wow wow ironically). Having had the honour to be President of Adfest last year, I was thrown in to the world of Asia Pacific advertising. And boy did I love it.
I love the lack of logic in so much of the work.
We tend to overthink work in the western world and it makes a lot of it (not all) rather boring and earnest.
This work here is from the heart, from the gut and a little from the head. Its entertaining. And it is shareable. Even before social media existed.
I kept moving my top three around but went with my gut and my heart and my glass of red wine.
In no particular order:
1. Humanity. This made me jealous when I first saw it. It’s kind of creepy, on the edge, but it just works. And it does bring humanity to a brand which at that time had none. Timeless too.
2. Soken DVD. Like Humanity, I remember watching this for the first time open mouthed. Brilliant acting, direction and writing. And so simple. And obvious. So obvious no-one had ever done it…….
3. Fire Fly Man. What the hell were these guys smoking wen they wrote this? There was some pretty stiff competition that year for the Grande Lotus Film award but this just edged it. Its a great piece of film that you can watch again and again. Like a stuck DVD……