Tay Guan Hin’s AdStar’s Judging Diary
J Walter Thompson Asia’s Tay Guan Hin had the honour of chairing the Design and Print categories at this year’s AdStars judging. Here Guan gives his insights into the judging which took place over two days last week.
What is the true value of award shows?
This was the topic of Toby Talbot’s talk when he gave a brutally honest and thought-provoking message that made me wonder if agencies should still continue supporting shows like Busan’s AdStars.
Where other award show submissions are dropping, AdStars’ entries are at an all-time high. In fact, print and design entries increased by between 37-41%. It doesn’t necessarily mean people will automatically enter when its free, as there are other shows with the same offer but nobody joins. It might also have to do with the fact that they are the only award show in the world that give Grand Prix winners US$10,000 cash.
Compared to more established festivals who started years ago, AdStars is only 11 years young and still remains strong as the government of Busan continues to supports it. In his opening speech, the Mayor envisioned AdStars to be the Cannes Lions of the East.
Joji Jacobs, from BLKJ Singapore, unfortunately, couldn’t be here at the very last minute, so I was asked by the organisers to kindly step in to be the Chairperson for the Print and Design category.
Chow Kok Keong, Marina Danjo, Jan Hendrik Ott, Eunha Bhang and Paul Busschau and I had to review a list of selected nominees that have been pre-selected by the online jury.
In the print category, many case study videos were being entered. I didn’t think it was fair to other static print entries which were equally good. So we stopped playing the videos to give all work equal footing. We spend a fair amount of time scrutinising if each entry was submitted in the category. That proved pretty tough as the subcategories were entirely subjective.
McDonald’s after-hours campaign was leading the charge with many gold and silvers. It seemed to be the most obvious choice for the Grand Prix, but towards the end, “Chop Chop” won the majority by the beauty and purity because of its craft. Even though the animals were diced to bits, the images still evoked an emotional response. The benefit of using a sharp kitchen knife is clear, and visually it’s the most arresting print of the lot.
I noticed that other entries didn’t get Gold here even if they had already won big in other shows, but our jury held their ground and awarded what they felt deserved it. I also didn’t get a sense of lobbying going on.
Work entered into the design category had some fantastic pieces that have already been winning the world over. As a jury, we wanted to make a conscious statement to find a piece that best represented a design that’s beautiful yet served a purpose. “Diversity is strength” communicated thru a black jersey when pulled during All Black’s match showed the rainbow colours. A powerful yet invisible idea made visible when action is taken.
We are proud and happy with all the well-deserved winners. I’d like to personally thank each of them for their hard work.
Besides chairing, it has been a jam-packed week, being a part of several panelist discussion, obligation jury duties and speaking during one of the creativity sessions.
The theme of my speech was about Re-ignite our passion not for data but for creativity. I shared personal stories of how I kept my passion alive during my high school years. Even when school teachers wanted me to stop my love for drawing, my principal, Mrs. Kwan still encouraged me onwards by saying: “Keep your passion alive!”. Today, creatives are losing their foothold in today’s age of Big data. Mad Man has now become the Maths Man. We should use data to steer us in the right direction by unlocking rich insights, but we need still need to power ideas much further with a Gung-Ho spirit of passion.
So what is the true value of award shows?
It’s the true value of friendship when we connect with like-minded people who attend the festival, who are still extremely passionate about our creative industry.
No matter if I am judging or speaking or having a drink at Fuzzy Navel or walking thru the exhibit, it’s the stories and challenges we share that helps to see things in a different light. And that little bit inspires us to move ahead in whatever journey we embark.
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