1600 delegates for 10th Asia Pacific Advertising Festival

1600 delegates for 10th Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (AdFest), were welcomed by a live band at the entrance of the venue at PEACH, Royal Cliff Beach Resort in Pattaya Thailand. The carnival atmosphere broadcast that the celebrations were about to commence for the largest ever gathering of advertising and production professionals in Asia Pacific.



The event kicked off with concurrent screenings of 895 TV award entries and an exhibition of two-dimensional media works, spanning three floors of the convention hall. This included 1,453 press entries and 1,392 outdoor entries as well as entries for DM, Cyber, 360 and Contagious Lotus for Innovation awards.

AP AdFest 2006 is the largest yet. 5,012 creative works have been submitted from over five hundred agencies in forty-nine cities around the region - a six per cent increase on the number of entries entered in 2006.

The AdFest speaker sessions kicked off in the afternoon with the latest Gunn Report, the global ranking of creative success, presented by Donald Gunn.

In the Gunn Report, Thailand was ranked as the 5th most awarded country worldwide in 2006 and first in Asia Pacific.



Four Asia Pacific agencies fared well in the Gunn Report’s worldwide rankings. Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok took 20th position, JEH United Bangkok was placed 19th equal, Creative Juice/G1 Bangkok was 9th and Dentsu (Tokyo & Osaka) was ranked 3rd equal.

Thailand production company, Phenomena was also ranked the second most awarded production company in the world in 2006, against stiff competition from London production companies, which took first, third and fourth places. Thanonchai Sornsrivichai from Phenomena trounced all the competition to become the most awarded director in the world in 2006.

AdFest Lotus Awards play a contributing part towards worldwide rankings in the Gunn Report and this year’s results are eagerly anticipated.

Judging for the Lotus Awards started on Sunday, March 11th and fifty-one judges have generously given their time to select the winners for ten award categories, including TV, Press, Outdoor, DM, Cyber, Radio, 360, Contagious Lotus for Innovation, Film Craft and Print Craft.

While the judges were hard at work selecting the Lotus Awards, another group of people were burning the midnight oil. While most delegates were preparing to travel to AdFest, twenty-eight young creatives from fourteen different countries were stretching their minds to complete the 60 second commercial brief given to them, entitled, ‘You can do good things in Pattaya’. The Young Lotus Workshop took place from 12 -14th March and was moderated by BBDO Asia, who invited an international group of speakers from BBDO offices in Europe and Asia. The entire project has been filmed reality-style and the edited results will be presented to delegates at AdFest on Saturday, 17th March.

Jimmy Lam, President of the AdFest Working Committee says, “The Young Lotus Workshop starts a fire in the belly of participants that keeps smouldering, until long after AdFest closes. Contestants are exposed to a wealth of experience and talent, learn the thrill of close competition and build relationships across the region that they will remember for the rest of their careers.”

Young Lotus participants were pre-selected by the local advertising association in each country and have already outshone their competitive compatriots. Winning Young Lotus will define their achievement on a regional level. Participants for this year’s workshop include teams from Bangkok, Beijing, Colombo, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo.

The first day at AdFest 2007 concluded with two speaker sessions in the afternoon.

David McCaughan from McCann-Erickson Tokyo presented insights into what really motivates consumers from the McCann PULSE research study. His first insight was the title of his presentation, “Don’t Call Them Consumers”.

Japan Association of TV Commercial Production Companies (JAC) presented five short films produced by young directors from around Asia. The theme they worked on was “Turning Ten” and the showcase of creativity comprised of five very different views. Directors contributing to this annual project were Ms. Kyoko Funakoshi from AOI Adverting Promotion Inc., Tokyo; Ms. Samantha Scott-Blackhall from Salt Films Pte Ltd in Singapore; Ms. Marian Basa from Industria Productions in Manila; Mr. Rezaur R Khan Piplu from Adcomm Limited/Screaming Girl Production in Bangladesh and Mr. Ben Fisher from Curious Film Ltd, Auckland.

To end the day, delegates were treated to an evening gathering around the Royal Cliff Beach Resort poolside for the official Welcoming Ceremony of the regional advertising festival.

AdFest has ten years of success to look back on but more importantly, the chance in the future to educate, encourage and influence the next generation of creative communicators in Asia Pacific.