Adam Barrell’s AdFest day three diary
Trilogy’s Adam Barrell was a delegate at AdFest, one of Asia’s major awards festivals. Here’s his take on day three of the Festival, held in Pattaya, Thailand.
#LiveMoreForBetterIdeas
Chris Thomas, regional CEO/Chairman of BBDO Proximity Asia, was first to take the stage on the final day of Adfest suggesting that we need to get out from behind the desk, the shackles of email, meetings and social media contact and start living. The best ideas and creativity comes from living.
The brief of ‘live more’ was given to 16 Young Lotus creative teams from around Asia-Pacific to come up with a campaign that will see creative’s away from their desks.
My personal favourite was from Team New Zealand (from DDB Auckland) who presented the idea of a monthly reward system for creative’s, which would then allow them to exchange for a new life experience. The winner though was the team from Cheil Worldwide Taipei with the “Creative Nanny App”, allowing agency owners to see how much time their employees have been working, resting and playing to ensure they find the right balance.
Crossfire
The Adfest allstars took the stage as the Festival’s jury panel members took a deeper look into some of the most popular and awarded campaigns for 2013 at AdFest. There were several campaigns, which really caught my eye especially ‘Liking Isn’t Helping’. Which gets you thinking that more can be done to help the less fortunate than simply clicking ‘Like’. Are you guilty of this?
The Photogenic Beer was an amazing viral campaign from Japan. After watching the campaign video I was definitely thirsty for a Photogenic beer 
and would love to see some of the Australian beer companies adopt this idea, we definitely have the weather for it.
Winning Grande Integrated Lotus was Sound of Honda which is a simply amazing campaign; you have to see it to believe it. Campaign is based on the 1989 lap from Ayrton Senna who set the world’s fastest lap while qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. The famous lap was then re-created with engine sound and LED lights.
Radical Collaboration
The last keynote speaker to take the stage for Adfest 2014 was Tor Myhren, Chief Creative Officer at Grey New York. Tor stated that there is no better time in history of advertising than right now, the tools, resources and networking available to us allow for some amazing campaigns to be produced. Also at Grey, Tor has a 9am to 12pm Thursday ‘No Meeting Zone’ blockout to ensure Grey employees don’t get swamped down with meetings and have time to develop and expand on campaign ideas.
Thor also presents the idea that better ideas come through failure, however fail fast, learn from it, adjust then move on.
To finish off his presentation Thor explained the importance of perfection from all individuals involved in a campaign. Every part from Account Manger to Producer to Creative Director has to be performed seamlessly and to perfection. Thor then presented some of their award winning commercials and from these examples you can see the level of standard that is required for Grey campaigns.
To see a full list of Award Winners visit here.
After Party
Adfest was over for 2014 and what better way to conclude with drinks and dinner at the Infinity Pool at The Royal Cliff Hotel. This was a stunning conclusion to the festival with no expense spared. It was great to catch up with those who you had run into throughout the event and also meet new people for the first time.
A big thanks to Trilogy Advertising and Marketing and Campaign Brief for the amazing experience and looking forward to Adfest 2015!
Co-Create the Future!
