Colombo Team wins at AdFest Young Lotus
The 6th Young Lotus Workshop at AdFest 2009 was moderated by Dentsu Inc and attended by 26 young creatives from 13 cities: Bangkok, Beijing, Colombo, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Taipei, Sydney and Tokyo.
The winning campaign was Team Colombo: Ralston Joseph, Copywriter, and Sithum Walter, Art Director at JWT Colombo, Sri Lanka (pictured left), who received their award from Akira Kagami, Executive Officer and Global Executive Creative Director at Dentsu Inc. on stage at the ADdFest Awards Presentation on Thursday 19 March.
There were 5 other teams shortlisted:
Team Sydney: Iggy Rodriguez, Copywriter, and Justin Carew, Art Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia
Team Tokyo: Kazunari Sakai, Art Director and Yuri Otsuki, Dentsu Inc. Japan
Team Hong Kong: Man Kit Lee, Copywriter, and Leung Chung, Art Director, Publicis
Team Jakarta: Dinah Maulianah Sumantri, Copywriter, and Sandru Prapanca Emil, Ogilvy & Mather Indonesia
Team Seoul: Cho Seo Rim, Copywriter, Daehong Communications; and Min Chung, Art Director, MBC Adcom.
The 13 teams had just 22 hours to create a multimedia campaign that would encourage young people who are currently not interested in advertising to choose a career at an agency. The Young Lotus teams said the challenge was particularly tough because they had to devise not only the campaign, but an entire strategy too, followed by a 10-minute presentation of their concept.
“It was a very difficult assignment, and the most impressive thing is that each team really made a good explanation of what our industry stands for,” says Kagami.
“All participants now understand the importance of Integrated Communication Design and why it is essential to our future. One medium is no longer enough to reach people – Integrated Communication Design requires something different for each media.”
The campaigns were judged according to three criteria: a unique core idea; good strategy; and ‘Integrated Communication Design’, which was the topic of Dentsu Inc’s Workshop.
Five executives from Dentsu Inc took part in Young Lotus 2009: Kagami; Kazunori Miura, Creative Director, Dentsu Inc Tokyo; Glen Hunt, Creative Catalyst at Dentsu Canada in Toronto; Koichi Yamamoto, Senior Research Director, Communication Lab, Dentsu Inc Tokyo; and Omar bin Shaari, Managing Director, Dentsu Utama, Kuala Lumpur.
Vinit Suraphongchai, Chairman of the AdFest Working Committee said, “The Young Lotus Workshop is the pride of AdFest as it is the direct result of our vision to create a learning forum for the creative community in Asia Pacific.”
“This year, we are also running the first-ever AdFest Academy for delegates aged under 30. It is another invaluable opportunity for young creatives to be mentored by the region’s top executives, and it further demonstrates AdFest’s commitment to nurturing future generations of our industry.”
The AdFest Working Committee is extremely grateful to Dentsu Inc for all the effort and resources they have donated to this year’s 26 Young Lotus Workshop participants.
Participants are selected by national advertising associations in the region, which then subsidizes travel to AdFest for their winning team. The workshop and attendance of participants is funded by AdFest.