AdFest 2012: Joji Jacob looks forward to seeing if digital trends have impacted on Press quality

Joji Jacob is Group Executive Creative Director at DDB Singapore. Jacob is sitting on the Press jury at this year’s ADFEST. Before he starts judging Campaign Brief Asia asked him for a few of his expectations. Check out his observations – plus other judges – over the next week as they write for Campaign Brief Asia.

I’m sitting in the very lap of luxury at Changi, the world’s finest airport, drinking a refreshing ice-cold Tiger Crystal and hooked up to free and freaky fast WiFi, provided by StarHub of course. Guess you can tell I’m working off the guilt for swanning off to Pattaya mid-week.

In a couple of hours I’ll be sitting down to a dinner with my jury mates Prasoon Joshi, Brandie Tan, Brian Capel, Elvis Chau, Justin Drape and Wichit Jiamsirikarn in Pattaya. All supremely talented guys and most of them old friends.

I suppose the first three days will be spent within the air-conditioned confines of the conference room where we’ll be judging the print work. But I’m looking forward to it.

No, really.

I’m curious more than anything else. I’m wondering what effect the advent of digital advertising has had on the quantity and quality of the print entries. At least in Singapore these days we have to threaten the younger teams with physical harm to get them to peel their faces off multiple screens and do some print work. They’re all digital activation this and social media that.

Adfest inaugurates the Asian awards show calendar. And as a part of the print jury, I’m hoping I’ll find answers to some questions. Is print advertising holding its own? Has print advertising reinvented itself for the times? Will there be print campaigns that form an influential part of bigger integrated campaigns? When do we break for beers?