New York Festivals: Ronald Ng reflects on the best ideas from his judging experience
Ronald Ng, (pictured) Chief Creative Officer at BBDO Proximity Singapore was in New York last week to join the judging panel for the New York Festivals. On his 24-hour flight home Ng reflected on the work that stood out.
New York City. How can you not love being there? MOMA, the Guggenheim, speakeasies, Chipotle and the odour of the subway stations. You gotta love them all.
But judging the New York Festival awards was tough.
Tough because I was dealing with crazy time zone management. We were judging from 8.30am for 14 hours a day (for me, that meant staying up from 8.30pm to 10.30am Singapore time).
Tough because we saw an unhealthy number of average ideas and over-produced unnecessarily long case study videos (including that bloody 3-minute video for a logo). Here’s a tip: if you have more time, please spend it on making your videos shorter.
But after a few days of fighting jetlag and sleep deprivation, the best work rose above the skyline and raised the spirits of the well-decorated Executive Jurors like a triple shot of espresso. Passionate points and counter points filled the room over the next few days. And thanks to an amazing NY Fest team led by Michael O’Rourke, the final round of judging was utterly enjoyable.
So which were my favourite campaigns?
Here is the work that I was thinking about on my marathon flight home. Part envy, part jealousy. Most importantly, they all made me go, “I wish I’d done that!”. You may agree or disagree. If you agree, that’s cool. If you don’t, it’s 4am in Singapore now and I can only blame it on reverse time zone neurosis.
Congrats to all the winners who were appropriately recognised with those immaculate Sagmeister-designed trophies.
So here we go:
Surprise, surprise.
The Epic Split with Van Damme is a pretty darn perfect once-in-a-lifetime idea, and it’s easy to forget that there are another four (Hook, Technician, Hamster, Chase) equally stunning ideas in this campaign. This is a perfect example of client bravery, and an agency that will go down in the history books.
In an age where everyone is so caught up with the latest technology and who’s first, this idea throws all that out the window by reusing old ‘mobile phones’ that would’ve ended up in landfills anyway. This idea does good, improves lives and does away with children having to carry 50kg schoolbags. Hats off to Merlee and her amazing team in the Philippines.
This campaign ticks every box. It’s controversial, makes people care, makes people angry, attracts the media folks, and closes with a wake-up call.
A perfect combination of salesmanship, casting and sweet soul music and cheese. Watch these films and thank me later.
How do you produce such great work year after year? AMV does it again with this beautiful salute to the Sapeurs. The 2-minute film is beautiful. The 5-minute short documentary is a must see.