In the world of advertising awards

THE BEST FROM ADFEST 21 March 2007
In the world of advertising awards, location quite often tends to be at the forefront of delegates' minds. Most never fail to disappoint, and there are none quite as colourful as AdFest held in Pattaya, Thailand.
But with panel discussions and seminars from people including David Droga, Peter Souter, David Guerrero and Suthisak Sucharittanonta to name but a few, it's not just about location, location, location.

The week itself was played out in true Thai style with everything happening in its own good time. Most comments from delegates leaving the seminars were positive, with special mention to Benjamin Palmer of the Barbarian Group, and David Droga of droga5, for their ability to catch and keep the attention of a jam-packed audience at the end of a very busy few days.

As for the awards ceremony itself, with so many winners to celebrate, some suggested a bit more focus would have oiled the wheels somewhat though Prasoon Joshi of McCann Erickson Mumbai left a happy man, collecting the best directing and production design awards and a gold in category for the wonderful Happy Dent Palace spot. Hakuhodo Japan also scooped a gold in the automotive category and the best in show for Toyota Humanity.

The Cyber Lotus demonstrated strong talent in the region, with best in show and a gold going to GT Inc. Tokyo for their impressive Integrated Big Shadow Project (see more here). Hakuhodo also excelled, as did ADK Tokyo for their addictive Pepsi Max Nex game (play it here). So it seems Japan is still leading the way in interactive advertising.

With so many to mention you'll need to check out the complete list of winners on the ADFEST SITE

One of the highlights of the final night's awards was BBDO Asia's Young Lotus award. These young creative talents certainly got everyone watching (maybe that's because they were awarded first), and it seems there's no need to start panicking about finding new creative talent in the Asia Pacific region. The winners were creatives from Tokyo - Takayuki Nizawa and Masaya Asai. As reported last week on shots.net, the competition comprised of a three-day workshop in which 28 lucky young creatives from around the Asia Pacific region got to learn from the best. The project was a huge collaboration supported by BBDO Asia Pacific, to recognise the up and coming talent in the region.

There is far more to the Young Lotus competition than can be explained here, so to see behind the scenes films of the workshops as well as the other nominees and finalists check out ENTER THE LOTUS.

The site should give you some indication of the work the creatives from Tokyo were up against, however the true winner and probably the most accurate way to sum up the Asia Pacific Advertising awards experience can be seen HERE

No advertising festival would ever be complete without some photos from the frontline. Check out some of the faces of the week HERE.