You say Pattaya Esther Clerehan It’s not Cannes, but it’s close. The eighth annual Asia Pacific Adfest was held recently in Thailand and drew nearly 2000 delegates from all over the world.
Despite its dreary name, Adfest has grown steadily in prestige, and is regarded by many as the Cannes of the East.I flew by car from Bangkok to Pattaya. Co-passenger Michael Cook, CEO Film Graphics and TV Craft juror, slept peacefully as our driver cruised at 170+kph down the freeway, regularly slamming on the brakes as semi-trailers unexpectedly changed lanes in front of our car.Luckily, it only took us two hours to get there.Pattaya Exhibition and Convention Hall (PEACH) at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort is the home of Adfest and is certainly large enough to accommodate the festival.There are four hotels contained in the resort and they are identical in their 1970s cruise ship décor. The layout is baffling but there’s no denying that the overall scale is impressive.Several agency networks have begun attaching regional conferences to Adfest and no doubt Dentsu, JWT and TBWA have helped swell delegate numbers.Upon arrival, I had arranged to meet with some of the TBWA crew at the bar by the pool. But which pool? It took quite a while to establish that Cabbages and Condoms was actually the name of Mick Hunter’s and Ian Morton’s hotel. Located outside the Royal Cliff complex, C&C grows vegetables, promotes safe sex and hosts worldwide conferences.Adfest combines its various TV, print, direct marketing and interactive awards with a series of seminars over three days, and despite Pattaya’s distractions, conscientious delegates packed each screening and session.Seeing Donald Gunn’s presentation of The Gunn Report was a bit like pulling back the curtain to discover that the Wizard of Oz was a just little man with a microphone.Using an undisclosed formula, Gunn compiled a list of ads that won awards last year. His presentation was illustrated with lifeless fantasy league ladders of the “top” countries, agencies, production companies and brands. Gunn once produced a worldwide study on creativity and effectiveness, which everybody loved because the results concluded that award-winning ads sell more stuff.Sadly, The Gunn Report today is neither the predictor of awards, nor the measure of the effectiveness of creativity that it once was.Gunn has parlayed his eponymous brand into a mind-numbing computation of a lot of unidentified awards. In essence, he gets to travel the world spreading the joys of Excel software. Maybe there is something to his wizardry, after all.Offsite, things got racier. One night after the excellent TBWA and Finito poolside parties at the Sugar Hut Hotel, a group of us ventured into Walking Street, the red light district of Pattaya. Apparently it’s not the done thing to ask the spruikers for a girlie show combined with lady boys. After perusing several menus with offerings like pussy rat, pussy fish and pussy drink, we opted for the show at Top Girls and sat there bewildered as the naked girls...um...performed with darts, goldfish, mice and terrapins.It was particularly disturbing when a dart missed its balloon target and went down the back of my shirt.Toto, we’re definitely not in Cannes anymore.The Print and Outdoor Awards were a dry affair, held in a theatre style presentation on Friday night. Creative Juice, a TBWA affiliate in Bangkok, won Best of Show in Print for Tamiya toys. The ads depict objects and animals smashed on the road: a frog, a light bulb and a watermelon. The smashed pieces are numbered as they are in assembly instructions. TBWA Tokyo won the Outdoor Best of Show for its installation for Adidas featuring a live race up a building. Saatchi and Saatchi Singapore won the Direct Best of Show for the Republic of Singapore Navy.M&C Saatchi Sydney flew the flag for Australia, with one Gold and nine Silvers in print and outdoor for Herringbone, House and Il Vizio coffee. Publicis, Leo Burnett and Saatchi and Saatchi combined to host the huge Menage à Trois party after the print awards. The fantastic party, held on the beach at Royal Varuna Yacht Club, would have been perfect had the beer been chilled.On Saturday night the Television and Television Craft awards were handed out at the Gala Dinner. As tables were not place-marked, the crowd surged on the vast hall stocktake sale style, to secure their seats.The show moved along smoothly, and most astonishingly, the crowd’s noise never threatened to drown out the presentation.In the Craft section, there was no Best of Show. However, Australian production companies were well represented with Zoom Brisbane winning Best Cinematography for Yamaha’s ‘Get Dirty’ spot and Luscious International Sydney winning the award for Best Special Effects for The Smiths Snackfood Company’s ‘Flatworld’.The evening’s top honour went to Dentsu for the ‘Husky Girls’ commercial for Ajinomoto Stadium.The spot shows a college freshman bewildered by beautiful women who have deep, masculine voices, which is a result of all the yelling they do at the stadium.There was no official after party and the guests spilled into the various bars around the resort, deliberately creating hangovers to anaesthetise themselves for the ride back to Bangkok.Over three days, 244 Lotus awards were awarded for the 4,000+ entries received from over 400 agencies in 39 cities from around the region.It’s not Cannes yet, but it’s much closer to Oz.
Despite its dreary name, Adfest has grown steadily in prestige, and is regarded by many as the Cannes of the East.I flew by car from Bangkok to Pattaya. Co-passenger Michael Cook, CEO Film Graphics and TV Craft juror, slept peacefully as our driver cruised at 170+kph down the freeway, regularly slamming on the brakes as semi-trailers unexpectedly changed lanes in front of our car.Luckily, it only took us two hours to get there.Pattaya Exhibition and Convention Hall (PEACH) at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort is the home of Adfest and is certainly large enough to accommodate the festival.There are four hotels contained in the resort and they are identical in their 1970s cruise ship décor. The layout is baffling but there’s no denying that the overall scale is impressive.Several agency networks have begun attaching regional conferences to Adfest and no doubt Dentsu, JWT and TBWA have helped swell delegate numbers.Upon arrival, I had arranged to meet with some of the TBWA crew at the bar by the pool. But which pool? It took quite a while to establish that Cabbages and Condoms was actually the name of Mick Hunter’s and Ian Morton’s hotel. Located outside the Royal Cliff complex, C&C grows vegetables, promotes safe sex and hosts worldwide conferences.Adfest combines its various TV, print, direct marketing and interactive awards with a series of seminars over three days, and despite Pattaya’s distractions, conscientious delegates packed each screening and session.Seeing Donald Gunn’s presentation of The Gunn Report was a bit like pulling back the curtain to discover that the Wizard of Oz was a just little man with a microphone.Using an undisclosed formula, Gunn compiled a list of ads that won awards last year. His presentation was illustrated with lifeless fantasy league ladders of the “top” countries, agencies, production companies and brands. Gunn once produced a worldwide study on creativity and effectiveness, which everybody loved because the results concluded that award-winning ads sell more stuff.Sadly, The Gunn Report today is neither the predictor of awards, nor the measure of the effectiveness of creativity that it once was.Gunn has parlayed his eponymous brand into a mind-numbing computation of a lot of unidentified awards. In essence, he gets to travel the world spreading the joys of Excel software. Maybe there is something to his wizardry, after all.Offsite, things got racier. One night after the excellent TBWA and Finito poolside parties at the Sugar Hut Hotel, a group of us ventured into Walking Street, the red light district of Pattaya. Apparently it’s not the done thing to ask the spruikers for a girlie show combined with lady boys. After perusing several menus with offerings like pussy rat, pussy fish and pussy drink, we opted for the show at Top Girls and sat there bewildered as the naked girls...um...performed with darts, goldfish, mice and terrapins.It was particularly disturbing when a dart missed its balloon target and went down the back of my shirt.Toto, we’re definitely not in Cannes anymore.The Print and Outdoor Awards were a dry affair, held in a theatre style presentation on Friday night. Creative Juice, a TBWA affiliate in Bangkok, won Best of Show in Print for Tamiya toys. The ads depict objects and animals smashed on the road: a frog, a light bulb and a watermelon. The smashed pieces are numbered as they are in assembly instructions. TBWA Tokyo won the Outdoor Best of Show for its installation for Adidas featuring a live race up a building. Saatchi and Saatchi Singapore won the Direct Best of Show for the Republic of Singapore Navy.M&C Saatchi Sydney flew the flag for Australia, with one Gold and nine Silvers in print and outdoor for Herringbone, House and Il Vizio coffee. Publicis, Leo Burnett and Saatchi and Saatchi combined to host the huge Menage à Trois party after the print awards. The fantastic party, held on the beach at Royal Varuna Yacht Club, would have been perfect had the beer been chilled.On Saturday night the Television and Television Craft awards were handed out at the Gala Dinner. As tables were not place-marked, the crowd surged on the vast hall stocktake sale style, to secure their seats.The show moved along smoothly, and most astonishingly, the crowd’s noise never threatened to drown out the presentation.In the Craft section, there was no Best of Show. However, Australian production companies were well represented with Zoom Brisbane winning Best Cinematography for Yamaha’s ‘Get Dirty’ spot and Luscious International Sydney winning the award for Best Special Effects for The Smiths Snackfood Company’s ‘Flatworld’.The evening’s top honour went to Dentsu for the ‘Husky Girls’ commercial for Ajinomoto Stadium.The spot shows a college freshman bewildered by beautiful women who have deep, masculine voices, which is a result of all the yelling they do at the stadium.There was no official after party and the guests spilled into the various bars around the resort, deliberately creating hangovers to anaesthetise themselves for the ride back to Bangkok.Over three days, 244 Lotus awards were awarded for the 4,000+ entries received from over 400 agencies in 39 cities from around the region.It’s not Cannes yet, but it’s much closer to Oz.
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