Claire Davidson Adfest Diary – day two

Claire Davidson, managing director and executive producer Asia & MENA @ The SweetShop, reports exclusively for Campaign Brief at Adfest 2015.

It’s Day 2 of Adfest here in Pattaya, Thailand. All of the finalists have been announced and many creatives here are buzzing with nervous anticipation and excitement ahead of tonight and tomorrow night’s awards presentations. Good luck to all.  Oh, and to The Sweet Shop too.

This year Adfest opened up competition entries to include the Middle East, further embracing the cultural diversity and richness found right across Asia.  This year has seen 3,295 entries from 35 cities.  The juries were comprised of 56 members from 19 cities.  It’s all terribly glamorous and international.

I caught some more seminars today.

Kazuaki Hashida, Integrated Campaign Director of Hakuhodo Kettle and Takahiro Hosoda, Creative Director of TBWA\Hakuhodo brought us “You are the Hero.  Not a Target.  The New Era of Storytelling”.  Today, we really shouldn’t be calling consumers ‘targets’, as someone who accepts or receives something.  A target is what you point a gun at.  Hashida and Hosoda like to refer to their consumers as ‘heroes’.  Consumers are smart.  In today’s world they engage so much more with their brands, and also the advertising platforms that market to them. 

In the past, customers were reached by being shown something on the big screen.  Ads were played out like movies.  Today, they can dive into the screen and use it as a stage on which they themselves can act.  Today everyone is a messenger and a creator.  It’s about time we put the consumers first.  We all talk about this but it hasn’t happened yet.

There are five areas we need to change:

~  Message.  Heroes are driven by stories, not messages.  Stories are interactive.  We need to change message to story.

~  Media.  Heroes have to be in the spotlight.  They belong on the stage.  The media and all its touchpoints where you place your message become the stage for the hero to ride the trend.  We need to change media to stage.

~  Brand’s Way.  Brand personality.  Brand behavior.  Heroes always have their own distinctive way.  The way of doing things is not determined by the brand.  It’s adjusted to each individual’s personalized way.  We need to change brand’s way to hero’s way.

~  Reward.  Heroes are motivated by celebration.  If you are the hero celebrate your creativity.  We need to change reward to celebration.

~  Corporation.  Corporation has two meanings – business organization and companion.  Heroes never betray their sidekicks.  Realize your dreams with the product.  We need to change corporation to sidekick.

Invite your heroes on the journey.  Prepare a stage for them to shine in the spotlight.  Allow them to demonstrate their beliefs and culture.  Celebrate the heroes’ accomplishments.  Turn the client into the hero’s sidekick.

Jonathan Samway, Executive Producer of Moth Projects, Sydney brought us “Storytelling Is The New Black”.  In today’s world of advertising we watch what we want to watch.  We engage with what we want to engage with.  Anywhere.  Anytime.  On any device.  We no longer all watch the same thing at the same time on our big shiny TV screens.  Our TV screens today have become little more than monitors that connect to content providers.  

The question clients find themselves faced with is where do we find new customers in this new world?  Samway says the answer lies in telling stories people choose to engage with.

Stories need to feel authentic.  They should be real.  They shouldn’t feel manufactured.  Stories need to be well constructed with a beginning, middle, turning point and an ending.  We looked at the latest British Airways campaign as a case study.  Other good examples we focused on were Chipotle’s “The Scarecrow” and John Lewis’ Christmas campaign.

People aren’t interested in most media messages.  We also really don’t have patience for advertising today.  We don’t have to watch it.  So it must stand on its own two feet.  It must be engaging.  It should be meaningful.  It must be well told.  Execution matters.  It should be inventive.  It should be enriching.  In a nutshell it must engage emotionally with the narrative and it must connect us to a brand’s values.  Good storytelling demands engagement.  You want viewers to move their allegiance to the story.  You want them to be aligned with your point of view.  You want that allegiance to transcend to your product.  

It was then time to strap ourselves in for “Buckle Up!  The Tidal Wave of Transmedia is Overwhelming the Advertising Industry” brought to us by Chung Chung Chan, Lecturer at Hong Kong Design Institute.  She told us that everything today is a blur.  

Well it particularly is for me today after last night and my hangover this morning.  

But that’s another story.  

And not one I want to put to paper.  

Oopsie, I think I might have wandered off track.

Everything today is a cocktail of merged technologies within the entertainment, media and communications sectors.  Lines are blurred and thus context is blurred.  What has evolved is a methodology called Transmedia.

What is important is to coordinate media interactions.  One must understand the art and craft of storytelling to create successful Transmedia projects, and relate this to the brand.  We have multiple strands across diverse media platforms, including film, television, internet, mobile, gaming and live events.  What’s important is for us to understand emerging content strategies and what they mean, as well as apply them to our own innovative process to create a richer experience for consumers and fans.  We want them to engage and participate meaningfully in the brand’s story world.  It’s here that Transmedia is both a creative technique for story extension and a marketing tool to reach a broader and more diversified audience.

More tomorrow as I had to cut speaker sessions shot today in order to attend our superb, splendid, stunning and successful Campaign Brief Asia, The Sweet Shop, Fin Design & Effects and Gunnery Adfest Sunset Drinks. Yummy!