Live from Spikes Asia 2017

Liveblog-style coverage of Spikes Asia 2017 from our editors at the festival. 

Greetings from Spikes Asia 2017! Our editors from Singapore, Hong Kong and India have gathered to cover the festival in words, pictures and videos. Tune in here for brief accounts of what we see and hear, click www.campaignasia.com/spikes2017 to see longer pieces and follow all our updates on Twitter. And by all means look for us and say hello if you're in the building. 

CREATE ACTS, NOT ADS — THEY ARE EASIER TO LOVE

Posted 12.00 pm Wednesday by Olivia Parker

The one constant in 30 years of advertising has been change, said Danny Searle, chief creative officer at BBDO Asia, speaking on the Masters of Creativity stage. But lately, the sheer amount of choice available to us, whether messenger apps or TV channels, has lead to something new: confusion. “If we’re all confused, how are we supposed to get our messages out with any clarity?”

In the best works he saw at Cannes this year, said Searle, there were three constants: acts - brands showing instead of telling; insights - the research to back up these acts; and ideas, which are known to work better than facts in terms of invoking emotions.

SPIKES VIDEO WALKABOUT
Posted 11:32 am Wednesday by Rick Boost

Take a quick tour of Spikes Asia, with your friendly guide, Campaign marketing editor Faaez Samadi, in this video produced by Rick Boost, Campaign's video journalist.

LESSONS IN COOL, BY TWITTER
Posted 11 am Wednesday by Olivia Parker

Jayanta Jenkins

“If you chose to inspire the world, rather than being cool, how would that look?“ asked Jayanta Jenkins, global group creative director of Twitter, opening the first session on the Masters of Creativity stage at Spikes. “Agency people probably chase cool more than substance at times.”

Jenkins went on to take the crowd through real world examples of people who have helped inspire and "realign" him as he's gone through his career, from Bob Marley to Alfred Hitchcock and James Brown, with the overarching message that “when you don’t chase cool, you end up tapping into something really authentic that connects with people.”

MAKING CREATIVES 'BIONIC'
Posted 10:33 am Wednesday by Matthew Miller

On the In Focus Stage, where our colleague Babar Khan Javed is acting as emcee throughout the festival, Baker Lambert, global data director with TBWA\Worldwide, talked about using data to power-up creativity.

Arguing that nine out of 10 of the best ideas in creative agencies never get enough buy-in to actually get made, data can be a powerful tool to "sell-through" ideas, he said. It can also put an end to pointless and non-productive arguments with clients; Lambert cited a client who was convinced that music by '90s alt-rocker Melissa Etheridge would make the perfect soundtrack for a campaign targetting 16-year-olds, but was quickly convinced otherwise by Spotify demographic data showing Etheridge's audience.

Turning to AI, Lambert argued that it is not going to take creatives' jobs, but in fact will empower them. He cited the example of an in-house brainstorming AI system that generates questions for creatives, based on knowledge of the relative impact of different forms of media and other factors. By helping to spark creative thinking, this tool let a junior creative team beat out a group of their seniors in a head-to-head test, he said.

FIRST SHORTLISTS 
Posted 9:25 am Wednesday by Matthew Miller

First up, today's batch of shortlists has been posted: 

• Design
• Direct
• Entertainment
• Film
• Film Craft
• Healthcare
• Media
• Outdoor
• PR
• Print & Publishing
• Print & Outdoor Craft
• Promo & Activation
• Radio

The Innovation shortlist was announced last week.