Spikes Asia 2012 sheds key insights on winning and creative ideas

The festival of creativity – Spikes Asia 2012 in Singapore during its first two days showcased key insights on winning and creative ideas in the marketing communications sphere by a host of global and regional experts.

Attended by nearly 1,800 creative industry professionals and students from 27 countries including nearly 20 from Sri Lanka, the three three-day Spikes Asia at Singapore’s Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Centre is aimed at providing opportunities for learning, networking and celebration as well as the chance to view Asia Pacific’s creative excellence in advertising and communications.

Spikes Asia is jointly organised by Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and Haymarket, publishers of Campaign Asia-Pacific.

On Day 1, speakers included Economist Group Director Operations Alan Dunachie sharing insights to a unique initiative by the magazine ‘The Ideas Exchange,’ bringing corporate and brands and media together with stakeholders to tackle various issues. “In Online medium, ideas define you. In work they reward you. In life they inspire you. So instead of telling people how they should think about your brand or company, engage your audiences with ideas and stories that invite them to discover it for themselves – and share it with others,” he said.

With endless information at fingertips, and opinions on hand from networks of friends and colleagues, people no longer just accept what they are told. They pick and choose between messages, cast a critical eye over them, respond to what others think, and share their thoughts.

“For brand owners, this means we have moved from an old world in which it was relatively easy for brands to define themselves to a new world where brands have to earn consideration rather than simply demand it,” Dunachie said, adding that for brand owners to get consumers to connect with brands, one solution was to use marketing that makes people think.

In his presentation, he shared the thoughts of some of the world’s top thinkers on the role ideas are now playing in people’s lives. Those featured included John Hegarty, Aleks Krotoski, Steven Johnson, Charles Leadbeater, and Richard Ogle.  It also gives examples of how companies like Shell, Philips, and Red Bull have made this marketing approach work for them.

A joint presentation by JWT Shanghai General Manager Eric Lee and Filmworks China Entertainment Marketing CEO Sirena Liu focused on how to create, curate and negotiate winning content for your clients via the movie industry.

They argued that as the lines between advertising and entertainment continue to blur, Asia’s ad industry needs to move sharply up the learning curve to create the kind of branded entertainment clients need to reach and engage new audiences.

The two firms explained some of the successes following their tie-up that has formed new kinds of relationships between Chinese brands and Hollywood studios, whereby clients are provided with bigger and better product placement; how to tailor editorial content to give genuine value to the audience; how to integrate new business models with branded content; how to create a platform that will draw a repeat audience – and how the role of ad agencies will evolve into curators who orchestrate talent from different industries to deliver content.

Via case studies, Cheil Worldwide Brand Experience Group Executive Creative Directive Simon Hong shared key insights into how brands can become influential via letting consumers go through an experience in context with the brand. Noting that today people live in what he described as “X2 economy” longing for experience with high expectations, Hong said branded experiences in reality is another matter, with an overwhelming realisation that it may include everything from sights and sounds to activities and service branding.  “Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced,” Hong added.

How global brand leaders break through barriers of culture, market and language in Asia was the focus of a panel discussion involving Microsoft Asia Pacific Central Marketing Organisation Lead F. C. Corbett, Dell General Manager of Strategic Alliances and Mobility and Tablets in Asia Pacific and Japan Ian Chapman Banks and cross-cultural marketing specialist Textappeal founder and CEO Elliot Polak with Paul Woolmington, Chairman Worldwide Textappeal Advisor Board as moderator.

Global consumer giant Unilever shared useful insights into how it is leveraging the power of consumer creativity to create advertising and campaigns with inputs from consumers for various market segments.   The basis of presentations by Unilever Ponds Global Marketing Manager Neil Trinidad and Global Brand Manager Close up and GlobaI Digital Platform Leader Ishita Sharma along with solutions firm eYeka is that in most agencies, consumers are seen as a source of insights or validation but never as creative.

Unilever said it has succeeded by tapping into the insights and ideas from a wealth of creative work made ‘by’ consumers. The panel also warned that traditional creative solutions are getting increasingly disconnected with today’s consumer hence a collaborative effort with consumer is key.

Draftfcb Australia Group Executive Creative Director James Mok shared with participants of Spikes Asia 2012 some of the success stories especially in shaping social change via creativity and innovation by using new media and new communications technology. Organisers chose Draftfcb New Zealand as it has been recognised as the world’s most effective agency in creating government and non-profit social change campaigns.

Mok said: “You can’t stop family violence by showing more violence but the creative and communication challenge is to get people to speak up and act.”

Representing the Confederation of Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies (4As) Japan’s two competing firms Dentsu Network Executive Creative Director Y. Sasaki and Hakuhodo Kettle Co-CEO and Creative Director K. Sima came on a common platform and shared five tips to help agencies stay relevant in digital age. They were effective design of digital advertising, be a facilitator, be flexible and bring human touch to digital and technology.

 “It is ideas and not technology that attracts people,” they said, adding that digital media equally has risks as well as rewards hence firms must have a full grasp of those issues.

Via their presentations, it was argued that the conventional approach to creating advertising doesn’t work effectively in the digital age. In today’s digital arena, the bond and distance between brands and users have become much closer with consumer engagement being key to the process.

Leo Burnett and Arc Malaysia Executive Creative Director Eric Cruz spoke of Asian identity in the global broadcast. Via his presentation, he argued that the age of creativity has reawakened in modern Asia, rising from its deep slumber of past innovations and inventions. But at the root of it, much of what and how we learn ‘creativity’ today derives from Western schools of thought.

According to him, with the internet accelerating knowledge, everyone collectively learns from each other, building on one another’s ideas and creations.  

He noted that as technology streamlines the world into an international standard of creativity, personal and cultural identity, the human factor were more crucial now than ever before whilst authenticity and insight into identity are key to igniting affinity among consumers.