With ad agency award entry budgets heavily scrutinized and rationalized, is there room for another regional awards show? AdFest, the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival in Pattaya, Thailand, also dubbed “The Cannes of Asia”, is now on its 11th year, is a widely attended seaside festival. While the Media Spikes, a more intimate show staged in Bali, boasts of two decades of Asia awards heritage. Terry Savage, the Cannes Lions executive chairman, told adobo in June this year that the Cannes festival organizers had concrete plans of bringing the Cannes into Asia with the launch of the Asia Tigers awards festival in Singapore in September 2009. The International Advertising Festival, are the organizers behind the Cannes Lions, the prestigious global awards festival held in France; the Dubai Lynx in the Middle East; and Eurobest in Europe.
Once the buzz came out that Cannes was coming to Asia, you could imagine Jimmy Lam of AdFest and Tim Waldron of Haymarket (publishers of Media magazine and behind the Media Spikes Awards), working on the plan of action to keep their status against the threat of Asia Tigers. Tim Waldron quickly saw opportunity to strike a partnership between Cannes and Haymarket and just recently announced that Media Spikes will be relaunched as Spikes Asia, now the 1st Asian Advertising Festival to be held in September 2009.
Tim Waldron, managing director of Haymarket Asia, said in a statement, “This venture with Cannes will allow us to accelerate our growth strategy for the Spikes. The Spikes is one of the toughest trophies to win regionally and we believe that is down to the quality of judging. Cannes Lions have that same view, so the decision to work together in building the most important and prestigious awards festival in the region was an easy one.”
Terry Savage, while stepping on a plane to Singapore, emailed adobo and confirmed, “In essence we think the power of Cannes Lions and the power of Haymarket will enable us to deliver a strong and powerful festival more quickly. Spikes will now become an award event for Asia only-─the Festival will become a showcase for the region.”
This development probably saw relief for Campaign Brief Asia, who gives points to winners of the two original Asian awards shows for the revered Asia Creative Rankings.
Singapore is seen as a destination with world-class facilities and the capacity to grow Spikes Asia. The show will honor the best of work from Asia or work produced outside of the region for Asia. Categories covered will be Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Craft Direct, Digital, Media, Design and Integrated.
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