After winning one Young Lions spot during the ADFEST in March, JWT Asia snags another. Adeline Chew of Malaysia, one of two winners of the Cannes/ YouTube 48-Hour Ad contest, is an art director at JWT. Chew will compete at Cannes alongside Guy Dayan, from Israel.
While only Chew will go to Cannes, JWT Malaysia proudly points out that “LISTEN DON’T WATCH” is a product of the shop’s young creatives: Nadia Mcdonald (Writer), Sam Goh (Art Director), May Ling Yong (Senior Writer), and Chew.
Instead of staring at the monitor, viewers are encouraged to go to the Oxfam site and sign up, doing this simultaneously as the video plays.
While the YouTube/Cannes Jury gave their nod, YouTube land disagreed—and this being social media, they made their feelings known. Angry comments proliferated: “I cant believe that the video that won is a video we are not supposed to LOOK AT!! This was a VIDEO contest not a RADIO contest!”
The other winning video, “Climate Thermometer,” was not spared: commenters have called it a rip off from a Greenpeace YouTube ad, which shares the device of clicking on “pause” to stop climate change. As of last night, Dayan’s video refused to play properly on YouTube.
Popular opinion aside, Chew and Dayan will fly to Cannes for the contest and for the prestigious Cannes Lions 2009 festival. There, they will compete with JWT colleagues Ral Ralston Joseph and Sithum Walter of JWT Colombo-Sri Lanka and ADFEST’s Young Lotus winner, for the coveted Young Lions award.
