Spikes Asia 2019: Dentsu Group Emerges With Most Number of Shortlisted Entries in This Year’s Spikes

SINGAPORE — With the final batch of shortlists released, powerhouse agency Dentsu emerges as the agency with the most number of shortlisted entries for this year’s Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity. As a global network, the group has garnered a total of 109 spots into the finals.

Majority of the shortlisted campaigns came from Dentsu’s arm in Japan, with a total of 44 entries, while 25 are from India.

Here is a breakdown of the different streams Dentsu was able to get in:

Multiple campaigns from the agency have been recognized in this year’s shortlists, and while winners for each category have yet to be announced, there are a few that are already gaining traction with the number of shortlist slots they were able to secure. Also worth noting is that most entries in the shortlists come from Dentsu’s arm in Japan, but the campaigns that did the best individually hail from Dentsu Webchutney Mumbai and Bangalore, the group’s digital specialists in India.

Most awarded in Dentsu’s roster of campaigns is Hagglebot for Flipkart, developed together with Google. The campaign was created to promote the Big Billion Days ka Boss online sale held by Flipkart, featuring the unique characters shoppers take on as they haggle for items they want to buy among India’s many shopping destinations. Hagglebot was the trio’s way of bringing this into the online world through voice-enabled commands with Google Assistant that will help shoppers find the best deals available in Flipkart’s platforms. This campaign was present in Media, Brand Experience & Activation, and Creative eCommerce shortlists among others.

Another campaign that made it among the top in this Spikes Asia’s shortlist is Dentsu Webchutney Mumbai’s Code Name: Uri for entertainment network Trigger Happy. The campaign was built to fight piracy in India while promoting the Bollywood film URI: The Surgical Strike. Code Name: Uri was able to get spots within Media and Direct Spikes.

Voice of Hunger, a challenge posted by Indian food delivery platform Swiggy, also made headlines in this year’s Spikes Asia shortlisted entries. The campaign, created by Dentsu Webchutney Bangalore, challenged IG users to reshape kebabs, pizza slices, nachos, pancakes and other food items using audio messages sent on IG. The way it worked was by recording different sounds, the waveforms created on the platform are then turned into the food items they looked like. The fun challenge was present in Brand Experience & Activation, Digital, and Direct shortlists.

Other campaigns that did notably well were Nikkei Blend for Nikkei, and Diversity in Disaster Preparations for Yahoo Japan, both developed by Dentsu Inc. Tokyo.

Dick Van Motman, Global CEO/Creative of Dentsu Aegis Network shares, “The best case of performance is if it’s present and across the globe so I’m very thrilled.”

It’s too early to say if these campaigns are going to win big during award’s night, but gaining so much attention in the shortlists alone is a feat worthy of recognition. Stay tuned on our platforms tonight to see if these indeed win top spots in the different tracks, and if Dentsu is going home with tonight’s top awards.

adobo magazine, the Word on Creativity, is an official media partner of Spikes Asia 2019 Festival of Creativity.