Creativity and Spikes Asia
Suppose you have ideas, but you have not acted on them. You will be called imaginative but not creative at all. Creativity comes when ideas are executed into actions. When the elusive creativity stimulates, you will feel the passion to innovate, to explore new ways of doing things. And if you are interested to know the best creative works happening around currently, you must join Spikes Asia! Yes, Spikes Asia is the festival of creativity that links creative minds to celebrate the ideas that transcend even dreams!At Spikes Asia, region’s creative communications community comes together to celebrate advertising talent, debate the industry’s key issues, update their knowledge, network with industry professionals and be creatively inspired. I got the opportunity to attend this festival as “Young Spikes Competitor”
for being the champion (The Daily Star Team) of Cannes Lions Edit Competition Bangladesh 2015 organized by Bangladesh Brand Forum. The runners up team of Lions Edit competition consisting of Nazia Zebin and Mashfique Khalid of Analyzen also attended the young spikes competition.
This was the seventh annual Spikes Asia Festival where 1500 creatives took part in three days compact sessions.Spikes Asia is a collaboration between Lions Festivals and Haymarket. The Festival and Awards provide the region’s creative communications industry with a platform to network and exchange ideas, bringing together the finest creative thinkers from around the world.
Experiencing the Creative Carnival
From awe-inspiring seminars by the industry’s most motivating speakers to impressive networking events, training and show-casing of the region’s best creative work, these spectacular three days festival from 9-11 September held in Singapore was all about discovering new and interesting perspectives that influence current advertisement trends.What was not there!
There were series of content programs highlighting all the recent creative issues, a corner for best creative work showcasing, stalls of giant brands portraying their creativity, simultaneous young spikes competition on different medias and happy hour for networking.This year the Festival was held at Suntec Singapore, a state-of-the-art venue with first-class facilities located in the heart of Singa
pore’s Central Business District.
The Content Program
The content program of this event was divided into three stages- inspiration, discovery and silent. Each stage has its own unique feature and attribute. Series of sessions were held in each stage simultaneously, and the delegates could participate in either of the three depending on his or her choice. I am describing activities of each stage below:
The Inspiration Stage: The inspiration stage focuses on the getting the fresh perspective of driving creative communications with varied talk from some of the world’s most inspiring speakers. Sessions in Inspiration stage included speakers from Youtube, Facebook, Grey Group, Google, Twitter, BBC and many other top brands of the world. Facebook’s head of Creative Shop, APAC said that three second of attention span in Facebook can be vital for advertising in his session on creativity in a mobile world. The head of brand strategy, Asia Pacific of Twitter Steve Kalifowitz said the participants to stand out by fitting in, while describing the power of #now. Mike Glaser, Senior Manager, Creative Partnerships, Google took an astounding session on ‘There is no clutter’ where he share the latest work and learnings from its “Art, Copy and code” initiative, which pairs leading brands and agencies with a team of developers and creatives, setting out to reimagine marketing from the digital age.In his presentation he showed that millennials are 2X more likely to be focused while watching video on their smartphones versus on televisions. On day three, during the session on ‘Sentience: The artificial intelligence gameshow’, the speakers told participants why human creativity is important for Artificial Intelligence.
The Discovery Stage: The discovery stage was a bit innovative one, where region’s most exciting innovators give unique insights of future techs and biggest creative leader’s shares their experiences and lessons that drive creativity.Moreover, in the innovation shortlist presentation, delegates can see the judges process live in action as some of the region’s most innovative thinkers present their groundbreaking ideas to the jury.
The Silent Stage: But the most creative stage was the silent one, where one can discover practical take-home tips covering industry’s biggest challenges and trends through headphone sessions. Some interesting sessions in silent stage were “Smart solutions driven by data insights”, “Creativity matters- for business, for change, for good” and “Understanding your client’s zodiac and find happiness”. The Chief Strategy Officer of Hylink Digital Solution Co. Ltd. said that planners no longer rely on traditional research methodology to understand the real insights and consumer behavior during the ideation process. The session was a good take for strategic planners as it demonstrated the ability to digest, analyze and see through the massive data pool.In a session by SapientNitro, the head of strategy describes why leaders need to reassess the outmoded leadership models and identify what is required to navigate them in the digital age.
Best Work Show Casing and Interactive Kiosks: Best advertisements of the region including press ads, outdoor communications, integrated marketing campaign, digital marketing contents were show cased at the event venue. Moreover, there were interactive kiosks from Instagram, Ogilvy & Mather, Panaroma Stock, etc. Instagram kiosk was an innovative one where you can take photos of optical illusion that shows you are hanging from the roof if rotated ninety degree. SoftBank Robotics introduced Pepper, the world’s first personal robot to the delegates of Spikes Asia in their kiosk. Pepper is the first humanoid robot designed to live with humans.
Young Spikes Competition: The Young Spikes Competitions are aimed at creatives who are aged 30 or under and employed in advertising/communications businesses in a skill discipline relevant to their chosen competition. The Young Spikes Competitions provide Asia Pacific’s next generation of creative talent the opportunity to showcase their talent. This year young spikes competition categories was Media, Digital, integrated and Facebook Hackathon. The cases provided in the competition was real time issues like in digital competition each team has to come up with a digital marketing idea on promoting Singapore tourism through the local inhabitants. In Facebook Hackathon, participants are challenged to create a best-in-class campaign for Facebook’s news feed response to a brief.
The Happy Hour: The happy hour was a remarkable session for networking among the community. As the regular daily session ended, the delegates got the opportunity to mix and converse freely in the happy hour sponsored by Mullen Lowe Group. Here people made new connections and discussed the day’s event with fellow delegates. I got the opportunity to meet diversified people with whom I have shared my views on creativity and marketing in this hour. For example, I met Maneesh Dhyani of The Times of India with whom I have shared ideas on the future development prospects of newspaper industry in south Asia.Manuela Garcia, a delegate of Columbia studying in University of Navarre, Spain shared me her thoughts on Spikes Asia during the happy hour, “The festival allowed me to engage with different ways of creativity, given the fact that participants came from all over Asia and the Pacific”.
Award Ceremony: The region’s most prestigious awards for creative communications, Spikes Asia rewards the best entries in Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo & Activation, Media, Design, Film Craft, Print & Poster Craft, Integrated, Mobile, PR, Innovation and Healthcare. Entries are judged by leading global creatives at the Festival. The Award Ceremony was held at the Ritz Carlton Singapore. From 4321 entries in 18 categories, total 421 got awards based on exceeding creative benchmarks.
The Takeaways for Bangladesh
Spikes Asia is a huge platform for the young creative minds of Bangladesh to meet inspiring leaders and other young delegates around the globe. From this year’s festival, this is surely visible that the muse of technology is creating a vast difference in creativity and advertisement. Campaign named ‘PANICOUPON’ of branded content and entertainment category showed how coupons can be made from oculus rift 360°horror movie, which can only be experienced at their store. So, the future creative media lies in digital innovation for sure. Moreover, each content and ideaat the festival were unique and novel in nature. Hopefully in near future the creative minds of Bangladesh will lead the festival with unique creativity and digital innovation that the world has never seen before.
by
Shuvashish Roy
Mr. Shuvashish is the winner of Lions Edit Competition Bangladesh 2015 who is the Strategic Project Planner, Business Development of The Daily Star.
