Out of a total of 895 film entries

Planet Japan sweeps up on AdFest’s final night. Tokyo agencies win Best of Category Lotus Awards

Best Direction goes to TV commercial from McCann-Erickson Mumbai.

Agencies from Tokyo walked away with Best of Category for Film, Radio, Cyber and Contagious Innovation Lotus Awards at the gala dinner for AdFest 2007, held at PEACH, Royal Cliff Beach Resort in Pattaya, Thailand.

Film Lotus

Out of a total of 895 film entries which was slightly down on last year, the festival gave out twenty-nine bronze, fifteen silver and three gold TV awards this year. Winning agencies were from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo.

John Hunt, worldwide creative director of TBWA Johannesburg was chairman of the Film judging panel. He commented, “Asia Pacific is the place to be both economically and intellectually and this is reflected in the quality of the work that the TV judging panel saw. The trend for the category overall is upwards, although the top two to three percent have stayed static, which is why there were fewer gold awards given.”

The three gold awards were won by McCann-Erickson Mumbai for Happy Dent Teeth Whitening Gum, Hakuhodo Tokyo for Toyota Cars and DDB Sydney for Napcan. Hakuhodo Tokyo also climbed the stage to receive the highest accolade for Best of Film.


Happy Dent Teeth Whitening Gum


Hakuhodo Tokyo for Toyota Cars




Film Craft Lotus

Film Craft awards were presented at the gala dinner. Out of the 200 entries received, there were six ‘best of category’ awards won on the night.Awards were shared between Auckland, Mumbai, Sydney and Tokyo.

McCann-Erickson Mumbai picked up Best Directing and Best Production Design for its work on Happy Dent Teeth Whitening Gum.

Best Editing was awarded to Taiyokikaku Tokyo for its work for Walkman. Two awards made their way to Sydney. @radical Media won Best Special Effects for Toyota Prado and Publicis Mojo Sydney scooped Best Use of Music for its work on Tourism Victoria: Melbourne.


Taiyokikaku Tokyo for Walkman

Finally, the Sweet Shop Auckland accepted the award for ‘Best Cinematography’ for Short Black.

There were no awards given out for Best Original Music, Best Sound Design or Best Animation.

Nelson Ng, managing director and editor of Touches in Hong Kong was chairman of judges for the Film Craft panel. This is the third year for Film Craft Lotus Awards at AdFest and the number of entries have grown every year.

Radio Lotus

Best of Radio and Gold was awarded to ADK Tokyo for its commercial for Jino Forestino.

Tony Hertz, owner of Tony Hertz: Radio and Other Clever Advertising and chairman of the radio judging panel said, “For Best of Show, we were looking for a radio commercial that painted a visual picture for the listener as well as being a good idea that was exceptionally well executed.”

As a new category for Lotus Awards, there were 133 entries. Twelve Radio Lotus Awards were presented, including four bronze, five silver and two gold awards, plus Best of Radio. The second gold award was won by Mudra Communications New Delhi for ‘Rape Campaign’, on behalf of Big 92.7FM. Winning agencies were from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, New Delhi and Tokyo.

Cyber Lotus

GT Inc Tokyo won Best of Cyber for its work for XBox 360. The award was one of four golds given for Cyber entries. The other three golds were picked up by Dentsu Incc. Kansai Osaka for Smoking Manner, ADK Tokyo for Pepsi Nex and Hakuhodo/Hakuhodo DY Media Partners for ‘amotesando akarium’.

Benjamin Palmer, chief executive officer and chief creative officer for The Barbarian Group, Boston was chairman of the cyber judging panel.

In addition to the four gold and Best of Cyber awards, the judging panel selected nine bronze and six silver Lotus Awards from 304 outdoor entries. The winning agencies were from Beijing, Nagoya, New Delhi, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo.

360 Lotus & Contagious Lotus for Innovation

The two final categories of 360 Lotus and Contagious Lotus for Innovation were newly introduced to AdFest this year. Both judging panels were chaired by David Droga, creative chairman of droga5, New York. He believes 360, which covers integrated campaigns should be the most important category of AdFest as he explained, “This category is where clients are spending most of their marketing budgets these days.”

On judging, he said, “For Best of 360, the judges were looking for a core solid idea that was improved by each medium or channel that was used for the campaign.”

For this year, no piece of work met the criteria strongly enough so there was no award given for Best of 360. However, there were three awards given out of the 44 entries received. Weiden & Kennedy Shanghai won bronze for Nike China, Hakuhodo Inc. Tokyo won silver for Oxyride Battery and Dentsu Inc Tokyo won a gold award for its work on Napster.

In its first year, there were 49 entries for Contagious Lotus for Innovation Awards. There were three nominations for Best of Show, which was awarded to Hakuhodo Bangkok for Oxyride Batteries. Explained David Droga, “The Oxyride Manned Airplane Project was the ultimate product test and created its own momentum”.

Contagious Lotus for Innovation is sponsored by Contagious, the global intelligence resource. The category has been introduced in response to the changing media environment. It champions the pioneering spirit and celebrates breakthrough thinking from the inventive and innovative minds of Asian creativity.

Jimmy Lam, President of the AdFest Working Committee says, “Over the last couple of years at AdFest, it has become increasingly obvious that good ideas are springing up in unconventional as well as traditional media. While there is every merit in judging a piece of work in its ambient media orinteractive category, creativity knows no boundaries and we felt it was time that this was acknowledged independently”.

The agency with the highest tally of Lotus Awards was Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, with thirteen awards. BBDO Bangkok was placed second with eight awards. Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok was the third most awarded agency with seven Lotus Awards to take home.

All in all over the three-day event, 182 awards were given out across eight advertising categories (excluding Film Craft and Print Craft), in response to 5,012 entries from over five hundred agencies in forty-eight cities around the region this year.

Bangkok was the most awarded city with a total of fifty awards, while Singapore came second with thirty-eight awards. Mumbai was the third most awarded city with twenty-four awards.

While the Lotus Awards aim to reward and recognize outstanding creativity, AdFest itself is equally a forum of learning and exposure for the creative industry in Asia Pacific. 1600 delegates attended, from junior creatives to regional creative directors, production houses, agency management and advertisers.