The big themes at Adfest this year were the growth of branded content, the use of big data and the pursuit of social good. If all three collided, all the better.
Those themes ran through the four days of what is one of Asia’s leading festivals for creativity, which drew 1,243 delegates from 62 cities to the Thai beach city of Pattaya this year.
The marginalized, the helpless and the forgotten were a recurring focus at speakers’ sessions and in the choices of awards. For example, J. Walter Thompson Beijing’s “￥10 Tale of Forgotten Veterans” for Tencent Charity, which honored long-neglected World War II veterans, won a gold award for use of mobile video. People could snap a picture of a ￥10 note with their phones in order to watch a video narrated by a veteran. “Pedigree Found,” by Colenso BBDO Auckland was another big winner – harnessing the power of geolocation and crowds to create a digital equivalent of the “lost dog” poster. Social good can also mean social change. In #TouchThePickle for sanitary pad brand Whisper, BBDO India took on taboos for menstruating women – “Don’t worship,” “Don’t enter the kitchen,” and perhaps the most perplexing and hilarious: “Don’t touch the pickle” – and blew them apart. #TouchThePickle was a big winner at Adfest this year, as was Leo Burnett Beirut’s “Keep the Flame Alive” with its inspiring theme for Lebanon and BBDO Bangkok’s “Moto Repellant,” a brilliant idea to use motorcycle exhaust pipes to release mosquito-repelling fog in slums.
At a session titled “Use Your Creativity to Help,” Thomas Hongtack Kim, founder of Playground in South Korea, listed other powerful recent examples such as the campaign to help women with iodine deficiency in India. “Talwar Bindi” or “Life-saving dot” – by Grey, used the traditional dot on women’s foreheads as a means to dispense iodine, and restore health. Likewise, a similarly successful campaign in Cambodia – “Lucky Iron Fish” – to add iron to the diet of Cambodians with a metal fish boiled in soup. Kim showed a 6-minute film, “Going Home,” a campaign for carmaker Hyundai that highlighted the plight of the millions of elderly men and women living in South Korea separated from their birth village in the north by the civil war. The film follows 88-year-old Kim Gyun Heon as he describes the topography and layout of the village he can never return to.
Based on his descriptions, Playground created a 3D film of his virtual journey, projected onto a giant curved 3D screen. And thus, in a Hyundai car, Kim Gyun Heon is “driven” home. He recognizes hills and rivers as he “passes” them by, finally pulling up to his village, where he spontaneously exclaims: “Mother, it’s me. Your son Gyun Heon is home.”
The tearjerker got 10 million views in two weeks.
The do-good theme underscores the truism that consumers are people who want to connect. They want to help. Connecting and helping makes them feel good, and brands that tap into that emotion can reap the benefits.