Can Malaysia, India and Japan challenge for Singapore and Thailand’s creative crown?

Ever since Campaign Brief Asia has been around to two creative powerhouses in Asia have been Singapore and Thailand. But could this stranglehold be about to be broken? or at least weakened somewhat?

And since the release of Campaign Brief Asia’s Creative Rankings in June we have been surprised by the amount of comments and discussion one of our newest table additions has been getting. Three years ago we started to work out the percentage split for each country based on their awards performance in the award shows that we count in the Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings. For those that missed the issue the chart is shown here.

In this “Asia’s Most Creative Countries” chart you can see that in 2006 Thailand actually lead Asia with a 27.5% share of all awards won by our region at the eight International and Regional shows that we count.

But in the space of just two years Thailand’s share has dropped byclose on 9% to 18.6%. It certainly supports the general industryfeeling that the advertising industry in Bangkok is currently well downon it’s creative potential. As Jureeporn Thaidumrong from JEH Bangkok said in her Cannes presentation during the Dentsu Asia session – it’s hard to maintain your smile in the ‘Land of Smiles’ when your country is undergoing so much political and financial upheaval.

Singapore’s share too is dropping. Not as dramatically as Thailand butthere still seems to be less Singapore agencies figuring at the 2009award show season as seemingly the Singapore style of top end print work is finding less favour with award show judges. So it is highly likely the country’s share willdecline further come the next Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings.

With Malaysia performing extremely well at this year’s awards, severalCDs there believe there is the real possibility that they couldchallenge for, if not snatch No2 position away from Thailand next year.

Japan was the big improver this year up 3.3% on last year’s position tonearly topple India at No4. Further share gains are predicted nextyear so they too could be big challengers. Mainland China also saw a healthy gain this year, and there issigns of a creative improvement in Hong Kong. Slight declines were seenfor India, but there is no doubt their share of the awards pie will continue to grow.