BBDO hosts successful AdFest Young Lotus Workshop competition: Winning team from Dentsu Taiwan with finalists from Cheil Korea, Leo Burnett Hong Kong + DDB Auckland

One of the highlights of AdFest this year for Campaign Brief Asia was the Young Lotus Workshop competition, hosted this year by BBDO.

The Young Lotus Workshop gives young creative teams the chance to learn from some of the industry’s creative leaders. This year’s challenge tasked 26 young creatives – 13 teams – with developing an idea that would get creatives to untether themselves from their desks and engage in real life, demonstrating that the more you live, the better your ideas. The workshop’s theme was #LiveMoreForBetterIdeas.

To help them with their task, the young creatives enjoyed a series of talks that touched on topics that ran the gamut from neurochemistry to techniques to develop ideas. The seminars were presented by some of BBDO’s top luminaries, including Andy Wilson, Head of Strategy, Asia of BBDO and Proximity, Singapore; Suthisak Sucharittanonta, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer of BBDO and Proximity Thailand; David Guerrero, Creative Chairman of BBDO Guerrero and Proximity Philippines; Ronald Ng, Chief Creative Officer of BBDO and Proximity Singapore; and Chris Thomas, Chairman and CEO of BBDO Asia, Middle East and Africa and Chairman of Proximity Worldwide, who chaired this year’s Young Lotus Workshop.

On the final day of AdFest Thomas hosted an excellent seminar for all AdFest delegates that lead to introducing the four teams selected by BBDO as finalists. Each team presented to the entire room at AdFest and the winner was announced at the final awards gala that night. All four concepts were very good and it created much debate amongst delegates over which was the best.

Yi-Jung Shi and Sz-Hui Liu from Dentsu (Taiwan) Inc. in Taipei, won the Young Lotus trophy. Solmi Park and Hyojeong Kang of Cheil Worldwide in Seoul, Korea won the Young Lotus delegates popular vote. The other two finalist teams were James O’Sullivan and Adam Barnes from DDB in Auckland, New Zealand; and Jason Yu and Clara Ho from Leo Burnett in Hong Kong.

On the previous evening BBDO’s Chris Thomas hosted a special dinner for his senior people at AdFest to thank them for all their hard work co-ordinating the workshop. CB was lucky enough to be invited along. It was a great night (see pics below).