Crowbar Festival 2014 appoints Edmund Choe chief creative officer, TBWA\Singapore and Southeast Asia as Chairman and Jury President

Crowbar Festival 2014 has named Edmund Choe, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA\Singapore and Southeast Asia as Chairman & Jury President and Gary Steele, Global Creative Director, TBWA\Singapore and Mel du Toit, Regional Creative Director, TBWA\Singapore as Co-Chairs.

Since its inception in 2001, Crowbar is an annual platform for emerging young creatives to showcase their best works. Judged by leading creative practitioners across the five disciplines of Advertising, Design, Photography, Interactive and Film, it has gained regional, and international, recognition in recent years. Crowbar receives an average number of more than 1,000 entries each year from local and overseas tertiary institutions from countries such as Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Germany, Hong Kong and China.

Malaysian-born Choe (pictured above) began in the advertising industry at Adcom and Grey in Singapore. He moved to Batey Ads and then Ogilvy & Mather before starting a long and illustrious era at Saatchi & Saatchi. His first nine years at Saatchi & Saatchi were spent in Singapore in the 90’s – the agency’s “Golden Era” – where in 1997, the agency won the acclaimed Advertising Age ‘Agency of the Year’ title under Choe’s creative leadership with award-winning work for Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Hewlett Packard, Sony, VISA and the Singapore Navy. Choe moved to Kuala Lumpur in 2000 to take on the Executive Creative Director role and rebuild an agency that had been badly affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. During his time there, the agency won ‘Agency of the Year’ four times. In 2005, Choe was made ECD of the Indonesia office as well, which subsequently won Indonesia’s ‘Agency of the Year.’ He has worked on some of the Asia’s most memorable campaigns, most notably Toyota’s ‘Chase’ and ‘Bait’ spots. In 2008, Edmund took on the Regional ECD role for Greater China and was made a member of Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide Creative Board. In May 2011, he joined TBWA\ Greater China as Co-President and Head of Creative. In less than two years, Choe helped to grow the agency into the fifth largest operation within TBWA’s network. The agency saw 220% growth in 2013 alone. TBWA\ Shanghai is now one of the Top 20 Most Effective Agencies in the World and under Choe’s creative leadership; the agency recently won Gold Effies for Adidas Women and McDonald’s ‘Angry Birds’ in China. Choe is one of the most awarded creative directors in Asia, having won many regional and international awards including 18 Cannes Lions. He regularly participates on juries of major award shows, including the Cannes Titanium and Integrated jury in 2009.

Gary Steele is the world’s youngest advertising veteran. He went straight from school into the industry; and hasn’t skipped a day since. His career has seen him practice his craft on three different continents over a span of thirteen years and in that time, his keen eye for classy art direction has spotted some of the world’s most celebrated logos in the bottom right hand corner of his layouts. But the bottom right hand corner is about the only ‘rule’ Steele follows, because what sets him apart from his peers is his burning desire to create advertising that does not resemble advertising. His most awarded work falls into categories beyond the ordinary – and as he will tell you, it’s no coincidence that the same work is also his most effective.

Mel du Toit was raised and educated in Cape Town, and has had the opportunity of living, working, or traveling around all five continents. Before relocating to Singapore, he spent the past 14 years in a low-energy, passive solar house in the woods of Castlecrag, Australia. His leadership roles include ECD tenures at TBWA, Lowe, Publicis Mojo and FCB. In 2001 du Toit started his own agency, which he ran successfully until it was acquired in 2005 by DDB. He has worked across all major brand categories with particular experience on P&G, Singapore Airlines, Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, J&J, Unilever, Citibank, The Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Lexus, Nestlé, ebay, Toyota, HP, Coke, Burger King, Shell and Pernod Ricard. In 2010 du Toit was part of the team that initiated the P&G Vicks Road to Relief Project, which to date has helped vaccinate over 4.5 million kids in developing countries. The project was recognized by UNICEF with an award for Consumer Engagement. He is highly awarded, having won metal in most international award festivals. Currently du Toitl is Global Creative Director on Singapore Airlines at TBWA Group Singapore.

Heads of Jury – Advertising – Ronald Ng, BBDO & Proximity Singapore, Chief Creative Officer. Design – Thomas Yang, DDB Singapore, Deputy Executive Creative Director. Photography – Stefen Chow, Photographer (Beijing). Interactive – Valerie Cheng, JWT Singapore, Chief Creative Officer. Film – Farrokh Madon, Y & R Advertising, Chief Creative Officer

Call for entries – 29 April 2014. Submission deadline – 16 June 2014. Crowbar Marketing Challenge – 1 June 2014 to 15 September 2014. Crowbar 24-Hour Advertising Challenge – 15 September 2014 to 16 September 2014. Crowbar Awards Show – 27 September 2014. The Winner’s Workshop – 4 October 2014.