Top creative minds at the 21st Ad Congress

Creativity is the hallmark of advertising. The great thing about it is that anything can inspire us to be creative.

Yet, the signs of a struggling economy are everywhere – the fallout of a financial crunch of worldwide proportions. The priority of businesses these days is to cut down and then persevere until the crisis is over. Given this somber business environment, creativity is challenged to look for new approaches.

The 21st Philippine Advertising Congress (PAC) stirs creativity anew with some of the industry’s top creative minds on November 18 to 21. With the theme “Perspectives: Ano sa tingin mo?”, the congress recognizes how the challenges confronting the advertising industry today have not one, but actually, many solutions.

“We feel the pressure in our global situation,” says 21st PAC chair Margot Torres. “We want to challenge our industry to look at the situation in a multi-dimensional way and not in a linear way, to really look at it from different perspectives.”

Speakers of the creative sessions include some of the brightest creatives in advertising’s local and international circuit.

Japanese talent Kentaro Kimura set up Hakuhodo Kettle creative agency in 2006, continuing since then as the firm’s co-CEO and creative director. Kimura and his group won the 2007 Gold for Advertising Marketing Effectiveness in New York. His flair for innovative campaigns has also won him the gold in the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, SPIKES, New York Art Directors’ Club and CLIO. Kimura will motivate the 21st PAC with a seminar on “How to Boil the World – ‘The Moment’ Brings Power in Branding”.

Richard Fraser recently settled in Singapore as regional managing director of Proximity Worldwide’s Proximity Asia. In 2008, when Fraser was in New Zealand as AIM Proximity’s national planning director, the firm rose to number two among the top 10 direct marketing agencies in the world. Having worked with the some of the world’s leading brands, Fraser will share his expertise on “Getting Creative on Digital”.

Dirk Eschenbacher will inspire the 21st PAC to “Break the Traditional Norms on Creative”. As executive creative director of Tribal DDB Asia Pacific, Eschenbacher creates award-winning campaigns for top local brands in China and Asia as well as for leading international brands.

Mark Cripps is the digital director of McCann Worldgroup, Asia. He is responsible for the award winning digital and online marketing campaigns of such brands as Adobe, France Telecom, Ford, General Motors and Intel. Cripps is currently taking on a more active role in giving back to the advertising industry as speaker and lecturer. His seminar on the 21st PAC is “The Creation of Worth is Worth Creating”.

The creative sessions of the 21st PAC is sure to inspire the industry to look at the brighter side once again, to never lose hope nor inspiration. While the economy is in fact struggling against a crisis, we must look beyond it and find better perspectives with which to face our difficulties.