SINGAPORE — Asia’s oldest and most prestigious Festival of Creativity, Spikes Asia, kicked off with agencies from Asia Pacific vying for metals that benchmark creative and effective communications. Ahead of the show, the curated program has provided a platform for delegates to learn, network, and compete.
Beyond the collective of brands and agencies, this year has seen more participation from brands and companies. Sharing in an exclusive interview with adobo Magazine, LIONS Chief Executive Officer Simon Cook talked about the influence of brands at the Spikes Asia and what makes it unique as the collision where meaningful conversations on the future of creativity happen.
adobo Magazine: 2024 is the year with the most brands joining the Spikes. What does this signify in terms of their influence in the creative world?
Simon Cook: It’s a really positive shift that we’re seeing in Spikes. We’re seeing more CMOs and more marketers engaging with what we’re about, which is creativity. More importantly, creativity that drives business growth. Similar to Cannes, we’re seeing more and more clients turning up because they want to understand how to use creativity as a lever for growth in their businesses. That’s what we’re here to learn.
Was that a strategic move — to have more brands in — from a business point of view?
Like Cannes Lions, our core is creativity; we will never move away from that. The Lions, especially, and the Spikes will always stand for creativity, but there are increasingly different players in the mix. Everyone benefits when we help marketers connect creativity with the boardroom.
How does the focus on brands impact creatives and people behind the work?
There’s room for everyone to play. It’s in the creatives’ interest to have clients educate them on the power of creativity, but at Cannes Lions and Spikes, we have dedicated forums for creatives.
With all the new categories forming with emerging media, would you say there is any category that has significantly declined over the years? What makes them still relevant at Spikes?
The ones that automatically spring to mind are the traditional and channel-based categories. For obvious reasons, we’ve seen a decline in print and publishing in the last few years. Still, new categories are emerging at Cannes Lions and Spikes, so we have a gaming category this year, celebrating creativity in gaming, which is very exciting.
Underpinning all that is the growth in creative effectiveness, which is a good sign. It means that the creatives and the marketers are engaging with measuring the best creative for its merit and whether it actually performed in the market.
With that element of creative effectiveness, do you think it’s already ingrained in the jury that that is a key criterion?
I think they will always focus on the big idea and pay attention to the craft and execution, especially in this region, but they also want to understand whether it did the thing it set out to do: achieve its objectives. Those two things, in combination, are considered before they award a Spike.
The term “festival of creativity” has attracted ad agencies, multinational networks, and media agencies over the years. Do you see that the profile of entrants has shifted? Where does it extend beyond that?
We firmly believe, and always have, that creativity can come from anywhere. Back when we first launched in the 50s, the first category was TV and cinema. We now have 30 different Lions recognizing everything from craft, creativity, comms, commerce, business transformation, and ecommerce. That’s the case at Spikes as well.
The nature of the work is changing — it’s becoming more complex, it’s becoming richer, and more reliant on collaborations between different parties.
What are the challenges and opportunities in the industry and where is it heading?
We try to champion the role of creativity and how it can drive our businesses forward. At Cannes Lions and also here, we put a big emphasis on creative impact. The festival at Cannes this year has a whole content track dedicated to that, designed to give people the ammunition to make the case for creativity: the evidence, data, and stats that they need to be able to lobby for future investment in what we do.
We believe it’s better for business, for society, and people when creativity thrives.
Cannes has built its reputation and is the benchmark in the world as the festival to be in and has global representation. Do you see that as an ambition for Spikes?
I think it’s a huge opportunity and very encouraging that the jurors who give their time to judge the work are seeing an elevation in the work and that the quality is improving. They’re noticing that Asia is upping their game when it comes to creativity and creative effectiveness, and we look forward to seeing how that progresses over the next few years.
Connection, community, and purpose are some of the values that you hold at the festival, but there’s also the aspect of excellence, which determines what makes the cut, what wins the medal. How do you integrate all of these into one environment at Spikes Asia? And what difference do you see this year?
By having creativity at the heart of it. If we continue to have creativity at the core of what we do, it will attract different players for different reasons, but they would love to convene and talk about the role of creativity in our industry. That connection, that learning, and that excellence all collide in one place, and that’s where the most exciting conversations happen about the future of our industry as well.
adobo magazine is an official media partner of Spikes Asia 2024.
