MANILA, PHILIPPINES — This year, I had a front row seat to the evolution of new forms of creativity from the jury rooms of the world’s most prestigious advertising award shows. The inclusion of Entertainment and Gaming as categories proves that these industries continue to grow and change the way our audience consumes content. The ideas that seamlessly seeped into culture won the year.
Each jury duty gave me the chance to learn from the best in the industry. As we dissected the entries and selected the work that would become this year’s benchmark for excellence, we also exchanged cultural insights, life stories, and industry gossip. In the end, I didn’t just return home with a list of winning insights, but with a list of great friends.
I hope this collection of intel and ideas I’ve gathered from jury rooms around the world helps you prepare as you enter your work in these exciting categories for 2025.
Spikes Asia 2024
Before Entertainment, Gaming, and Music became three separate categories, they were all under one jury at Spikes Asia. I was fortunate (and admittedly a bit pressured) to serve as the president for the inaugural Entertainment, Gaming, and Music jury. In the room were experts from all three fields: Chris Chen from Dentsu Creative China, Mansha Tandon from Google India, Seamus Higgins from R/GA Australia, Lulu Lu from Wunderman Thompson Taiwan, and David Lister from Fuse APAC. It was refreshing to see work submitted by gaming giants, tech platforms, and even K-pop icons like NewJeans. The jury ultimately fell in love with beautifully crafted work that told stories in a way never seen before.
Grand Prix for Gaming: Unbranded Menu
Grand Prix for Entertainment: Perfect Days
Visit the campaign site here. (I urge that you please experience this scrolling digital book for Perfect Days The Movie.)
WHAT THE JURY LIKED: Innovative approaches to storytelling
WHAT THE JURY DISLIKED: “Lazy marketing” — relying on tried-and-true channels for predictable results
ADC 103rd Annual Awards 2024
Each jury experience is unique. After my time at Spikes Asia, I followed up by serving as Jury President for the ADC 104th Annual Awards Gaming category. Unlike the close-knit group at Spikes, the ADC jury had 18 judges, bringing together people who typically wouldn’t want to be in the same room: advertising professionals and game developers. Among them were Sandro Gelashvii from Google Creative Works, Rogerio Chaves from DAVID São Paulo, Daniel Koller from Seven.One AdFactory GmbH, Poornima Seetharaman from Take Two – Zynga, Jeffrey Yohalem from Ubisoft, and Matt Redway from PlayStation Studios. My role was to manage the debates as we consistently ran over time, and it often felt like I was in a battle royale. The divide between marketing and gaming had never felt more obvious to me. If there was one thing we all agreed on (after a lengthy discussion), it is this piece of work from Google:
ADC103 Best of Gaming: Google Playground
WHAT THE JURY LIKED: Ideas that authentically understood gamers.
WHAT THE JURY DISLIKED: Brands that disrupted gameplay.
WHAT THE GAMING JURY DISLIKED: Brands in games, period.
D&AD 2024
It was my fourth time judging at D&AD and my second time in the Gaming category. While it was said to be the toughest creative show in the world, the system felt the most familiar to me. I was also relieved to sit behind a brilliant jury president, Malcolm Poynton from Cheil Worldwide, who has several gaming wins under his belt. We gathered at the historic Southbank Centre in London, joined by Stephanie Ijoma from NNESaga, Alemsah Ozturk from 4129 Grey, Byron Rex Phillipson from Leopard, Juliana Utsch from Gut São Paulo, and Laurel Stark Akman, who was formerly with The Sims. D&AD mandates that judges select only the very best, so we were ruthless, ultimately awarding a single Yellow Pencil to the work we felt truly deserved it.
D&AD Yellow Pencil for Gaming
Watch the full case study for “Doritos Silent” at https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2024/238965/doritos-silent/.
The D&AD Annual is a fantastic, and more importantly, free showcase for anyone who wants to view and be inspired by the 2024 winners. The jury insights panel offers an in-depth look at how the judges analyze entries and select the winners – making it an invaluable guide for those planning to submit work for D&AD 2025.
Entertainment and Gaming Jury Insights Panel
Watch the full jury panel discussion at https://www.dandad.org/annual/2024/editorial/jury-insights-entertainment.
WHAT THE JURY LIKED: Groundbreaking ideas amplified by gaming fandoms.
WHAT THE JURY DISLIKED: One-off, advertising-driven gimmicks.
LIA 2024
Awards categories are often reflections of the evolution happening in the industry. Nowhere was this more evident than in the jury I served on at LIA. What started as Creativity in the Metaverse became Evolution and Creative Use of Data in 2024. While the category continues to shift, many of the judges were LIA old-timers: Kaleeta McDade from VML Global, Lewis Tutssel from Reddit, Carren O’Keefe from Digital UK, Jimmy Smith from APE, Dom Heinrich from Creative AI, Toan Nguyen from Jung von Matt NERD, Lucia Orlandi from TBWA\MAL, Fred Raillard from [Ai]magination, Tiffany Rolfe from R/GA Global, Jouke Vuurmans from The Monks, and our jury president, Yasu Sasaki from Dentsu Global. We resisted the Las Vegas party atmosphere and were dubbed the “most thorough jury in LIA,” finishing at 8:00 pm, just in time to be fashionably late to the after-party. We were generous with six Golds, but this particular piece of work had the most impact on me – it changed the way I look at Excel sheets. To this day, I still ask our finance team if we can make our sheets look like this.
Gold for Creative Use of Data: Spotify Spreadbeats
WHAT THE JURY LIKED: Ideas that transformed boring data into captivating work
WHAT THE JURY DISLIKED: Case films with confusing data
The Kancil Awards 2024
I capped off my year with an invitation to serve as jury president for the first-ever Entertainment Kancils. It was a genuine treat, as I had never been to Malaysia and had always been curious about their creative community – and, admittedly, their food. I led an interesting jury of Kancil first-timers. It was the possibly the youngest and most diverse – with Jenhan Kuah, a comedian and creative director from Chariot; Jenn Chia, Malaysia’s top influencer; Jasmine Tan, a strategist from TikTok; Hazmer Wan, who leads Metronomik, one of the top gaming companies in Malaysia; and Vix Chandra, ECD at DDB Naga. We awarded four Golds, for a show said to be tougher than Cannes, in order to encourage work that pushes beyond traditional advertising. Our favorite was this documentary about Joe Flizzow, the godfather of Malaysian hip-hop, showcasing how a brand like Hotlink has supported talent and by doing so, became part of Malaysian music.
Grand Prix for Entertaintment: This is Johan by Hotlink
WHAT THE JURY LIKED: Work that showcased Malaysian creativity on the world stage
WHAT THE JURY DISLIKED: Conventional Malaysian advertising
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joey David Tiempo is the Founder&CEO of the Game and Experience Design Agency, Octopus&Whale. She is an avid gamer, frequent speaker, mentor to young creative entrepreneurs, servant to five cats, and mother to a prodigy. Her latest adventure: Keri Kita, a podcast with her husband to help parents raise responsible gamers.
