Spikes Asia Advertising Festival, the regional event for creative excellence in advertising and communications, is pleased to announce two more top industry creatives that will head to Singapore to take up the role as Jury Presidents. Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer of AKQA will head this year’s Digital Jury and William Rosen, President and Chief Creative Officer – North America of Arc Worldwide will chair the Direct and Promo Jury.
“We look forward to welcoming and working with Bill and Rei at Spikes this year. Highly respected individuals with impressive backgrounds, their knowledge in their respective fields will be extremely valuable to the awards and to the region,” said Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions who with Haymarket are joint organisers of the Festival.
Named in Creativity Magazine’s annual “Creativity 50,” Rei Inamoto is one of the most influential individuals in the marketing and creative industry today. With a broad international experience in Asia, Europe and the US, as well as an unusual combination of background in advertising, design and technology, Rei brings a unique perspective to his work.
As Chief Creative Officer of AKQA, Rei is responsible for delivering creative solutions for the agency’s clients such as Nike, Xbox, McDonald’s and Visa. Since joining the agency in 2004, his presence has been instrumental in bringing AKQA the highest recognitions. In the last several years, AKQA received multiple ‘Agency of the Year’ accolades from various industry publications. It was also selected as one of the Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies among Apple and Google. Most recently in January 2010, Advertising Age honoured AKQA as one of the top Ten Agencies of the Decade.
Originally from Tokyo, Rei spent his childhood and teenage years in Japan and Europe. He then went to the US to complete his university studies with degrees in fine arts and computer science.
Commenting on his appointment, Rei Inamoto, said, “In the last five years, our industry has changed more so than it did in the previous 50 years. One thing that caused – forced – that change is Digital. I’m extremely honoured and proud to be the President of such a dynamic and influential category at Spikes Asia in 2010.”
William Rosen is President and Chief Creative Officer of North America for Arc Worldwide, a global marketing company and part of Leo Burnett Worldwide and the Publicis Group. He is responsible for the creative product across all Arc disciplines – digital, direct, promotion and shopper/retail marketing – for clients including McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Nestlé Purina, Comcast, Walgreen’s, United Airlines, Whirlpool and MillerCoors.
William took the top creative spot at Arc in 2004, when Frankel, a leading activation agency he headed as chief creative, merged into Arc Worldwide. Since then, his team has been recognised more than 300 times with major creative awards and rankings around the world including “Best Global Promotion”, “Best New Media”, “Best Multidiscipline Campaign”, several “Best in Show” awards, and three Lions at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
Widely recognised as one of the leaders in cross-channel marketing and activation, William has been bringing marketing disciplines together in innovative ways since he served as vice president, group creative director for the McDonald’s and General Motors businesses at Frankel. His background in digital, direct, promotion and shopper/retail marketing uniquely positions him to lead the creative and strategic development of true cross-channel solutions.
William Rosen, said of his appointment, “It is an honour to chair this important jury at Spikes Asia. The ability to leverage insights about individuals to create incentives for involvement is quickly becoming the new creative currency. Certainly, one of the best places to glimpse that future is judging Asia’s best direct and promotion activation work.”
