MANILA PHILIPPINES — At the recently concluded face-off of young creatives from different ad agencies, Enzo Valmonte and James Mendoza of creative agency TBWA\SMP emerged as winners to represent the country in the upcoming Young Spikes Competition.
Ronn Astillas, Chairperson of the Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce, challenged the participants to come up with solutions to further inclusivity in the workplace. “While we appreciate how companies are now more open and supportive of inclusivity, they seem to be clueless on how to go about it,” Ronn said. “Usually, it gets watered down and reduced to the mere use of the perennial rainbow displayed in their ads or Facebook posts.”
The winning duo from TBWA\SMP anchored their idea on the insight that people turn to technology when they want to learn about certain topics, even citing AI assistants, Siri and Alexa, as trusted resources. Thus, they pitched the idea of having an LGBTQ-AI Smart Speaker that acts as a CEO’s personal digital D.E.I. (diversity, equality, and inclusivity) officer.
Powered by Raspberry PI and Mycroft, and supplied with data from the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, it will answer questions pertaining to the LGBT community, even going as far as recommending appropriate employee programs to implement.
Enzo enthused, “Our vision is for the device to be shared by influential CEOs.”
James added, “Those who have it will be given the Pride of Excellence.”
The Kid Spikes Competition also sparked creativity in other young creatives from the industry. Coming in second are the reps from Propel Manila, Emman Milambiling and Sher Samonte, with their “Pride Bible.” Meanwhile, Kyla Caparas and Christine Acuna, also from TBWA\SMP, landed on the third spot.
Aside from Ronn Astillas, the jury was comprised of ECDs and Creative Guild officers, namely,
Havas Ortega’s Angie Tijam-Tohid, who’s also the Creative Guild’s Director for Young Creatives, CJ De Silva-Ong (TBWA\Juice), Biboy Royong (Dentsu Jayme Syfu), Maan Angsalud (DDB MNL), and Bea Pesarillo, partner and strategic planner at Octopus&Whale, who sat in for Joey David-Tiempo.
Angie concluded, “The Kid Competitions is part of the Guild’s thrust to spur creativity in our industry and is very much aligned with the 15th Kidlat Awards’ theme of Creativity Recharged. So far, it seems that we are successful in zapping the zombies out of our creatives.”
Young creatives can also look forward to the upcoming Kid Lotus for AdFest in 2023. Registration will open on January 30 while briefing and submission will be on Feb 02 and 03, 2023.
