BANGKOK, JUNE 11, 2013 – Filipinos Katrina Encanto and EJ Galang, based in Bangkok and working for Lowe and Partners, have bagged Ad Age’s fourth annual cover contest with their entry “Portrait of a Creative in the Digital Age”.
Ad Age’s contest is a yearly event that challenges young creatives worldwide to vie for the honor of designing the magazine’s annual Creativity Issue cover. In addition to their entry being feted on the magazine’s cover, the pair also won a trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the yearly prize contest winners earn. They also have work entered at Cannes; their ads for Unilever’s Knorr and Sunlight brands are in contention for Lions in poster and press.
“Portrait of a Creative in the Digital Age” represents a humanoid creature whose face is constructed from brightly hued paper cubes that appear to be about to explode. Encanto’s and Galang’s entry bested over 300 other entries in this year’s contest, including 11 other finalists from Canada, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Galang and Encanto in their own words
Speaking to adobo Magazine about their inspiration and concept for their winning entry, Galang says that the brief this year was to depict Creativity in 2013, so when the pair first read about it, they knew that they needed to focus on describing “the now”. Encanto adds, “We began by thinking about what has changed between today and, let’s say, 2003 in the creative industry. The internet, for one, opened up a plethora of possibilities with the shift clearly moving towards digital and new media. Creativity is now more open than ever, experimental, uncertain, and participatory in ways that people ten years ago did not foresee.”
Galang adds that they tried different ways to help determine what it meant to be a creative today. “Should it be a commentary with a strong editorial statement? Should it be a proposition to the creatives of today on how to succeed? Or should it be a striking symbol of what creatives are transforming into in this day and age?
"The winning idea was the last one. With this visual, we wanted to capture a symbolic portrait of a creative in the digital age, and the kind of open and forward-thinking mindset that adapts with change. We expressed this idea by creating a head made of moving "pixels" made out of paper cubes, which was superimposed onto a creative’s body. By using paper as pixels, we felt it was a nice ironic way of showing the transition to digital through organic means, which could be open to a number of interpretations. Also, it looked cool!”
When asked about their motivations to enter the Ad Age competition, Galang admits, “Any competition that gives you a free trip to the south of France needs no more prompting than that. It has been our dream to go to Cannes ever since we started in advertising. We’ve always wanted to see the amazing work from across the globe, attend the talks, and learn from world class advertising practitioners.”
Encanto shares, “The wonderful thing about living in this age is that there are so many opportunities for young people to display their talent on a global scale. Likewise, prestigious experiences are opening up and becoming more democratic. It seems like a shame not to take advantage of those. I think both of us have tried many times at these kinds of contests, and we have learned and gained as much from the losses as the wins.”
Both Encanto and Galang hail from the Philippines, starting out as art director and copywriter respectively at Saatchi & Saatchi Manila. They both joined Lowe in March 2012 and currently have regional responsibility for Unilever brands Wall’s ice cream, Treseme hair products and Rexona personal care.
Lowe Bangkok CCO Eric Yeo speaks
Eric Yeo, CCO of Lowe Bangkok had this to say: "It’s hard for me to stay humble about the great news. The duo really makes us proud. I always have confidence in Filipino creatives. Their passion and perseverance are always at there. BBDO, DM9, JWT, TBWA and DDB are all driven by native local creatives. I admire that."
When asked to comment on the creative work the pair had done, Yeo said, "The work from EJ and Katrina was purely based on their initiative… They showed me around 30 ideas, we discussed it for about 10 minutes and we all agreed this idea should be the one. On the execution part, my big deal contribution was "I like it" or "I don’t like it". But of course, our production people played a very important role to make it happen. And this is the vibe now in Lowe Bangkok. One Team, One Agency and One Standard."
On the quality of work Filipino creatives are delivering nowadays, Yeo said, "I’m always connected with Filipino creatives even if I’m in Thailand now. Sometimes we even bounce off ideas online — our thinking are the same, our sources are the same. So to me, we are all the same… I feel that the beauty of the Pinoy creative is they don’t know how good they are, and that makes them more humble and they keep trying."
