SINGAPORE – Day 2 of Spikes 2014 brought with it the expected series of talks by industry superstars, as well as the first batch of much-awaited shortlists leading up to Friday night’s Awards ceremony.
For the categories of Design, Digital, Healthcare, Innovation, Media, Mobile, Outdoor, PR, and Print, the Philippines laid claim to 19 shortlisted entries in total, while Australia ruled the overall tally, with 107, followed closely by China and New Zealand’s counts of 88 and 75, respectively. Case studies of shortlisted entries are available for viewing at the Spikes convetion hall, and winners will be announced on September 26 at the Marina Bay Sands Grand Theater.
The second day of Spikes began proper with “Creating Effective Brand Communication … through Collaboration between Creativity, Media and Innovation”, by Havas Chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré. The industry veteran stressed not only the benefits to be reaped from pooling resources and knowledge, but common mistakes to avoid when attempting such alignment models. “If you manage to get everything together, you will have a winning machine,” said Bollore.
R/GA EVP and co-author of ‘Connected by Design’ Barry Wacksman’s talk centered on the “Transformation” happening in four key areas that are directly affecting the marketing and advertising industry: Clients, Work, Agencies, and Data.
The R/GA seminar was followed by Lowe Profero’s seminar on the rise of micro-innovations across the globe, with a focus on Asia, which is leading the way for such endeavors dude to its “relentless” passion to improve. “In Asia, it’s more about micro-innovation – taking a successful idea and changing incrementally to create a more powerful one, a potentially more economical way to succeed,” said Lowe Profero global CEO Wayne Arnold.
Joining Arnold onstage was DFS Luxury Retail marketing EVP Winnie Park, who credited consumers as the driving force behind the surge of micro-innovation. “The perfect consumer experience isn’t static, which is why we (the consuer) have to micro-innovate,” said Park.
Award winning creative Hanyi Lee of The Secret Little Agency looked to ruffle a few feathers in her “The Truth Is…” seminar when she declared, “I hate the word, ‘innovation’,” citing that its overuse had robbed the nounof much of its power. “I don’t know what people really mean when they say it, and I don’t know what people take out of it when I say it…“We need to take the word off its pedestal and have an honest conversation about it.”
Keeping with her seminar’s name, Lee maintained that true innovation was only possible in the presence of truth, citing the likes of Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg as true innovators, whose tendencies to be brutally honest had helped shape the world.
“The most innovative people weren’t afraid to tell the truth. It might piss people off, but innovators are honest,” said Lee.
After lunch, Twitter Inc’s head of global brands Meliss Yates spoke on the brand of #live storytelling that has enabled the microblogging platform to become an unqualified social networking success. A case study she presented centered around Anheuser-Busch’s #ManOfTheMatch promotion that saw football fans participate in a real time marketing activity while taking in the thrills of the then-ongoing FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
Y&R global planning head Sandy Thompson took to the Spikes stage to convince delegates of the need to “Resist the Usual” to cater to modern consumers’ inherent refusal to accept brands at face value or by USP alone.
“Brands need to stop worrying about what makes them different, and think about what makes them interesting,” she said, citing the fall of the music industry as an example of what can happen when outmoded ideas are clung to, while citing television, which has actively embraced new technology, as being more popular today than it has ever been.
As the morning seminars progressed, and all through the afternoon, the inaugural Innovation category broke more new ground with a series of public presentations and demonstrations of shortlisted entries by their creators while being grilled by their jury.
Spikes Day 2 continued on well into the wee hours, as delegates and speakers alike got their party groove on in Networking After Dark.
