BANGKOK, THAILAND – Many advertising agencies from different parts of the world submit their campaigns to several global award-giving bodies each year, but is this move fueled by the love of the craft or greed for recognition?
On the Love & Passion Stage during the Adman Symposium 2025 held at the Samyan Mirtrown Hall in Bangkok, Thailand on November 19, 2025, a panel of leading creatives suggested that there is a powerful third element next to love and greed: belief.
Moderated by Phairat Uaphadunglert, Executive Creative Director & Co-Founder, Choojai & Friends, the panel, titled “Is award-winning creativity driven by love or greed?” consisted of Torsak Chuenprapar, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Wolf BKK; Park Wannasiri, Chief Creative Officer, VML Thailand; Damisa Ongsiriwattana, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, SOUR Bangkok; and Anuwat Nitipanont, Chief Creative Officer, YDM Thailand.
While love provides stability for day-to-day work and ambition sharpens and pushes projects further, it is the collective belief in an idea that truly drives work to an award-winning finish line. This belief must be spread throughout the ecosystem: from the creative team to the account managers, and, crucially, to the client.
“I don’t know if great work comes from love, desire, or greed. For me, it comes from belief. When we believe something is good, we push it to the end,” Damisa said.
The true value of awards
Awards are often seen as a vanity metric, but they serve as a critical, unbuyable benchmark of genuine excellence in a highly commercialized world. An award must be earned and is a recognition of real quality.
Awards set standards, raise the bar, and allow agencies to test their work against local, regional, and global excellence.
Which forces them to answer every dimension of the brief, not just creativity.
In addition, awards attract new clients and top talent, as marketers actively look up agency rankings before choosing partners. Furthermore, clients also grow with the award process. Awards also become a “scoreboard” that shows who’s improving, who’s consistent, and who’s setting the standard.
The problem-first philosophy
Award-winning work begins not with the desire to win awards, but with the client’s real-world problem. The work must solve the client’s issue first.
As stated by Anuwat: “When a client comes with a problem, no one starts by thinking about winning awards. The first thought is how to solve the problem.”
The path to excellence, therefore, is not paved by love or greed, but by a powerful belief in the work’s ability to solve a client’s problem in a brave, effective, and unconventional way. The trophy is simply the final validation that the work was truly strong.
By making the invisible parts of the creative job visible, awards stand as the indispensable benchmark for the future of the industry — consistently forcing a higher standard from everyone involved.
adobo Magazine is an official media partner of the Adman Awards & Symposium 2025.
