The event marked the first time that non-creative agency personnel have taken part in a D&AD workshop of this kind. The initiative was sparked by Burnett regional creative director Linda Locke, who had attended a training workshop in Scotland for global creative directors, and subsequently worked with D&AD deputy director of training Layra Woodroffe to bring the workshop to Asia.
Michelle Kristula-Green, president of Leo Burnett Asia-Pacific, said: "The key aim of the workshop was to bring Burnetters 'out of their chairs and stretch', literally...Creativity is the driving force across all departments within our network, not just the creative department."
Kristula-Green, along with the managing directors of Burnett Greater China, Malaysia, Beijing, Burnett M&T Vietnam, as well as planning directors and executive creative directors from various Asia-Pacific locations, attended the event.
Highlights of the workshops included a project, led by poet/artist Brian Catling, requiring participants to create a "psychological and physical extension of oneself", and a session of installation art, conducted by Andrew Shoben. In the words of Rajeev Sharma, Burnett's national planning director, India, "(Shoben's) thinking has the potential to take ambient media to another level."
D&AD invests £1.5 million (US$2.7 millon) a year in educational programmes for creative personnel, events, exhibitions and seminars.