Euro Thai doubles win with top Adfest award

Thailand took home the coveted Best Film award at the 7th Asia-Pacific Advertising Festival (AP Adfest), beating 993 entries in the TVC category from 45 cities around the region. Bangkok-based Euro RSCG Flagship won the top award for its 'Kill Bill Kill Bill' spot, for Soken DVD players, and repeated its performance at Media's Asian Advertising Awards, where the TVC took Best of the Best honours, along with sister spot 'Titititanic'. 'Kill Bill Kill Bill' also won the popular vote award. The film category produced 20 bronze, eight silver and five gold awards. While two of the five gold awards went to Euro RSCG, Ogilvy & Mather Kuala Lumpur, Dentsu Inc Tokyo and D-Try Inc Tokyo received one gold each. In the print category, the TBWA network led the awards tally with a total of nine Crystal Lotus Awards; TBWA Singapore accounting for six of them. Following closely was BBDO Singapore with seven awards. A total of 20 bronze, eight silver and only two gold awards were given in the print category. TBWA won the Best of Print for its work in Singapore for Sphere Action Figures' 'As real as it gets' campaign and also scooped the only two golds given out in the print category for the same advertisement. TBWA's Tokyo arm scooped the Best of Outdoor for the Adidas 'Vertical Football' campaign. For the first time, outdoor was judged as a separate category -- sponsorsed by JCDecaux Thailand -- from print. Outdoor attracted almost 800 entries. The category's haul included four gold, six silver and 37 bronze outdoor awards. Other gold awards went to Leo Burnett advertising Kuala Lumpur, M&C Saatchi Singapore and Dentsu Tokyo. Commenting on the quality of entries this year, Tham Khai Meng, chairman of the judging committee and vice-chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Asia-Pacific, said: "The majority of the best work has been very visually-driven. I hope to see a return to 'copy-driven creative' in the future." Singapore took the mantle from Thailand as the country with the most awards, winning 53 of the 117 given out this year. The latter stood second with 21, while Tokyo came third in the tally with 16 awards.BBDO Singapore led the agencies, boasting 12 awards in total, while TBWA Singapore and O&M Singapore tied with 10 awards each. Dentsu Tokyo came fourth with seven awards. A total of 3,308 entries were filed this year, an increase of 24 per cent over the last year.