The 7th China Advertising Festival, held in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province
from October 18-22 crowned the "Fried Bread Stick Bone" print ad as the
overall winner of the awards. The advertisement for a calcium tablet
holds that your bones will turn into a soggy fried bread stick, popular
as a breakfast favorite all over China, if you don't resort to calcium
support.
In minimalist fashion the ad, created by local advertising agency Guilin
Huadun Advertisement Planning, shows a fried breadstick, which
characteristically has the shape of a bone.
"At this year's advertising festival there were quite a few inspiring
and great ideas," says J Walter Thompson/Bridge China executive creative
director, China Lo Sheung Yan, who was on the judging panel for the
second year running.
"Local talent is showing great promise by using a local simple story to
show what the product is about. The bread stick, which everyone in China
knows and which really comes from local culture, is a very good
example," said Mr Lo.
The now annual advertising awards, which were held in Wuxi for the
second year running, saw a total of 1,760 entries come in from across
the country, including 1,166 entries for the category print, 468 for
audio visual and 126 for radio.
In total, nine golden medals were awarded, 30 silver and 78 bronze
medals.
He Qiyuan, director of the training department of the China Advertising
Association and vice secretary general and office director of the
Organising Committee of the 7th China Advertising Festival, said,
"Overall there was a great improvement in (the) quality of entries,
while local advertising companies show promise to catch up to
international levels within the next two years."
Reflecting the industry, general print showed a higher standard than
cash-intensive TV commercials, while government-promoted public welfare
commercials figured prominently.
Three gold prizes for television commercials were awarded. Gold for the
consumer product category went to a "Nike Heart Beat" by J Walter
Thompson/Bridge, gold for the public welfare category went to "Happy
Spring Festival" by Beijing Sang Xia Advertising and the category
Dotcom/various went to "Soim.Com" by Pacesetter Pictures International
(PPI).
Five categories were awarded in the print sector. Corporate Image was
won by "CoolBid.com" by Euro RSCG Partnership, Health Care products,
Fried Bead Stick Bone" by Guilin Huadun Advertisement Planning, three
public welfare awards went to, "Football Hooligan" by J Walter
Thompson/Bridge, "Education for less well off children" and "Spider Web
Bra" and "Spider Web Underwear", both by Bates Advertising Shanghai.
One gold radio award went to the public welfare category for
"Concentrate on one thing rather than two" by the Transportation
Editorial Department of Henan People's Radio Station.
As a first, the National Youth Advertising Design Awards were held,
where young upcoming talent competed with one another on creating an
advertising campaign in a limited amount of time. Chao Shaojun and Feng
Dapeng from McCann Erickson Guangming, Guangzhou took home the award
after being locked away for 24 hours with the task to develop a campaign
for next year's youth advertising competition.
Said Mr He, "The awards were very well received by the young talents and
they participated in a very enthusiastic way. The awards also open many
opportunities for the winners.
"This year's awards were much more balanced than last year's," Mr Lo
continued, "and it was very much an interactive experience between the
15 judges, 10 from the mainland and five international judges."
Mr Lo said, "Last year was a real experience as the judges were seeing
advertisement in a very different way. This year there was much more
discussion about the advertisement, while a local judges could explain
to us why something would work in Xinjiang for example, while we could
give our international input."
While Wuxi has put in a bid to host the event every other year, for now
it has not been decided where next year's awards will take place. While
there is still much to be done to make the festival an international
event, the first priority is to continue to increase the national
standing of the awards for an industry which incorporates more than
60,000 companies.
Source: CMM Intelligence.
