Fried bread stick beats off rivals

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.

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