Spikes Asia 2012, Asia’s creative advertising festival and awards show held in Singapore, has just wrapped up recognizing the year’s best efforts in creativity and commercial content from some of the world’s fastest growing ad markets. BBDO and Proximity was there in full force, both to present thought-provoking keynote insights to help advance the industry overall and to be recognized for client work from markets across the region.

In a compelling keynote during the conference, BBDO Worldwide President and CEO Andrew Robertson posed the question “Would Dickens Tweet? and stressed the timeless importance of storytelling. In addition, Chris Thomas, chairman and CEO of BBDO Asia, Middle East and Africa, delivered a jury president’s address on the effectiveness and economic return of great creative, highlighting that creatively awarded works are 11 times more likely to build market share for brands.

To top it all off, BBDO was named Network of the Year as twelve of the network’s agencies won 46 awards including a Grand Prix, 11 Golds, 20 Silvers, 13 Bronzes and one Spike.

Jean-Paul Burge, South East Asia President of BBDO Worldwide, and Danny Searle, Vice Chairman of BBDO Asia, were on hand for all of the festivities. Here is their first-hand accounts of what stood out for them:

JP Burge, South East Asia President & CEO Singapore

Spikes, the top creative competition in Asia has come to a close. 1800 delegates. 4500 entries. One Network of the Year – BBDO. Here is what stood out for me. We heard about the importance of storytelling in changing people’s behavior from Andrew Robertson, “I do believe Dickens’s would have tweeted”. From James Thompson, our Guinness client, we heard about the importance of these stories being authentic if they are to lead to brands being respected and loved. And how technology is at the forefront of this drive towards authenticity, put simply ‘Social Media keeps you honest’. From our friends at Microsoft we heard about the importance of creating serendipity for consumers to ‘find’ out brand messages. And, as usual, the challenges of finding talent in emerging markets was ever present and is as relevant today as ever. Most of all the work stood out. We are a big region and we face our own distinct set of challenges, regardless of which there was much great work from many great agencies. And we beat them all.

Danny Searle, Vice Chairman, BBDO Asia

For the first time, this year I thought the quality of work that won at Spikes truly reached World Class. And although we’d all seen a lot of the work in Cannes a few months ago, it was nice to see some new work arrive on the scene and win on the day. This year there was some really great stuff from Japan. All so beautifully crafted. In fact, my favorite piece in the whole Spikes show this year was Energiser commercial with the little organ donating robot and the dying doll. I believe it should have  won in Direction too. And the Audience’s Choice on the night? Well, that award definitely goes to the Morphy Richards Juicers ad “Corruption”.