The 10th annual Ad Stars festival has kicked off and its final wave of judging is well underway. The three-day festival in Busan, South Korea, is the only international advertising awards show based in Asia.
It has received the highest number of entries in its history this year – 21,530 entries from 56 countries, up from up from 18,063 entries last year. And it recruited 210 online judges from 62 countries who selected just 1,799 finalists from 40 countries in the preliminary judging stage.
Almost 30 final judges (representing 20 countries) arrived in Busan on Monday to vote for this year’s Grand Prix, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Crystal winners, which will be unveiled at the Ad Stars Awards gala this Saturday night, August 26.
A three-day festival includes exhibitions, creativity and ad tech conferences, networking parties, the Young Stars ad competition for university students, and the New Stars ad competition for junior creatives.
“Our 10th anniversary is an important milestone for Ad Stars as the festival comes of age. We’re proud to say the number of entries has dramatically increased every year for the last 10 years, and we look forward to building on this growth over the next 10 years,” stated Eui-Ja Lee, co-chairperson of the Ad Stars executive committee.
“Ad Stars is a non-profit organisation that highly values social good, unlike some other award shows that pursue profit. Based on the spirit of openness and sharing, there is no entry fee. Ad Stars is not only for creatives, but also for anyone who loves advertising. We celebrate diversity and strive to create a new paradigm as a festival that sits at the juncture of creativity and technology,” noted Hwan-Jin Choi, co-chairperson of the Ad Stars executive committee.
Ad Stars has also partnered with AFAA (Asian Federation of Advertising Associations), and will host the AFAA Forum during this year’s festival. AFAA members will meet to discuss the future development strategy of the Asian advertising industry.
The festival’s day one highlights included an industry keynote from Young Jay Paik, Google Korea, followed by a panel discussion between Jonathan Lee, YDM Group; Shin Murakami, Yahoo Japan; and Yuxin Cao, Baidu Search Company in China. Presentations were made by Val Link from SXSW and Minhwa Lee, from KCERN; followed by Kyoungjun Lee, Kyung Hee University and Dennis Hong, UCLA.
You might also like
