The Ad Stars Awards opened for entries in March with a deadline of May 15 and a cash prize of US$10,000 for the Grand Prix winners. It’s free to enter.
It has now chosen its first executive judges – Toby Talbot, chief creative officer of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand and Wooh Hoh, chief creative officer of Hakuhodo Asia Pacific.
Talbot will oversee the Diverse Insights, Outdoor, Public Service Advertising, Place Brand, Radio & Audio categories.
“I’m really excited to attend AdStars for the first time,” he commented, “a global festival based in a part of the world I’ve never visited before. Asia has long been the centre of tech and innovation. But how it’s colliding with creativity in fascinating ways right now has me really intrigued. I’m also keen to find out first hand why Ad Stars has become one of the fastest growing creative festivals in the world. Bring on the case studies I say. Just make them mercifully short please!”
Originally from the UK, Talbot has made a phenomenal contribution to New Zealand’s reputation for advertising brilliance over the past 20 years working at Colenso, DDB, TBWA, Assignment and Saatchi. Highlights include nearly a decade at Colenso BBDO, where he helped to put the agency on the map creatively in the early 2000s. Next, he transformed the fortunes of DDB New Zealand, winning Campaign Brief Agency of the Year four of his five years in charge. After returning to the UK in 2012 briefly to run Y&R, he came back to the southern hemisphere and oversaw a complete creative renaissance at DDB Sydney, before returning to New Zealand last year. He is now back at Saatchi New Zealand on a mission to take the agency back to the very top in New Zealand.
Talbot was named Campaign Asia’s Creative of the Year for Australia and New Zealand in 2011, and has won Campaign Brief Agency of the Year ten times across three agencies. He led DDB Sydney to become the most awarded Australian agency at Cannes in 2016 with 12 lions.
Hoh oversee the Direct, Media, Promotion, PR, Data Insights, Social & Influencer categories. He has won countless awards for Hakuhodo’s Asia-Pacific team at festivals including the London International Awards, AdFest and Cannes.
“I think it is great to see a festival like Ad Stars that is free to enter, open to the general public, as well as being a not-for-profit,” he commented.
“It’s a unique model, and I’m looking forward to experiencing Ad Stars for the first time in August.”
Since graduating in 1992 from the Graphic Design School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Hoh has emerged as one of Asia’s most formidable talents. Under his leadership as regional executive creative director at Hakuhodo Indonesia, the agency was always among the top three agencies in the country. Now based in Bangkok, Hoh is bringing the same creative drive to Hakuhodo’s offices in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.
Hwan Jin Choi, chair of the Ad Stars Executive Committee, stated, “It is an honour to welcome Woon Hoh and Toby Talbot as our first Executive Judges of 2018. They are both extremely accomplished creatives based in very different parts of the world, and together their expertise will help us set AD STARS apart as a global festival, based in Asia, which has a unique philosophy based on a spirit of openness and sharing.”
Everything you need to know to enter Ad Stars is here:
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