Fourteen industry leaders from across APAC will help set the region’s benchmark in creative excellence and effectiveness, Fifty percent female representation sees gender parity in this year’s Jury Presidents
8th April 2020 - Spikes Asia today announces that the Festival will no longer take place in October 2020 as planned. The Festival of Creativity, Spikes Awards and Tangrams Strategy & Effectiveness Awards will be held in 2021 in Singapore and new dates will be announced shortly.
The creative contingent from Sri Lanka stole the limelight at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2019 in Singapore recently, sweeping all facets of the competition – at the student, young professionals, creativity and jury level, bringing glory to Sri Lanka at the biggest festival for marketing communications in Asia Pacific.
Sri Lanka’s name reverberated at the recent Asian advertising awards, Spikes in Singapore, highlighting the country’s prowess in producing the best creative works from their agencies in Colombo.
The eagerly-anticipated Spikes Asia Young Spikes programme returns for its 10th edition. Nine young professionals, and one tertiary students from Sri Lanka’s advertising, PR and design industries will represent the country at the annual Young Spikes 2018 & Cheil Young Creative Academy at Spikes Asia 2018 to be held from 26th to 28th September 2018 at Suntec, Singapore. It is Asia Pacific's most inspiring creative festival - offering three days of learning, inspiration and networking for professionals in creative communications, culminating in a grand awards ceremony.
Eight outstanding young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and two students have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes 2017 & Cheil Young Creative Academy at Spikes Asia 2017 from 27th to 30th September at the Suntec City. These 10 youngsters walked away with key honours at the local competition, where a high standard of competition from the industry was witnessed. The local competitions were conducted in Colombo under the auspices of Metal Factor in partnership with the industry.
Six young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and an under graduate have been selected to represent the country at the annual Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity, which is set to take place in Singapore from 21-23 September 2016. These 3 teams were selected to represent Sri Lanka following the recent Young Spikes Competition which was conducted in Colombo facilitated by Metal Factor in partnership with the industry bodies. These 6 young professionals will now have the opportunity to compete at the regional competition alongside teams from the leading markets in Asia Pacificat the Young Spikes Competitions.
Leo Burnett was the only Sri Lankan agency to be recognized at Spikes Asia 2015.
A team of 10 young creative personnel has been selected to represent Sri Lanka at the annual Young Spikes 2017 and Cheil Young Creative Academy at Spikes Asia 2017 next week in Singapore.
Seven outstanding young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and two young students, have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes Competitions, Young Creative Academy and Spikes Asia Accounts Executive Academy, which will take place at the Spikes Asia Festival 2015 in Singapore from 9 to 11 September 2015.
Friday 24th 2014, Colombo: Leo Burnett Solutions Inc., (LBSI) the local office of the global advertising network Leo Burnett Worldwide, created history by winning the first-ever gold metal for Sri Lanka at Spikes Asia 2014. The highly coveted gold award was won in the Public Relations (PR) category for the ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ which was launched to combat dengue in Sri Lanka. The Spikes Asia Awards brought together over 1,000 delegates from Asia Pacific’s creative community to the Grand Theatre, Marina Bay Sands, for a spectacular four-day celebration of creativity in communications.
Six young professionals and two young students from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry, have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes competition which will take place at the Spikes Asia Festival 2014 in Singapore from 23 to 26 September 2014. Following a local competition conducted by Metal Factor in partnership with the International Advertising Association (IAA), three teams were selected to participate in the Integrated, Media and Digital categories of the Young Spikes Asia competitions. Two students from the Academy of Design were also selected to participate at the Young Creative Academy which will take place at the festival.
ChaniPerera and Induwarani Munasinghe of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) the Sri Lankan office of the internationally acclaimed advertising agency network Leo Burnett Worldwide created history by winning Sri Lanka’s first ever Gold metal at Spikes Asia 2013. The Spikes Asia Awards, the region’s oldest and most prestigious awards for creative advertising took place at the Grand Theatre, Marina Bay Sands with over 1,000 delegates from across Asia Pacific.
Dexter Shadrach and Infas Iqbal of Phoenix O&M (Pvt) Ltd walked away with the Silver metal for the recently held Young Spikes Media Competition, once again highlighting the exciting promise and potential of Sri Lanka’s industry talent. Conducted during the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity which is held annually in Singapore, the competition challenges teams from around the Asia-Pacific region to use their business insight and strategic skills to develop an innovative media strategy and plan.
Spikes Asia is the most revered advertising award ceremony in Asia Pacific, where creativity in communications is recognized and rewarded. This annual festival held in Singapore, brings together the leaders from the marketing communications industry for three days of learning, and sharing experiences and to be rewarded for outstanding work. Leo Burnett Sri Lanka triumphed at this year’s awards ceremony by winning two Silver and one Bronze metals at Spikes Asia and was the only Sri Lankan agency to gain such a recognition.
Another first for Sri Lanka at the Spikes Asia Festival was the selection of Pubudini Wellage of the University of Moratuwa to attend the Spikes Asia Creative Academy at an exclusive learning opportunity availed to 15 students from the Asia Pacific region.
28 October 2021 - Spikes Asia has announced the fourteen industry leaders set to judge Asia Pacific’s most prestigious creative communications awards. For the first time, gender parity has been reached and Spikes Asia has the strongest female representation across its Jury Presidents in its 35 editions.
This year’s Jury Presidents come from across the region including China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India and The Philippines, as well as from a mix of disciplines from throughout the industry.
Speaking about this year’s Jury Presidents, Philip Thomas, Chairman, Spikes Asia, said, “It’s an exciting time for Spikes Asia as we incorporate the Tangrams Awards to create the definitive benchmark for both creative excellence and marketing strategy and effectiveness across Asia-Pacific. This collection of outstanding talent is representative of the evolved Spikes Asia Awards and we are delighted to have them all onboard.”
The Jury Presidents will judge work in 24 awards categories, including in the three newly launched Spikes - Strategy & Effectiveness, Creative Data and Social & Influencer - which are in response to the shifting creative trends across the region.
The 2022 Jury Presidents are announced as follows:
Brand Experience & Activation and Creative eCommerce Jury President
Natalie Lam, Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Groupe, APAC, MEA
Creative Effectiveness Jury President
Michaela Lyon, Integrated Client Lead, Dentsu, Hong Kong
Design and Industry Craft Jury President
Paul Chan, Chief Creative Officer, Cheil Worldwide, Hong Kong
Direct and Outdoor Jury President
David Guerrero, Creative Chair, BBDO Guerrero, The Philippines
Entertainment and Music Jury President
Kazoo Sato, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA\Hakuhodo, Japan
Film, Print & Publishing and Radio & Audio Jury President
Paul Nagy, Chief Creative Officer, VMLY&R AUNZ, Australia and New Zealand
Film Craft Jury President
Sneha Iype, Partner, Executive Producer, Nirvana Films, India
Healthcare Jury President
Wendy Chan, Chief Creative Officer, Edelman, China
Innovation and Creative Data Jury President
Emad Tahtouh, Principal - Creative Technology, Deloitte, Australia
Media Jury President
Kasper Aakerlund, Regional President, UM, APAC
Mobile and Digital Craft Jury President
Jean Lin, Executive Officer, Dentsu Group Inc., China
PR Jury President
Shouvik Prasanna Mukherjee, Chief Creative Officer, Asia Pacific, Golin, Asia Pacific
Social and Influencer Jury President
Tea Uglow, IC, Creative Lab, Google, Australia
Strategy & Effectiveness Jury President
Anupama Biswas, Senior Director, Analytics & Insight - APAC Lead, The Coca-Cola Company, Asia Pacific
Key awards information:
The Jury Presidents and their juries will convene remotely to judge the work in February 2022 with the winners of the Spikes Asia Awards announced on 3 March 2022. ‘Spikes Asia x Campaign Asia: The Experience’ is also set to return from 1-3 March 2022 and more information on the hybrid event will be released later in the year. Interested delegates are welcome to register their interest here.
The creative contingent from Sri Lanka stole the limelight at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2019 in Singapore recently, sweeping all facets of the competition – at the student, young professionals, creativity and jury level, bringing glory to Sri Lanka at the biggest festival for marketing communications in Asia Pacific.
A world-class three-day celebration of creativity, the Spikes Asia Festival offers an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of learning and networking for creative communications professionals across the region. Nine young professionals and one tertiary student from Sri Lanka’s advertising, PR and design industries represented the country at the annual Young Spikes 2019 competition which is considered to be the Asian games for the advertising industry.
This opportunity to participate in the prestigious regional competition was facilitated by Metal Factor, a personal initiative spearheaded by veteran ad personality Ranil de Silva, in a bid to give back to the marketing communications industry.
Metal Factor aims to help Sri Lanka’s advertising industry achieve its ambition of achieving world-class standards and gain global recognition for the industry’s talented professionals and creativity.
Metal Factor’s initiatives are focused on benefiting the youth and the industry as a whole in meaningful ways. It plays a crucial role in developing the next generation of creative leaders by selecting promising young professionals to represent the country at the world’s most prestigious festivals, which not only gives the youth valuable global exposure but also showcases local creative talent. Metal Factor has realised its vision – with this triumph of the Sri Lankan industry at the Spikes Asia 2019. Phoenix Ogilvy & Mather Creative Consultant Anusha Wijeyaratne was selected to sit on the Outdoor and Radio & Audio Jury at Spikes Asia 2019. Creating history, she was also invited to serve on the Glass jury, a first for a Sri Lankan.
As one of Sri Lanka’s foremost creative directors, Anusha has been responsible for some award winning creative campaigns throughout her career. Ranil de Silva said: “Anusha is one of Sri Lanka’s most talented creative leaders. I strongly believe that there are very few English based Creative Directors of her calibre in Sri Lanka. She is also an exemplary professional right down to her fingertips.”
The Spikes Asia 2019 Young Spikes Gold winners were two young professionals from Phoenix Ogilvy Group’s Hansaka Wickramasinghe and Dinali Rajapakse brought glory to the Sri Lankan communications industry by winning Gold in the ‘Media’ category.
Competing against 12 teams from across Asia Pacific, they were successful in securing the Gold medal. Maheshi Dunuwilage and Shahan Fernando from NGage Strategic Alliance won the Bronze Award in the Young Spikes PR Competition for presenting a PR campaign for eco-tourism.
In addition, Sathira Perera of the University of Moratuwa walked away with the Gold for the Student Creative Award for Print for his poster design. Kokuladason Biruthiviranjan from the University of Moratuwa was chosen from several student portfolios that were reviewed by the festival to attend the Cheil Academy at Spikes Asia 2019.
TBWA was the most awarded agency at Spikes Asia 2019, taking home one Gold, two Silver and two Bronze awards for Aura’s ‘Aliya Incense Barricade’ – elephant repellent incense sticks that help maintain a safe distance between rural villages and elephants. Triad also won Silver and Bronze medal at Spikes Asia 2019 for its Life Chant campaign, launched in partnership with the Public Health Department of the Colombo Municipal Council.
Commenting enthusiastically on this year’s performance of Sri Lanka’s marketing communications industry Ranil de Silva said: “It is indeed a moment of pride for me personally, and for the Sri Lankan industry and for the nation as a whole to have been applauded across every level of competition at Spikes this year. I extend my heartiest congratulations to all the winners of the competitions and the agencies for their haul of medals.
“Their triumph reaffirms my determination to take Sri Lanka to the global stage of creative leadership. I have been committed for the last 10+ years to promote our talented young professionals through Metal Factors, to elevate their creative potential on a wider platform. Metal Factor is an initiative I have personally created to give back to the industry which has given me so much of joy, recognition and rewards.”
This year, the Young Spikes competition was conducted by Metal Factor in partnership with the 4 A’s. Ranil stated that he was most grateful to 4 A’s President Sugibun Sathiamoorthy and Young Spikes competitions Chairman Rameez Fazal for their dedication and for the outstanding manner in which they conducted the competition.
This year the Young Spikes competition received an overwhelming response for the local competition from which the winners are selected to participate at the Young Spikes competitions. TBWA Sri Lanka Managing Director Renuka Marshall said: “We are thrilled to be the most awarded agency from Sri Lanka at Spikes Asia 2019 where our winning campaigns for ‘Aura Aliya’ brought home one Gold, two Silvers and two Bronze metals. I would like to congratulate the winning team from TBWA on their success. I am confident this success will inspire us to uphold this victory with more metal at the upcoming festivals.”
The winning duo of the Young Spikes Gold Hansaka Wickramasinghe and Dinali Rajapakse said: “We are thrilled to have won the gold in a very challenging competition. We are delighted that the jury selected our idea to be the best. It is an honour we will cherish throughout our career. Besides winning Gold, the learning experience we gained from the festival is immense. We have come back enriched by the knowledge we gained.”
Sathira Perera from the University of Moratuwa stated that he was honoured to have gained this opportunity to attend the festival. “It was a first time experience for me and it certainly was a life changing experience. I am delighted that my poster won the gold from over 100 posters that had been submitted for the competition. I do hope I will be able to win many more rewards for my creativity in the future.”
The Spikes Asia Festival is the region’s oldest and most prestigious event that recognises the best work in the categories of Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo and Activations, Media, Design, Poster, Craft, Integrated, Mobile and PR.
A collaboration between the organisers of the Cannes Lions Festival and Haymarket, the Spikes Asia Festival provides the region’s rapidly growing creative and advertising industry with an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and think creatively. The festival serves as an important platform, which not only recognises the best work in the region, but also brings together Asia Pacific's leading creative thinkers and brightest young professionals.
Press Release
The Festival and Awards will not take place in 2020.
8th April 2020 - Spikes Asia today announces that the Festival will no longer take place in October 2020 as planned. The Festival of Creativity, Spikes Awards and Tangrams Strategy & Effectiveness Awards will be held in 2021 in Singapore and new dates will be announced shortly.
The impact of the COVID-19 virus continues to affect the Asia Pacific region and the world. Health, economic, and societal concerns are determining the priorities of societies and businesses globally. Our community, across the creative marketing and media industries, is facing unparalleled challenges. The need to protect companies and people, and to support consumers, is taking precedence during this challenging time.
The difficult decision to cancel Spikes Asia was made after in-depth consultations with partners and customers and in response to the unprecedented global situation. We therefore felt it important to remove uncertainty and provide clear communications to our community around the delivery of Spikes Asia Festival and the Awards, as quickly as possible.
Joe Pullos, Festival Director, Spikes Asia, commented: “Spikes Asia celebrates the extraordinary creativity of the Asia Pacific creative community. We want to ensure that we respond to the needs of our customers and partners across the region and support the marketing and creative industries through this global crisis. We are announcing the change today so that we can bolster our community with clear communication and begin preparing for 2021. Spikes Asia, working alongside our customers and partners, will return next year stronger than ever. We look forward to celebrating and honouring the very best creative work with our community, as we all look ahead to a more positive future.”
Press Release
Sri Lanka’s name reverberated at the recent Asian advertising awards, Spikes in Singapore, highlighting the country’s prowess in producing the best creative works from their agencies in Colombo.
Bagging the highest number of awards for Sri Lanka at this year’s Spikes Advertising Awards in Singapore in what is considered the Asian region’s top awards, a number of agencies walked away with some of the top awards in creative. “Our agencies won in the past gold awards but this year we had a haul,” Sri Lanka’s representative for Metal Factor Ranil De Silva said in an interview with the Business Times at his residence in Colombo. Metal Factor helps in the selection of Sri Lanka talent for this annual event.
This year at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2019 Young Spikes Gold winners were two young professionals from Phoenix Ogilvy Group’s Hansaka Wickramasinghe and Dinali Rajapakse who won Gold in the ‘Media’ category.
Maheshi Dunuwilage and Shahan Fernando, from NGage Strategic Alliance won the Bronze Award in the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2019 Young Spikes Competition in the ‘PR’ category.
Sathira Perera of the University of Moratuwa walked away with the Gold for the Student Creative Award for Print for his poster design.
Kokuladason Biruthiviranjan from the University of Moratuwa was chosen from several student portfolios that were reviewed by the festival to attend the Cheil Academy at Spikes Asia 2019.
Anusha Wijeyaratne – Creative Consultant, Phoenix Ogilvy & Mather, was selected to sit on the Outdoor and Radio and Audio Jury at Spikes Asia 2019. She was also invited to serve on the Glass: The Award for Change Jury.
TBWA won Gold, two Silvers and two Bronze for their campaign for ‘Aura Aliya’; and TRIAD won Silver and Bronze for its Life Chant campaign, launched in partnership with the Public Health Department of the Colombo Municipal Council.
Mr. De Silva noted that every year the industry would send about 20 persons to the awards at Cannes in France and Spikes in Singapore and this is considered as an important event by the industry as well.
At the locally held competition from about 100 entries selections are made to find who would represent Sri Lanka at the Spikes Festival.
“Sri Lanka was a very prominent nation in bagging all these awards,” he said adding that this was what he had expected to achieve when he started out to creating opportunities for the youth in the advertising industry to fine tune them and showcase their talent.
“I got opportunities back then and so now I want to create opportunities for the youth in Sri Lanka to see what’s out there,” Mr. De Silva said.
Metal Factor started out to achieve this goal and it had taken about 10 years since then to get Sri Lanka to be the most talked about country that was always called up to receive the awards this year.
“When I went to Ad Fest I felt ashamed of what we were achieving at SLIM (Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing) awards because internationally we were not competitive,” he explained.
It was here that Mr. De Silva realised that Sri Lanka needed to spruce up its standards to be recognised on the global arena.
In this respect, they would be sending about 30 persons from the industry to the annual festivals and other training programmes; subsequently the rest of the industry also followed suit, he said.
Mr. De Silva works with the 4As and IAA to run the programme and send people out to Cannes and Spikes.
All these awards and the recognition Sri Lanka has achieved has created the fundamental requirement that the standard of advertising will improve in the country, he noted.
This would mean there would be good advertising and good communication that would ensure they obtain the essential skills for marketing, Mr. De Silva said.
Bagging the awards also has had benefits on the home front where some clients would opt to select agencies that had won awards.
The industry would next be vying to achieve Gold in the main category at the Cannes for Sri Lanka although previously the country had obtained the Young Marketer Gold Award at the event.
Paper Article
Spikes Asia was an incredible overall experience as I learnt the future trends of advertising. I networked with multicultural prestigious creatives and as a designer exploring a different country truly contributed to enhancing my creativity further. The exposure I gained can be very applicable to this creative journey as The Cheil Creative Academy shared some amazing insights on the Samsung campaigns, I was amazed at the backstage of good advertising. This experience was a life changing one for me meeting all these creatives was indeed super exciting as each person brought with them something uniquely creative to the whole experience making it a memorable one hence I’m forever grateful to have received this opportunity by representing Sri Lanka.
Seated :- Ranil de Silva – Metal Factor, Anne Balakrishnan – Group Director Marketing, Asia Broadcasting Corporation, Laila Gunasekere Martenstyne – President IAA, Chalaka Gajabahu – Chairman Organizing Committee, Young Spikes Competition Sri Lanka
Standing :- Media competition winners - Arshaq Ali & Nireka de Silva – Nextage, Digital competition winners - Levanya Mirando & Malithi Jayasinghe – Mullen Lowe, Integrated competition winners - Nethmi Weerawarna & Chalukya Weerakoon – JWT, PR competition winners - Chanchala Gunewardena & Maheshi Dunuwilage – Bates Strategic Alliance, Cheil Creative Academy - Jonathan Joseph – Academy of Design
The eagerly-anticipated Spikes Asia Young Spikes programme returns for its 10th edition. Nine young professionals, and one tertiary students from Sri Lanka’s advertising, PR and design industries will represent the country at the annual Young Spikes 2018 & Cheil Young Creative Academy at Spikes Asia 2018 to be held from 26th to 28th September 2018 at Suntec, Singapore. It is Asia Pacific's most inspiring creative festival - offering three days of learning, inspiration and networking for professionals in creative communications, culminating in a grand awards ceremony.
These 9 talented young professionals were selected via a local competition conducted by Metal Factor in partnership with the IAA Sri Lanka Chapter. The final winners from the diverse aspects of advertising are: Integrated - Nethmi Weerawarna and Chalukya Weerakoon from JWT. Digital - Leyanvi Mirando and Malithi Jayasinghe from Mullen Lowe. Media - Arshaq Ali and Nireka de Silva of Nextage. PR - Chanchala Gunewardena and Maheshi Dunuwilage of Bates Strategic Alliance. These four teams will participate at the Young Spikes Asia competition to represent Sri Lanka. Jonathan Joseph, a student from Academy of Design will participate in the Cheil Creative Academy which is a three day intensive educational programme designed for tertiary students in the visual communications industry at the festival. There was an overwhelming demand for participation in the SriLankan competition, as these young professionals compete for the ultimate prize of representing the country on the regional platform that is Young Spikes provides during the Spikes Asia festival each year.
Hailing this year’s winners, Ranil de Silva, the Sri Lankan Representative for the Spikes Asia Festival said, “Over the years, we have seen some exceptional creative talent emerging from the local competition as the young students and professionals strive to qualify to represent Sri Lanka at Spikes. Winning at the local competition has now become a badge of honor for these young guys and girls who I hope will make their mark on the regional Spikes Asia stage making all of us in the SriLankan industry very proud. Participating in the Young Spikes Asia Competitions in Singapore is a goal today that young professionals strive to achieve towards. My congratulations to the winners who I hope will go on to win bigger and better rewards at the regional competition.”
We at “ABC” are delighted to support this initiative which develops the professionals competency of the youth in this industry” stated Raynor De Silva , Chairman ABC via programs of this nature we are able to provide much needed exposure to our young professionals to help develop the industry”, concluded Mr. Silva
At the session in Singapore, these professionals benefit from a tailored agenda which includes exclusive access to personalized tutorials and masterclasses from top industry figures, as well as participating in the Spikes Asia seminar and workshop programs. They are able to attend the networking events, giving them an exceptional first-hand insight also into the evolving marketing and communications industry of which they will be its future leaders. The Young Creatives Academy conducted by Cheil worldwide will culminate into a graduation ceremony. The Academy’s programme will take place during the three-day Spikes Asia Festival, where the selected students (currently in tertiary education studying marketing communications will be tutored under the leadership of Noor Azhar, who is a lecturer in Visual Communications and Media Design at the Singapore Polytechnic.
This year’s programme was chaired by Chalaka Gajabahu/ CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi Sri Lanka. He was supported with a committee comprising representatives of the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka.
The local competition was facilitated by Metal Factor for the 10th consecutive year. Metal Factor is a personal initiative spearheaded by Ranil de Silva to give back to the marketing communications industry. Metal Factors’ objective is to help Sri Lanka’s advertising industry realize its ambition of achieving world-class standards and to gain global recognition for the work of the industry. Metal Factor has been responsible for many programs that benefit the industry, very specially the youth. Metal Factor has played a crucial role in developing the next generation of creative leaders, and continuously organizes competitions to select promising young advertising professionals to represent the country at the world’s most prestigious festivals.
The Spikes Asia Festival is the region’s oldest and most prestigious event that recognizes the best work in the categories of Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo and Activations, Media, Design, Poster, Craft, Integrated, Mobile and PR. A collaboration between the organizers of the Cannes Lions Festival and Haymarket, the Spikes Asia Festival provides the region’s rapidly growing creative and advertising industry with an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and think creatively. The festival serves as an important platform, which not only recognizes the best work in the region, but also brings together Asia Pacific’s leading creative thinkers and brightest young professionals.
Jenith Liyanagoda – Ogilvy Media, Sharon Jaysundara – 4As President, Sachintha Gunawardena – Ogilvy Media, Thushari Pallipane, Johanns Rogers – Neo@Ogilvy , Ranil De Silva – Managing Director of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan representative for the Spike Asia Festival, Dulaj Perera, Chanuka Herath, Laila Gunesekara – IAA President, Tuan Meedin
Seated: L –R: Sarah Hassanally, Dilendri Wettewe, Nonmin Yasith Dayaathne, Sashi Kapugamage.
Eight outstanding young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and two students have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes 2017 & Cheil Young Creative Academy at Spikes Asia 2017 from 27th to 30th September at the Suntec City. These 10 youngsters walked away with key honours at the local competition, where a high standard of competition from the industry was witnessed. The local competitions were conducted in Colombo under the auspices of Metal Factor in partnership with the industry.
The winners of the Young Spikes Digital Competition was won by Shashie Kapugamage and Johanns Rogers from Neo@Ogilvy Sri Lanka, whose brief was for the ‘Monetization of Air Pollution’. In the Integrated competition section, Chanaka Herath & Nonim Dayarathne from Geometry Global, delivered a winning campaign in response to a brief titled ‘Whistleblowers & Protesters’. The Media Competition had two minimum teams comprising Sachintha Gunawardena & Jenith Liyanagoda from Ogilvy Media and Sarah Hassanally and Dilendri Wettewe from Leo Burnett Sri Lanka who responded to the brief on the topic of ‘LGBT- Q’.
The placement to the Cheil Young Creative Academy were secured by Dulaj Perera from the University of Moratuwa, Faculty of Design and Tuan Meedin from the Academy of Multimedia Design & Technology (AMDT). These two young students will have the opportunity to attend the Young Creative Academy, which is an in-depth training programme that is made available to a small selection of students from the region. The three-day programme provides students with the opportunity to attend exclusive seminars and tutorials, where they can learn from top industry professionals and gain valuable international exposure.
Commenting on this year’s Spikes Asia winners, Ranil de Silva, the Sri Lankan Representative for the Spikes Asia Festival said, “It gives me great satisfaction to see the overwhelming response we receive from the young professionals in the industry to participate in the local competition. Their enthusiasm and above all else their creativity augurs well for the future of the industry. I extend my congratulations to these young professionals on their success. I am confident that they will excel at the Young Spikes Asia Competitions in Singapore, and bring recognition for Sri Lanka.”
Six young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and an under graduate have been selected to represent the country at the annual Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity, which is set to take place in Singapore from 21-23 September 2016. These 3 teams were selected to represent Sri Lanka following the recent Young Spikes Competition which was conducted in Colombo facilitated by Metal Factor in partnership with the industry bodies. These 6 young professionals will now have the opportunity to compete at the regional competition alongside teams from the leading markets in Asia Pacificat the Young Spikes Competitions.
The under graduate from the Moratuwa University was chosen by the organizers, in Singapore after the evaluation of his portfolio. He will have the opportunity to attend the Young Creative Academy, which is an in-depth training programme that is made available to a small selection of students from the region. The three-day programme provides students with the opportunity to attend exclusive seminars and tutorials, where they can learn from top industry professionals and gain valuable international exposure. VikasithaAnumevan from the Moratuwa University was selected to attend this year.
The three Young Spikes teams from Sri Lanka will compete in the Digital, Integrated and Media categories of the Young Spikes Competition which is being held in Singapore. Sagar Hiranand and Chevin Mandawala from Mullen Lowe emerged as the winners of the Digital competition, Randula de Silva and Natasha Fernando from Neo@Ogilvysecured the opportunity to participate at the Integrated competition and Bratheepa Puvirajasekaram and Himaya Judith Peiris from Media Factory won the Media competition.
Commenting on the competition, Ranil de Silva, the Sri Lanka Representative for the Spikes Asia Festival said: “This year the Young Spikes competition had the highest participation. It is very fulfilling to know that young professionals from a diverse cross section of agencies came together to compete at the local competitions to be selected to represent the country at the Young Spikes Competition. I would like to congratulate the six outstanding young professionals who won their rightful place to represent Sri Lanka at one of the region’s foremost marketing communications festivals. I hope that they will continue to excel and gain recognition for the country and the Sri Lankan advertising industry. I am also delighted to know that an under graduate from the Moratuwa University will attend the Young Creative Academy. This success is a tribute to the National University and it will prove to be an invaluable experience for him.”
A total of 108 young professionals competed in the local competition and were issued briefs to which they had to respond within 12 hours. The competitors in the Digital category were required to showcase how they could build the brand image and awareness of a food product amongst SEC A and B audiences by using digital channels and tactics. In the Integrated category, competitors were asked to create a national conversation to help take children off the streets of Sri Lanka and in the Media category, competitors had to use strategic media platforms and strategies to encourage Sri Lankans to increase their consumption of eggs in order to help them meet their overall nutritional requirements.
The Spikes Asia Festival is heralded as one of the region’s oldest and most prestigious events that recognizes the best work in the region across a broad range of categories such as Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo and Activations, Media, Design, Poster, Craft, Integrated, Mobile and PR. This festival is a collaboration between the organizers of the Cannes Lions Festival and Haymarket.The Spikes Asia Festival provides the region’s rapidly growing creative and advertising industry with an opportunity to interact, network, exchange ideas and think creatively. It also provides a platform for showcasing and recognizing the best work and most creative campaigns in the region. The festival also gives the brightest young professionals in the region an opportunity to experience world-class standards of creative excellence and to learn from Asia Pacific’s renowned creative leaders and most progressive thinkers.
“So, I got to chat with the Head of PR for Ogilvy Mather in the U.S, the Chief Creative Officer of DigitasLB in London and the God Father of Creative Radio Advertising, all in one afternoon. Google’s Tom Uglow ran me through Project Loon, Eric Solomon – YouTube’s Global Head of Insights & Strategy – told me the secrets to surviving in a fan-led world, Steven van der Kruit – world-renowned trend hunter and photographer – enlightened me as to how you recognize the signs of an emerging trend, over a Beer and F1 Legend Jackie Stewart shared some seminal words of wisdom about thriving as the underdog.The young Leo Burnett Team beat out teams from around the region to win the Gold in the Integrated Competition and we won 02 Silvers and 01 Bronze at the Awards Ceremony in the Grand Theatre at the Marina Bay Sands, before going to the After Party at Avalon. My recollection of the evening from that point on, for some strange reason, gets a little blurry… Two words to describe Spikes Asia 2013 -‘EPIC’.”
Marsh Dodanwela
Director – Digital Strategy
Leo Burnett Solutions Inc
The honour of serving on the craft jury panel for Spikes Asia 2013 was truly rewarding. The sheer volume of work from the region was overwhelming but manageable largely due to the amazing efficiency of Lisa Berlin and her team.
The mix of jurors from advertising and film production made it all the more interesting, I found the exchange of knowledge, invaluable. My fellow jurors from advertising had an insiders view of how specialists from different backgrounds in film production viewed craft. The system of voting has evolved to a point where transparency and debate ensure great work has every chance of being noticed, discussed and dissected with great detail. The bar was high, and after a tough schedule of judging in the elimination and early rounds, Mayan, the Craft jury Chair managed the discussion process with great skill. The debates were healthy, rich and impartial and the work that was truly deserving of metal got recognized. Personally, for me the experience was refreshing, and the chance to view and analyze the best of craft skills from all of Asia was enriching. I am truly thankful to Ranil for having nominated me in the first instance, and for doing so much work to put the local ad industry on the map.
Russell Miranda
Executive Creative Director
Grant McCann Erickson
Eraj Wirasinha
Associate Creative Director
Leo Burnett Solutions Inc.,
“Spikes 2012 was fantastic. This year’s event was bigger than ever and brought together the best creative minds in Asia plus a bunch more from the rest of the world. As always, the work on show was inspiring and really hit home the heights we need to aspire to in terms of ideas and crafting. There were also plenty of eye-opening lectures and seminars from industry leaders, including quite a few from legends of the business like Piyush Pandey. With lots of insights to absorb and experiences to learn from, the most talked-about subject at Spikes 2012 seemed to be branded content. Though this is hardly new, advancements in the internet have made it much easier and cheaper to distribute original material, so it is increasingly becoming a brand’s weapon of choice. An excellent example of this is Red Bull’s recent skydive from space, which was streamed live on the internet and sought out and watched by millions. Apart from Spikes, Singapore, one week out from the grand prix, with its relentless malls and always-crowded hawker centres, was a welcome change of scene – when you have a big bowl of fruit & nut every day, a little vanilla once in a while is nice.
Stimulating workshops, students swap stories & Singapore Fried Noodles
To say that Spikes was a 3-day packed event with great lectures, master classes and after parties would be similar to saying I don’t love chocolate….
Spikes was way, way more than that. It matched every expectation I had and more.
Profiled as a program tailored to the specific needs of creative students under 23, Spikes Asia lived up to its promise with a dynamic course mentor, Noor Azhar, the evergreen radio guru Tony Hertz, David Gurer & others. The classes spotlighted some of the finest creative work in the world & opened our minds to explore unthought-of avenues, encouraged us to zig where we had previously zagged.
Besides our own course we were at liberty to hob nob with the big wigs at the main Spikes Festival, drool over the exhibition and witness first hand the brilliance of the award winners.
What was unbeatable was the feeling that I was sitting among the next generation of creative power houses. My roommate could well win a Cannes Lion in the near future. Heck, I could win one, too.
The Young Spikes confirmed that creative growth is a process that never stops. I am now infinitely more inspired and certainly more prepared to face my chosen career with fire.
My deep thanks to Metal Factor & Ranil for making this happen.
Sahil Gunasekera
Another first for Sri Lanka at the Spikes Asia Festival was the selection of Pubudini Wellage of the University of Moratuwa to attend the Spikes Asia Creative Academy at an exclusive learning opportunity availed to 15 students from the Asia Pacific region.
Pubudini is a 3rd year student, studying graphic communications at the Moratuwa University, similarly all students selected for the programme are currently in tertiary education, studying marketing, advertising or communications. The 15 students chosen will be representing the following countries Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Korea and Sri Lanka.
The Spikes Asia Creative Academy was a chance of a lifetime for me. The learning I gained from the wide array of programmes I attended has enriched me. I was also able to make new friends and to exchange ideas with them. I was also inspired by the words of respected advertising professionals. Their teachings will prove valuable to me as I pursue my career in this industry. A very special honour for me was to share my perspectives about Sri Lanka’s winning viral video “Pass it on” created for Sri Lanka’s Eye Donation Society.
Going to Singapore and experiencing Singapore was also very enjoyable.
I am grateful to Cheil Worldwide for providing me this wonderful opportunity.
Attending the Spikes Asia Academy in 2011 was one of the best experiences of my life. Having an amazing mentor like Noor Azhar added to the value of this learning opportunity. Attending intimate sessions with some of the biggest names in advertising, getting to attend the Spikes Asia Awards night added to the experience. The river cruise as well as the meet and greet dinner at Clark Quay were excellent opportunities to meet a cross section of like minded people. I gained immensely by interacting, studying and working with students like myself from across the region. Thank you everyone for giving me such a valuable learning opportunity.
Shanika Perera
First and foremost it was an honor for us to have won the Young Spikes 2013 competition in Sri Lanka, to represent our country at Spikes Asia 2013 held in Singapore. The support and encouragement we got not only from our peers at Leo Burnett, but also from many individuals from the fraternity motivated and prepared us for the big hurdle, Spikes Asia 2013.
Accompanied by Ranil, Crishy, Shivi, Marsh, Manoj, Eranga and the other delegates from agencies in Sri Lanka we felt comfortable, although we were nervous about competing against teams from the rest of Asia Pacific. Despite our brave faces, both of us had one question in our mind. A question almost all the young ones in the local advertising industry ponder upon; has Sri Lanka got what it takes?
Back home when we see high quality international work and the high standards of the global creative industry, we keep questioning our availability in resources; we question the effects of social, economic and even the political factors in the country which have a bearing on our creativity. Sadly such thoughts discouraged the young ad men and women in the Sri Lanka ad industry.
That is why these competitions held by Metal Factor in Sri Lanka are valued by the young local talent. It enables us to gain exposure to the global arena by attending international creative festivals. It boosts our morale and opens our eyes. It truly is an amazing opportunity that has been made available to us by the senior advertising community which helps young professionals like us to grow and prosper.
The value of this opportunity was further emphasized as we walked into the festival. The festival program included workshops, forums, seminars, exhibitions, training academies, award ceremonies and last but not the least, parties. Every single second we spent at Spikes Asia was about gaining knowledge and inspiration. This entire program was run by some of the top names in the global advertising industry and we felt lucky to be in the presence of these ad idols. It was also great because we were able to mingle and get to know other young professionals from around the world, with whom we had very interesting and insightful conversations. They were very friendly and made us feel comfortable.
This prelude helped us to prepare ourselves better to face the competition with confidence. The winning was almost surreal. Sharing the joy with people back at home was also very rewarding. Sitting in the VIP section at the award ceremony added to our very surreal night. It sure was an unforgettable night.One of the highlights for us was watching the creators of ‘Dumb ways to die’ John Mescall, the Executive Creative Director of McCann Australia and his team stealing the night by going up on stage over and over again. We were overwhelmed when we realized we are going to be awarded for our achievement on the very same stage as them.
This victory is not our glory alone. We were blessed to be given many opportunities, to be taught many things and to be given many chances to experience world class advertising, by our amazing leaders Ranil and Chrishy. It is these factors which ultimately led us to being good enough to take on the world. Marsh, as a mentor did more than was ever expected of him. He stood by our side every step of the way and guided us to victory. Without these pillars of strength, victory would have still been a dream for us.
This experience was truly amazing. We are extremely grateful to the industry at large for paving the path for us.The truth is this is not our glory alone. We hope that this success will continue. More importantly we pray that Sri Lanka’s talented ad professionals will continue to shine in the global advertising arena.
We are honored to have represented Sri Lanka and made our country proud. It is a moment that we will cherish for a very long time.
Indu & Chani
Dexter and I partnered for the 1st time back in 2012 for the local competition of the Young Spikes 2012, we became runner-up competing against 14 teams that took part. The next year: In August 2013, we paired up again for the second time to participate in the local competition, unlike last year this time we didn’t take it lightly; we participated with determination to WIN and to represent Sri Lanka at the Spikes Asia, in Singapore. And yes we manage to put up a great idea which took us all the way to be the winners of the 2013 local competition! As a result we were given the opportunity to represent Sri Lanka for the Young Spikes Media competition, in Singapore at the Spikes Asia festival of creativity from 15 to 17th September 2013.
Our next task was much bigger, Singapore was a great experience, not only did we participate at the Young Spikes competition but we also had the opportunity to attend the Spikes Asia festival of Creativity, which provided us inspiration in a dynamic setting with sessions from international creatives and business leaders.
The opportunity to experience the seminars and forums by industry experts during the Spikes Asia Creative Festival prior to the competition gave us the perfect opportunity to observe, learn and apply the learning when presenting at the Young Spikes Competition. Among many interesting sessions, Ogilvy & Mather’s Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Tham Khai Meng’s presentation on ‘Transformational creativity’ was a real inspiration for us, he explained the evolution of the creative thinking process and also shared some hints on future directions.
At the end of day one, we were briefed about our task, the brief was to create awareness and increase the readership of a flagship magazine of the non-profit organization ‘Humanity’. We had to present our plan in a short presentation (5 minutes) to a panel of judges the next day.
Our target audience was vast and worldwide with the limited budget we had to first come up with a strategy to reach the target audience without geographical limitations, So based on our insight of the main target audience of CSR leaders, philanthropists and social entrepreneurs, our core idea revolved around an interactive digital magazine for Tablets and Smart Phones, making the magazine all the more available. This enabled the audience to not only access the magazine from wherever they are and whenever convenient, but to also share the same with friends and family instantly through social media; thereby ‘Sharing Humanity’”.
We proposed a ‘contextual targeting’ media strategy where we will reach the audience through banner ads directly to their Smartphone’s and tablets. Imagine that when you’re browsing a food-review on your iPad and you suddenly get this banner which says… “In Somalia every year 100s of children die of hunger” – Download the Humanity! How would you react? Will you ignore that banner and continue to browse your favorite food? Or would you think for a second and click on that banner which will take you to the Humanity Interactive Magazine.
We knew that we would have tough competition from countries like Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea etc. So we wanted to make it very appealing, emotional and that the message should strike the audience immediately and get them to think!
At the end we were thrilled when the results were announced; we had managed to WIN the Silver for Sri Lanka, the 1st ever metal for Sri Lanka in the Young Spikes Media competition.
It was indeed a huge honor to have the opportunity to compete with some of the best young talent in the Asia-Pacific region, and to be recognized from among them and to be awarded for our idea was truly gratifying. We are continuously exploring ways in which the evolving media landscape can be effectively utilized, and attending the Spikes Asia festival 2013 and competing in the Young Spikes Competition was a great way for us to expand our thinking and receive feedback from some of the most respected individuals in the creative communications industry in the region.
Our sincere thanks go to Metal Factor the local representative for Spikes Asia for opening up this platform to us, and all our colleagues here at Ogilvy for their guidance, motivation and support.
Infas & Dexter
Infas Iqbal
Senior Digital Executive
Mike Dexter Shadrach
Senior Media Executive
Young Spikes Asia was a great experience for both of us as we learnt a lot about advertising in the 21st century. We also had the opportunity to see many brilliant campaigns from the region. The Young Spikes competition itself was an amazing experience where we got to meet many young talented people from Asia. The brief we got was to create breast cancer awareness in Singapore. Although we did not secure metal we are happy with the positive comments we got from the jury. The experience as a whole was a memorable one and one that will always be remembered. Thank you to everyone who helped to make it happen.
Wasim Akram
Senior Brand Executive
Rinesh Jayaratne
Brand Executive
Six professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and an undergraduate have been selected to represent the country at the annual Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity, held in Singapore from September 21 to 23.
These three teams were selected to represent Sri Lanka following the recent Young Spikes Competition which was conducted in Colombo facilitated by Metal Factor in partnership with the industry bodies. These six young professionals will have the opportunity to compete at the regional competition alongside teams from the leading markets in Asia Pacific at the Young Spikes Competitions.
The undergraduate from the Moratuwa University was chosen by the organizers, in Singapore after the evaluation of his portfolio. He will have the opportunity to attend the Young Creative Academy, which is an in-depth training programme that is made available to a small selection of students from the region. The three-day programme provides students with the opportunity to attend exclusive seminars and tutorials, where they can learn from top industry professionals and gain valuable international exposure.Vikasitha Anumevan from the Moratuwa University was selected to attend this year.
The three Young Spikes teams from Sri Lanka will compete in the Digital, Integrated and Media categories of the Young Spikes Competition which is being held in Singapore. Sagar Hiranand and Chevin Mandawala from Mullen Lowe emerged as the winners of the Digital competition, Randula de Silva and Natasha Fernando from Neo@Ogilvy secured the opportunity to participate at the Integrated competition and Bratheepa Puvirajasekaram and Himaya Judith Peiris from Media Factory won the Media competition.
Spikes Asia Festival Sri Lanka Representative Ranil de Silva said, “This year the Young Spikes competition had the highest participation. It is very fulfilling to know that young professionals from a diverse cross section of agencies came together to compete at the local competitions to be selected to represent the country at the Young Spikes Competition. I would like to congratulate the six outstanding young professionals who won their rightful place to represent Sri Lanka at one of the region’s foremost marketing communications festivals. I hope that they will continue to excel and gain recognition for the country and the Sri Lankan advertising industry. I am also delighted to know that an under graduate from the Moratuwa University will attend the Young Creative Academy.
This success is a tribute to the National University and it will prove to be an invaluable experience for him.”
A total of 108 young professionals competed in the local competition and were issued briefs to which they had to respond within 12 hours.
The competitors in the Digital category were required to showcase how they could build the brand image and awareness of a food product amongst SEC A and B audiences by using digital channels and tactics.
spikes-imageIn the Integrated category, competitors were asked to create a national conversation to help take children off the streets of Sri Lanka and in the Media category, competitors had to use strategic media platforms and strategies to encourage Sri Lankans to increase their consumption of eggs in order to help them meet their overall nutritional requirements.
Leo Burnett was the only Sri Lankan agency to be recognized at Spikes Asia 2015
Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI), the local office of the global advertising network Leo Burnett Worldwide, was the only agency from Sri Lanka to be recognized at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2015. Creating history for the country once again, Leo Burnett won the highly coveted Spike for Creative Effectiveness for their ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ – which remains the single most awarded creative idea in Sri Lanka to date. The agency also secured two Silver Spikes in the Outdoor category, for the ‘15 kg Extra’ campaign which was created for the dynamic online travel company -findmyfare.com. The agency team received the awards on behalf of the entire team at Leo Burnett, at the exclusive Spikes Asia awards ceremony which took place in Singapore last week.
As a network, Leo Burnett Worldwide was named the second most awarded creative network in the Asia Pacific region, with the Colombo office contributing to the network’s overall performance alongside the Melbourne, Sydney, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai offices. Spikes Asia is a collaboration between the Lions Festivals and Haymarket. The festival and awards recognize the best work in the industry and provide the region’s creative communications industry with a platform to network and exchange ideas. Spikes Asia is the region’s most prestigious awards show and brings together the finest creative thinkers from around the world.
Ranil de Silva, Managing Director of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) stated, “We are extremely honoured to have once again won the coveted Spike for Creative Excellence and 2 Silver Spikes at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2015. This recognition is a testament to our on-going commitment to delivering world-class standards of creativity to our clients in Sri Lanka. Each and every day, we relentlessly strive to be the best in the world bar none. This pursuit of excellence is something that our founder, the late Leo Burnett himself believed in. I would like to commend the entire team for conceptualizing and executing these two powerful ideas, I would also like to thank our valued clients for giving us the opportunity to bring these ideas to life.”
The ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ addressed one of the country’s most challenging health concerns in a creative and innovative manner. Dengue, the deadly mosquito-borne disease had reached epidemic proportions in Sri Lanka. Over 30,000 people were infected in 2013 and the disease had claimed many lives. People read the newspaper in the hours of the morning and in the evening – the very time the dengue mosquito is known to strike. This led to the idea that if the ink used to print the newspaper was infused with citronella oil – a natural mosquito repellent, each letter of every word printed in the newspaper would help eradicate the threat of dengue. On the last day of National Dengue Prevention Week, which was also World Health Day, the world’s first mosquito repellent newspaper was published in an effort to communicate and demonstrate how to prevent dengue.
Newspapers are traditionally a source of information, but for the first time in the world a newspaper carried both information and provided an active method of dengue prevention. The campaign helped to reduce the spread of dengue in Sri Lanka, and also resulted in a 30% increase in the print run for the publication. The paper sold out by 10 a.m, drove revenue up by 22% and reached new readers. The campaign went viral and gained acclaim throughout the world, even getting the attention of Bill Gates and a plethora of local, international and online publications.
For the April holidays, findmyfare.com was offering an additional baggage allowance of 15 kg with every airline ticket purchased. To promote this offer, Leo Burnett designed a series of distinctive posters featuring those unusually shaped objects that travellers would love to carry but are unable to take with them due to the weight restrictions. The Leo Burnett campaign featured items such as a guitar, golf bag and surf board along with the regular luggage to communicate the benefits of the additional 15 kilograms. This campaign for Sri Lanka’s largest online air travel retailer enabled the company to drive bookings via its portal. The posters communicated the offer through its interesting visuals and directed passengers to the brand’s website.
Over its 16 years of operation in Sri Lanka, Leo Burnett has built many powerful brands and meaningful partnerships with its clients, whilst delivering gratifying results and gaining peer recognition in the industry. The agency’s HumanKind philosophy helps it to derive an enduring purpose for brands and recognizes that ‘Acts’ and creativity have the ability to transform the way a person thinks, feels and ultimately, behaves.
Seven outstanding young professionals from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry and two young students, have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes Competitions, Young Creative Academy and Spikes Asia Accounts Executive Academy, which will take place at the Spikes Asia Festival 2015 in Singapore from 9 to 11 September 2015.
A local competition was conducted by Metal Factor in partnership with representatives from the industry. Three teams were selected to participate in the Young Spikes Integrated, Media and Digital Competitions. Two students from the Raffles Design Institute and the University of Moratuwa, were also selected to participate in the Young Creative Academy and Sarath Perera was selected for the Spikes Asia Accounts Executive Academy, which will take place at the festival.
A total of 75 young professionals competed in the local competition this year from a cross-section of agencies. These teams were issued a brief to which they had to respond to. After which, each team presented their response to the brief to a jury comprising leading professionals from the industry. For the Young Spikes Integrated Competition, the brief was to develop an integrated campaign for the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), to motivate the youth of the country to say no to drugs. The Media Competition challenged the teams to find a creative way to use media, to raise funds for the NGO- The Wildlife & Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka, in a bid to support the conservation of elephants, whilst reducing the human-elephant conflict across the country. The Young Spikes Digital Competition called on teams to create awareness about the SOS Children’s Village by delivering a genuine, caring and personal digital campaign that would inspire the public to make a donation to the charity.
From Grant McCann, Sahil Gunesekera and Tara Weerasinghe won the Young Spikes Integrated Competition along with Kumarini Rajakaruna and Achala Ramanayake who won the Media Competition. The Young Spikes Digital Competition was won by Sagar Hiranand and Oshadi Paranavitane from Lowe LDB.
Commenting on this year’s Spikes Asia winners, Ranil de Silva, the Sri Lankan Representative for the Spikes Asia Festival said, “I am happy to witness a growing interest amongst the youth to take part in the local competition. It augurs very well for the future success of our industry. I’d like to congratulate our young winners on their success. I do hope that they will excel at the Young Spikes Asia Competitions in Singapore, and gain recognition for Sri Lanka.”
The local competition was facilitated by Metal Factor for the seventh consecutive year. Metal Factor is a non-profit partnership which was created to help Sri Lanka’s advertising industry realize its ambition of achieving world-class standards and to gain global recognition for the work of the industry. Metal Factor has been responsible for many programmes that benefit the industry, very specially the youth. Metal Factor has played a crucial role in developing the next generation of creative leaders, and continuously organizes competitions to select promising young advertising professionals to represent the country at the world’s most prestigious award shows and festivals.
Taking place during Spikes Asia, the Young Creative Academy is an exciting training course available to a small selection of students from the Asia Pacific region. The three-day programme is a unique opportunity to learn from some of the most inspiring and experienced figures in the industry through exclusive seminar sessions and tutorials, all specially tailored to academy students. Additionally, the Young Account Executives Academy is a three-day intensive programme designed to equip young agency account executives with the tools, knowledge and inspiration they need to lead ground-breaking creativity.
The Spikes Asia Festival is the region’s oldest and most prestigious event that recognizes the best work in the categories of Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo and Activations, Media, Design, Poster, Craft, Integrated, Mobile and PR. A collaboration between the organizers of the Cannes Lions Festival and Haymarket, the Spikes Asia Festival provides the region’s rapidly growing creative and advertising industry with an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and think creatively. The festival serves as an important platform, which not only recognizes the best work in the region, but also brings together Asia Pacific’s leading creative thinkers and brightest young professionals.
Friday 24th 2014, Colombo: Leo Burnett Solutions Inc., (LBSI) the local office of the global advertising network Leo Burnett Worldwide, created history by winning the first-ever gold metal for Sri Lanka at Spikes Asia 2014. The highly coveted gold award was won in the Public Relations (PR) category for the ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ which was launched to combat dengue in Sri Lanka. The Spikes Asia Awards brought together over 1,000 delegates from Asia Pacific’s creative community to the Grand Theatre, Marina Bay Sands, for a spectacular four-day celebration of creativity in communications.
From 4,984 entries across 18 categories, jurors chose a total of 472 entries to be awarded with prestigious accolades. Commenting on the work, jury president Ted Royer said, “There was some really great work this year. Work that will inspire for years to come. It’s great to see Asian creativity thriving.”
The Leo Burnett network showcased its prowess with 36 prestigious Spikes awards including Sri Lanka’s coveted gold award, 21 silver and 14 bronze awards. The eight offices which contributed to the outstanding creative performance included Sri Lanka, Sydney, Melbourne, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh. LBSI walked away with glowing honours and reinforced its standing within the network by being the only Leo Burnett office in the network to win gold at Spikes Asia 2014. The agency was also awarded four silver awards in the Media, Branded Content, Healthcare, Promotion and Activation categories for the ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’.
Highlighting the importance of the win, Mark Tutssel Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide stated, “I am very proud of the Leo Burnett network and what they have achieved. Leo Burnett Sri Lanka’s historic win at Spikes Asia 2014 highlights the agency’s exceptional work and commitment to creative excellence. We are really delighted by Leo Burnett Sri Lanka for bringing this level of international recognition at Spikes Asia 2014.
Commenting on the win, Ranil de Silva, Managing Director, Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. stated, “We are delighted that our office won this recognition not just for us but for the country and the network. It is also for a worthy cause such as dengue which is currently pertinent to Sri Lanka and to many parts of the world. The reach the campaign has gained has been outstanding and highlights the importance of addressing a global issue such as dengue. I congratulate my team members for their outstanding contributions which made this gold award and the four silver awards possible.”
Dengue, the deadly mosquito-borne disease had reached epidemic proportions in Sri Lanka. With over 40,000 people infected in the country in early 2013, the disease had claimed too many lives, including the lives of young children. People read the newspaper in the early morning and evening – the very time the dengue mosquito is known to strike. This led to the idea that if the ink used to print the newspaper was infused with citronella oil – a natural mosquito repellent, each letter of every word printed in the newspaper would help eradicate the threat of dengue. On the last day of National Dengue Prevention Week, which was also World Health Day, the world’s first mosquito repellent newspaper was published in an effort to communicate and demonstrate how to prevent dengue. Newspapers are traditionally a source of information, but for the first time a newspaper carried both information and an active method of dengue prevention.
The ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ has been recognized at many international shows and recently won a Cannes finalist, two bronze awards at CLIO and was shortlisted at the London International Advertising Awards which will soon announce the award winners. The ‘Mosquito Repellent Newspaper’ campaign has also been recognized by the world’s leading blogs and online newspapers including The Business Standard, The Huffington Post , The Independent, BBC, The Little Black Book and The Wall Street Journal to name a few.
The Spikes Asia festival took place in Singapore from 23 to 27 September and is the region’s oldest awards show for excellence in the creative communications industry. During the awards show, this year’s Advertiser of the Year Award, sponsored by Airbag Productions, was presented to The Coca-Cola Company – Asia Pacific. Winners of the Young Spikes and student competitions were also announced at the awards. In the Young Spikes Integrated competition (sponsored by JWT), The Philippines took the gold medal and Indonesia won the Young Spikes Media competition, whilst South Korea won gold in the first Young Spikes Digital competition (sponsored by Innocean Worldwide). The awards won by Leo Burnett mark a significant milestone for the agency and the Sri Lankan advertising industry at large. The record breaking number of entries from across the region also indicates a clear positive growth in the region’s communications industry. Spikes Asia is conducted by Lions Festivals and Haymarket in an effort to bring together the finest creative thinkers from around the world.
Six young professionals and two young students from Sri Lanka’s advertising industry, have been selected to represent the country at the annual Young Spikes competition which will take place at the Spikes Asia Festival 2014 in Singapore from 23 to 26 September 2014. Following a local competition conducted by Metal Factor in partnership with the International Advertising Association (IAA), three teams were selected to participate in the Integrated, Media and Digital categories of the Young Spikes Asia competitions. Two students from the Academy of Design were also selected to participate at the Young Creative Academy which will take place at the festival.
A total of 74 young professionals competed in the local competition. These teams were issued a brief to which they had to respond to by the end of the day. After which each team presented their response to the brief to a jury comprising of leading professionals from the industry. For the Integrated competition, the brief was to create a campaign for safe driving by adhering to road rules and to highlight the importance of road etiquette. The Media competition challenged the teams to awaken the social conscience of city dwellers to use water sparingly. The Digital teams had to use digital platforms to help a clothing brand called ‘Exclamation’ reach out to its audience and to engage with them more effectively. Imaad Majeed and Shyan Gershon from TBW/TAL were selected as the winners of the integrated category and Seninda Bandara and Supun Hettiarachchi from Mindshare were selected in the Media category. Infas Iqbal and Gayathri Seneviratne from Phoenix O&M won in the Digital category. The Young Spikes Digital category is being introduced to the festival for the first time this year.
Commenting on this year’s Spikes Asia competition and winners, Ranil de Silva, the Sri Lankan representative for Spikes Asia said, “I am very happy to have eight young Sri Lankans representing our country at the Spikes Asia Festival this year. The Spikes Asia Festival and the Young Spikes competition provide young professionals in Sri Lanka with exposure to international standards of creativity. This I hope will enable them to help put Sri Lanka on the regional map. These teams will now compete against the best in the region. They will also have the opportunity to gain valuable experience which I hope will help them to grow as professionals. I strongly believe that opportunities such as this will help uplift the advertising industry in Sri Lanka.”
The local competition was facilitated by Metal Factor for the sixth consecutive year. Metal Factor is a non-profit partnership which was created to help Sri Lanka’s advertising industry realize its dream of achieving world-class standards to gain global recognition for its work. Metal Factor has been responsible for many programmes that benefit the industry, very specially the youth. Metal Factor organizes competitions to select promising young advertising professionals to represent the country at the world’s most prestigious advertising festivals (Spikes Asia and Cannes Lions). Similarly, Metal Factor also facilitates the process to select participants for the highly acclaimed Roger Hatchuel Academy which takes place at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
The Spikes Asia Festival is the region’s oldest and most prestigious event that recognizes the best in Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Direct, Promo and Activations, Media, Design, Poster Craft, Integrated, Mobile and PR. A collaboration between the organizers of the Cannes Lions Festival and Haymarket, the Spikes Asia Festival provides the region’s growing creative and advertising industry with a platform to network, exchange ideas and think creatively. Aside from bringing the region’s leading creative thinkers together, the festival also recognizes the best work from across the region.
Chani Perera and Induwarani Munasinghe of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) the Sri Lankan office of the internationally acclaimed advertising agency network Leo Burnett Worldwide created history by winning Sri Lanka’s first ever Gold metal at Spikes Asia 2013. The Spikes Asia Awards, the region’s oldest and most prestigious awards for creative advertising took place at the Grand Theatre, Marina Bay Sands with over 1,000 delegates from across Asia Pacific.
The Young Spikes Competitions provide Asia Pacific’s next generation of creative talent the opportunity to showcase their skills. This duo was chosen from
14 teams through a pre-selection process in Sri Lanka and then participated in the Young Spikes Competitions, held during the Spikes Asia Festival, and competed against 14 teams from all across the region. Winning gold in the Young Spikes Integrated Competition, Perera and Munasinghe bought recognition and pride to Sri Lanka and the country’s marketing communications industry.
Dexter Shadrach and InfasIqbal of Phoenix O&M (Pvt) Ltd walked away with the Silver metal for the recently held Young Spikes Media Competition, once again highlighting the exciting promise and potential of Sri Lanka’s industry talent. Conducted during the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity which is held annually in Singapore, the competition challenges teams from around the Asia-Pacific region to use their business insight and strategic skills to develop an innovative media strategy and plan.
Commenting on their win, Dexter said, “It was indeed a huge honour to have the opportunity to compete with some of the best young talent in the Asia-Pacific region, and to be recognised from among them and awarded for our ideas is truly gratifying. We are continuously exploring ways in which the evolving media landscape can be effectively utilised, and attending the Spikes Asia 2013 creative festival and competing in the Young Spikes Competition was a great way for us to expand our thinking and receive feedback from some of the most respected individuals in the creative communications industry in the region.”
Locally held individual competitions select each team of two to represent their respective countries at the international Young Spikes Competitions, which is organized with the objective of providing Asia Pacific’s next generation of creative talent the chance to showcase their skills and abilities. Participating teams are briefed by a non-profit organisation or charity on certain specific media requirements, and then given 24 hours in which to brainstorm, prepare and submit their ideas in the form of a short presentation delivered to a panel of media experts. Explaining the details of this year’s competition, Infas said, “Our brief was to create awareness and increase the readership of the flagship magazine of the non-profit organisation Humaneity. Based on our insight of their main target audience of CSR leaders, philanthropists and social entrepreneurs, our core idea revolved around an interactive digital magazine which could be downloaded to smart phones, tablets, etc., making the magazine all the more available. This enabled the audience to not only access the magazine whenever convenient, but to also share the same with friends and family; thereby ‘Sharing Humaneity’” Senior executives at Ogilvy Media and Neo@Ogilvy respectively, a testament to the capabilities of Dexter and Infas is the way they are able to absorb and learn from their surroundings. The duo explains that the opportunity to experience the seminars and forums by industry experts during the Spikes Asia Creative Festival prior to the competition gave them the perfect opportunity to observe, learn and apply when presenting at the Young Spikes Competition.
Commenting on his team’s achievement, Lalith Sumanasiri, Managing Director of Ogilvy Media and Neo@Ogilvy, a part of Phoenix O&M (Pvt) Ltd. said, “I am extremely proud of our team for once again putting Sri Lanka on the map by being recognised for their talent and capabilities. The service we provide to our clients at Ogilvy is based on the same principle with which Dexter and Infas achieved so much success; to come up with the most creative and effective idea which can be implemented across all media. Going forward, this is the only way to guarantee success in the ever-evolving media environment, and it is very promising when young executives such as our team are awarded for their progressive thinking.”
The Young Spikes Competitions are designed to provide the next generation of young creative talent in the Asia Pacific region an opportunity to showcase their abilities. The competitions are held in conjunctions with the Spikes Asia Festival, which sees the gathering of some of the best creative minds, and provides the burgeoning creative industry in the Asia-Pacific region a forum to network and exchange thoughts and ideas.
Spikes Asia is the most revered advertising award ceremony in Asia Pacific, where creativity in communications is recognized and rewarded. This annual festival held in Singapore, brings together the leaders from the marketing communications industry for three days of learning, and sharing experiences and to be rewarded for outstanding work. Leo Burnett Sri Lanka triumphed at this year’s awards ceremony by winning two Silver and one Bronze metals at Spikes Asia and was the only Sri Lankan agency to gain such a recognition.
These awards were received for the dual language newspaper created for Ada by Leo Burnett to commemorate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and was aptly titled the Unity Paper. The two Silver awards were received in the Media Innovations and Promo & Activation categories, the Bronze award was won in the Branded Content and Entertainment category again for the Unity Paper. The Unity Paper made history by being the country’s first bilingual newspaper which was created to bring together Sri Lankans and to pursue national unity and integration despite the many setbacks that have occurred due to the 30-year civil war. The Unity Paper was supported with a social media initiative which created a joint alphabet where the same letters from the Sinhala and Tamil alphabet were interlocked, thus further representing the concept of unity. The Unity Paper reached an estimated 176,821 readers and the social media initiative was able to engage 15% of Sri Lanka’s Facebook citizens.
Ranil De Silva, Managing Director, Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. commenting on the win at Spikes Asia stated, “We are really honoured and proud of the recognition bestowed upon us by eminent juries at Spikes. This recognition is a reward for the untiring and collective efforts of the team at the agency who worked around the clock to make this communications innovation a reality. I am very grateful to Wijeya Newspapers for being bold in undertaking this initiative. Three Spikes is a huge honour not just for us but also for the Leo Burnett network and for Sri Lanka. More importantly the tremendous response we received for the campaign especially through social media is even more gratifying.’’ Mark Tutsell, Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide who was at the festival stated that “Sri Lanka’s creative success is an inspiration to the entire network.” He also said “it proves that when there is a will there is a way. Leo Burnett Sri Lanka has been focussed on developing its creative product to global standards and they certainly have done it. I am very proud of our team in Colombo.”
JarekZiebinski, President of Leo Burnett Asia Pacific echoed Mark’s sentiments and said “The contribution the Sri Lankan office is making towards the region’s creative reputation is enormous. I admire Ranil’s leadership and commend him on this success.”
Along with these three significant metals, the dynamic Young Spikes duo of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) ChaniPerera and InduwaraniMunasinghe who represented Sri Lanka at the Young Spikes integrated competition, competing against 15 other countries won the Gold Award.
Spikes Asia Awards recognizes and rewards work in 14 categories that include Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Design, Film Craft, Print & Poster Craft, Integrated, Branded Content, Mobile and PR. All entries are judged by leading international and regional creatives making the award an esteemed recognition. The three day festival is a celebration of creativity and an opportunity to learn from seminars, forums, workshops and master classes conducted by some of the greatest minds in the business. The best work from across the region is showcased at the festival which attracts an audience in excess of 1500 delegates. The Spikes Asia Awards, is the region’s oldest and most prestigious awards for advertising.
The young rising stars of communications have always played a central role to the creative spirit of Spikes Asia, representing as they do the future innovators and award winners of the industry. Therefore opportunities to further develop themselves, the festival offers dedicated training aimed at helping students and young professionals interested in advertising, marketing, communications and design.
Continuing the mission of providing a space for the next generation to grow and hone essential creative skills, the festival has this year expanded to offer four Academies, each one carefully structured for a different career discipline. Each bespoke course is conducted simultaneously during the festival week, under the guidance of an experienced tutor. Participants are guided to experience the best and most relevant parts of the festival’s learning programmes whilst also enjoying specialist sessions from industry leaders in addition to tailored training and group discussions
Alyna Haji Omar
CEO
Response Marketing
Get Spiked!
“What’s so special about Spikes, you ask? Quite simply…. You have to experience it to know it. Unlike the more sprawling, leisurely pace of Adfest, Spikes like the host city itself is tight, fast paced and professional. Traditionally held at Suntec Singapore a venue that boasts first class facilities in the heart of Singapore’s Business District, Spikes proudly hosts workshops conducted by prominent industry leaders from around the world. One is also privy to an exhibition displaying the best creative work in Asia Pacific and some winning work from Cannes.
Spikes is not without its fair share of fun which includes after dark networking where leading agencies open their doors to an evening of fun, and of course there is the Awards After Party.
By September when work has surely taken its toll, what better way to recharge your batteries than with Spikes Asia, a real celebration of regional creativity.I sure hope I’ll see you there “
Laila Gunasekera Martenstyn
Vice President
Grant McCann Erickson