IAS AR 2004 - Institute of Advertising Singapore

Rob White
Simon Buchanan Suresh Nair Yasmin Ahmad
Tom Doctoroff
Sylvia Lee Jimmy Lau
Jeff Delkin John Merrifield Kenneth Tsang
“Traditional advertising doesn’t work
anymore and companies who don’t get wise to
this are going to fail,” boldly proclaimed the
CEO of Mindshare SEA, Nick Waters. “Brands
today are under threat - we live in a ‘brandscape’
– the subjects of a sponsored world occupied
by an army of marketers. But COMMON must
die – advertising today must entertain and
engage. Instead of Media Planners, let’s have
Communication Channel Strategists.”
Gerry Pereira, President of the Carlson
Marketing Group, couldn’t agree more.
“Relationships always drives better business
results.” An expert in CRM, Gerry said that a
2-way dialogue actually helps the brand.
Valuair is banking on this exact strategy to
give itself an edge over the competition. By
communicating itself as a fun way to fly – with
an all-female crew and special theme flights –
its advertising strategy, says Jimmy Lau,
Executive Director & Co-Founder, is to make
the Valuair experience a memorable one.
Making ads stand out – in fact, taking ads
to the extreme appears to be the forte of Jeff
Delkin, Regional Business Director of O&M,
and John Merrifield, Chief Creative Officer &
Regional CD of TBWA Japan. Citing the repositioning
of Sprite to gain market share, Jeff
pointed out that savvy hip young people today
cannot be fooled – “making a product look cool
without trying to be cool can be tricky” so they
had to turn the Sprite thirst-quenching
experience into a full-bodied superlative
experience by introducing Sprite Ice and Super
Lemon, resulting in a 12% sales increase in just
4 months.
John Merrifield, who surfs the high waves
with intense passion, injects this same element
Rod Pullen
into his advertising strategies. Ever heard of
playing soccer10 storeys high while horizontally
suspended from a high-rise building How
about the unique experience of driving past a
2-metre long giant football sitting atop a
crushed car (with a realistic larger-than-life
image of a footballer on a nearby building
whose action of kicking a ball supposedly
caused the mock crash scene) Taking the
Adidas brand to the extreme got the
Saatchi&Saatchi agency staff arrested in Tokyo,
but on the flipside, sales for Adidas shot
through the roof, giving new meaning to the
Adidas slogan ‘Impossible is Nothing. Now
with Adidas, there is a New Level of
Impossible.’
All the speakers at the Ad Congress
certainly gave superb presentations. AdLib
congratulates the IAS - Rewriting the Rules
of Creativity & Effectiveness in Advertising has
undoubtedly made its point among the 400
plus admen and women in attendance.
“The congress was very well organized
this year. You managed to gather an excellent
group of speakers... no lemons this time.
The topics covered were comprehensive and
you already have the press writing about the
congress, especially Yasmin (She was most
inspiring)”
Nalini Naidu
Senior Vice President
SPH
" I've received a note of appreciation
from someone at Batey/Redcell. It implies
a high level of satisfaction from the
delegates. It's the first I have ever received
after so many years of IAS Ad Congresses.
Well done, no other words can express how
rewarding it was for all who attended in
terms of the LEARNING we got from the
team of your well-selected Quality Speakers.
Thanks for the Great 2-Day event. At
Consumer Probe, my Team and I felt that
our sponsorship was every cent well-spent!"
Peggy Tan
Managing Director
Consumer Probe
Ad Congress & EFFIE Awards Sponsor
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