I was called in as a Judge in the Advertising Hall of Fame awards 2006. An interesting opportunity, I thought. Would give me a chance to come closer to not only the work happening in the industry but also interact with the local talent and hob nob with the advertising glitterati in Singapore.
Since a few birds were being killed with one stone, I decided to sacrifice some sleep (I’m not a early morning person anymore) and be at The Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel at Havelock road before 8 AM, the time designated for the judges.
As usual, munching on some tea and bread ("Sorry sir, nothing vegetarian"), I looked around-some familiar and a few new- mostly from Advertising mainstream, and some senior guys from Interactive agencies and portals like Yahoo/MSN/etc
All in all, a good gathering- considering it was a Friday morning, and the event was supposed to eat up the good part of the day.
So here are the details- will refrain from too much details as don’t want to breach anything. Most of the bytes here are common knowledge and will be known to everyone.
My panel had to judge on
1) Press campaign of the year
2) Cable TV campaign of the year
3) Relationship Marketing campaign of the year
4) The Ambient Marketing campaign of the year
5) The young Professional of the year Award
Good experience. The most impressionable was the ‘Young Professional of the year’ judging process. It took pretty much almost 2 hours and easily was the one which took the max time. Reason: The applicants were supposed to give an interview to the panel.
The one with maximum entries was the Ambient marketing campaign of the year- and this was the one that got over in the minimum possible record breaking time- lunch hour was getting closer after all!
Some interesting chaps were there in the former campaign.
The evaluation criterion was decided as – alloting scores against these categories:
Contribution
Team Player
Innovation and Imagination
Inspiration (which I presumed included leadership qualities)
Some candidates were good, many were normal run of the mill, but all were enthusiastic and cheerful.
But to dismay, the judges were not very original in the questioning, and were hardly going beyond "Where do u see yourself 5 years from now?" type of questions.
As in any test, this one elicited some funny responses:
"I have team spirit because I single handedly managed an event"
"Ms so and so is a super woman"
"I ‘inspired’ the media owner to give me free inventory" (Ahem, did the ‘inspiration’ include a slight twist of the arm?)
One character- (though I liked him somehow despite the attitude) staggered in the hall with a muffler, shirt hanging out, and a cup and plate of tea. We were like, "Err… sir may I ask you a question please?"
A good interaction with the crowd, and made me feel like "Should be attending more events like these"
And there was one more in the evening- The "Rich Media Seminar" organised by Double Click on the occassion of their 10th Anniversary at Senso Restaurant on Club Road.
Met the usual suspects there, a few new and some friendly faces. I wonder if the industry guys remain as friendly after they dnt expect business from you. Till now, in life, met very few who are genuinely friendly and respectful even when they are not expecting business from you.
Kaylie from Double click was getting over from her session, and attended sessions from Tom – Sales Director from yahoo and Rodney Tay from Interactive Hub. Nothing new here- not so much for me, but was a good session for the mainstream advertising guys and marketers. One of them tried to pull Tom for how does a client evaluate the effectiveness between an Online Vs an Offline campaign. To which Tom promised to give some data ‘Personally’ after the event..hmmm… No ok..I did see him showing some data offline 
)
Because i was following my ‘Shradh’ abstinence, had some orange juice and rushed home quickly. A good day meeting people and doing something new!
*excerpt from my blog on http://shalabh.in/blog.html*
