[Busan International Advertising Festival (AD STARS) Participation Report – Part 2] Although the barriers in Asia are high, what did we see beyond the festival…?

Hello to everyone reading the blog. I am Kameyama from the Account Planning Department.

This time, as a continuation of the previous AD STARS Participation Report – Part 1, I will be writing about New Stars, the young competition that was the main purpose of my participation this time.

New Stars is a planning competition limited to participants aged 30 and under: after receiving the brief, you submit one proposal the next day and compete on planning ability. Not only New Stars but other young competitions are entered in pairs, and I participated with a colleague from my previous job who joined at the same time as I did.

A well-known competition is Young Cannes, but for that one, only a single pair selected through domestic screening can go to Cannes for the final round. In contrast, New Stars does not select representatives by country; instead, 50 pairs from around the world can participate. There is no advance assignment requiring a proposal submission; you only submit an entry form (including your motivation to participate, achievements, etc.), so the barrier to entry is relatively low and it is easy to take on as a challenge.

Before the day of participation, we analyzed trends in past briefs and learned that there are topics focused on domestic Korean themes and on AD STARS sponsors, among others. We compiled the knowledge we should have in advance and took on the challenge.

On the first day of the competition, the brief was announced first, followed by an orientation.

The orientation venue looked like this! (Official T-shirts were distributed and we were told to wear them, so everyone matched.)

So, what was this year’s brief? It was: “Devise a social media–based campaign that raises awareness of Busan among foreigners and makes them want to visit as tourists.”

Our pair first split up to think of ideas individually. After some time, we brought our ideas together, refined them, and narrowed them down to one.

After pulling an all-nighter for the first time in a while, we made it to the next morning and somehow pulled everything together into a single proposal and submitted it.

Deciding on an idea in one day and fully consolidating it into a one-page proposal was difficult, and the process of moving forward while wondering whether it was good enough was honestly tough. (How can you reach the point where you think, “This idea can really work!”…?)

To share the result first: we were unable to win any awards—Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Crystal. Gold went to a team from the Philippines, and there was also a team from Japan that won Silver.

(Incidentally, the results were announced in the same venue as the presentation of AD STARS award-winning works!)

Participating in an international advertising festival for the first time, and in the final round of a young competition, was extremely stimulating, and it also led me to reflect on the following points.

1) Being able to communicate in English
2) How many ideas you can generate from as many perspectives as possible in a short time

Regarding 1), because I participated with almost no English ability, I was not able to turn 100% of the experiences I had at AD STARS into learning. It was also the moment in my life when I most strongly felt motivated to study English proactively.

Regarding 2), because you must come up with a plan, compile it into a proposal, and submit it within a single day, I felt that the key to winning is how quickly you can generate ideas from more perspectives and angles than any other team.

Because these points of reflection are also relevant to my day-to-day work, they are my challenges going forward. With these thoughts in mind, I left Busan and AD STARS behind.

This time, I will continue to work hard every day so that I can win an award next time!

I have written this AD STARS participation report in two parts, and thank you very much for reading this far!

If I appear on the blog again, I appreciate your continued support at that time.