Craig Brooks thinks differently. The executive creative director at R/GA Sydney began his career as a developer. While ad agency people were trying to come to grips with the mysteries of digital, the digital pro was acquiring expertise as an agency creative. He then joined TBWA\Tequila, where he stayed for eleven years, gathering an impressive haul of awards and a portfolio of big brand work. He is now executive creative director at forward-thinking digital agency, R/GA in Sydney. At ADFEST 2019 he has been judging Branded Entertainment Lotus, Effective Lotus and Integrated Lotus. He has some very interesting words to say about that:

What were you looking for in particular in branded entertainment? What makes branded entertainment good or bad?

The clue is right there in the category name. This field is a chance for brands to entertain their audiences and connect in more meaningful ways than just comms. The great challenge within this field is to strike the harmonious balance between engaging with customers whilst retaining a genuine connection to the brand that facilitates the storytelling.

There is often a disjunct between effectiveness winners and creative winners? India, for example, currently has the top three effectiveness campaigns in the world, but is not such a high achiever in the creative rankings. Should advertising be worried about this? What are the key characteristics of an effective creative campaign?

There are multiple levers we can pull as marketers when working with our client partners, and we’re tasked with creating vastly different desired outcomes with our work. Of course, the best test of an idea is that it is creatively unique and still brilliantly effective. The sheer scale of the population numbers in Asia often skews how a piece of creative is considered effective, but from what I’ve seen so far there are some lovely ideas that have transcended both those markers of success.

What are you most excited about seeing and doing at ADFEST?

ADFEST always unearths hidden gems because it shines a light on work that harnesses local insights to tackle local problems in unique ways. With the scale of the region we’re often aware of the bigger pieces of work before you get into judging, but it’s the underdogs that always surprise and are worth celebrating.

“We are creatively driven—and all our work is informed by our culture of collaboration” R/GA took a while to find its feet creatively in Aus? What challenges has it conquered to get to where it is now and what is on the horizon? How collaborative is the R/GA network and in what ways?

Every office in our network has evolved through pure organic growth with no acquisitions and no mergers. In very little time Australia, has grown from a tiny office of 5 to over 100 people across 2 offices – and, APAC is the fastest growing region in the network. Part of that rapid growth has been our in-built connectivity – this is the most collaborative agency I’ve ever experienced. We consistently have creatives and strategists from all over the world working together on multiple projects. Our relationship with Wine Australia is a great example of this, where I currently have teams in Shanghai and New York bringing their local insights to our creative platform that helps us gain far better traction in those markets.