< Back
SPEAKERS : ADFEST SESSIONS TO GET YOU MAKING SUCCESS WITH UNEXPECTED THINKING
ADFEST continues to gather speaker sessions filled with unexpected thinking to help attendees discover new ways to promote success for their business. These new sessions include untraditional thinking about disagreements across advertising disciplines and a surprising source of blossoming opportunities.
FRIDAY 21 MARCH | 10.40-11.15
A Creative, A Gaming Expert and A Strategist Agree to Disagree.
Nicole Ingra, Insights & Strategy Director, Ingra Labs, Barcelona
Rey Tiempo, Chief Creative Officer & Brand Gamification Specialist, MINOTAUR, Manila
Felipe Franco, Global Creative Consultant, Film Director, ECD & Founder, FF&Co, Global
A strategist, a gaming expert and a creative walk into a boardroom, only to realise that their decades of experience have primed them to collide and disagree in the favour of the best creative idea. Nicole, Rey and Felipe come from three different disciplines, but the agenda that unites them is excellence in advertising and the drive to push creativity forward.
In this session, they will show how disciplinary collision isn’t bad after all, and how they navigate this conflict while letting creative excellence be their north star. They will reveal the radical insights into brainstorming, strategising, creative benchmarking, and setting measurable success metrics, that help them work better with each other, with their own selves, and embrace the transformative power of creative conflict.
In the sea of content and mediocre campaigns releasing daily, it’s imperative for teams to come together, foster diversity of thought, and conjure not just creative campaigns, but campaigns that work for the brand, and the business, while transcending the boundary of what is possible. Here’s to more of ‘what if’ instead of ‘can we’. At this session, you will find that the power lies with you.
Nicole Ingra is the founder of Ingra Labs, a strategy consultancy helping brands - and the people behind them - navigate change. She is known for transforming complex ideas into sharp insights that spark creative solutions and inspiring teams to think differently and create work that connects on an emotional and cultural level. Her speciality is uncovering the cultural tensions that drive behaviour and turning them into actionable strategies that resonate locally and globally.
Rey Tiempo is chief creative officer at Minotaur, a team of gaming, esports, tech, music, and fandom culture drivers and community builders for brands. He is a highly-awarded gaming specialist, with multiple wins in creative gaming awards across the most prestigious industry shows and more than twenty years’ experience in the world’s largest global and local advertising networks. Rey has been ranked as the number one creative director in the Philippines and has consistently placed as one of the top creatives in Asia Pacific.
Felipe Franco is an awarded executive creative director, film director, and entrepreneur with a distinguished track record of leading successful campaigns for major brands and a global perspective and multicultural experience gained from working across four continents, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. His creative leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in shaping the narratives and campaigns that brought groundbreaking ideas to market, underlining his ability to merge storytelling with technology and innovation. The founder of the creative consultancy, FF & Co and an AI enthusiast, he continues to drive innovation and creativity, helping brands achieve their business objectives through creativity allied with technology.
SATURDAY 22 MARCH | 10.40 - 11.15
Creative Opportunity in Saudi Arabia: Is it for real?
Julian Boulding, Founder & President, thenetworkone, London
Fadi Mroue, Chief Creative Officer, SRMG, Riyadh
Heide Cohu, Founder, Studio of Art and Commerce, London
Anyone who has been to Saudi Arabia since the Vision 2030 transformation was launched, will tell you it’s extraordinary. Gone are the centuries-old rules of behaviour. Today, women are free to travel independently, to drive cars, to get jobs, to build careers. There are new green cities, the world’s longest subway line, fashion shows, fine dining, music festivals in the desert. Cristiano Ronaldo's wife, Georgina Rodriguez, is a bigger star than Cristiano.
But something else is changing. Saudis used to sit by, while foreigners did the work. Especially in the creative industries. Today, Saudi-isation is the buzzword. Foreigners are welcome and also expected to share their skills and help young Saudis to take their place at the table. This session will show how agencies built by Saudis are re-inventing the way creativity is developed, and creatives from outside Saudi Arabia collaborating with Saudis are achieving results that a few years ago no-one would have thought possible.
Julian Boulding founded thenetworkone in 2005 after 14 years with traditional network agencies, living and working in London, Amsterdam, Sao Paulo and New York.
Representing 1500 agencies in 117 countries worldwide, from Japan to Chile and from Australia to Iceland, it’s by far the world’s largest independent agency community.
Thenetworkone has been active in Saudi Arabia for more than ten years, working with leading Saudi-owned creative and PR agencies as well as international independents, thinking independently and championing collaboration.
Fadi Mroue is the chief creative officer at SRMG, the Middle East’s largest Media Group, as well managing director of SRMG Labs. A graduate of the New York Pratt Institute, Mroue began his career at BBDO before establishing République in 2008. In 2024, he led SRMG Labs to be ranked in the top 10 agencies in MENA according to the Cannes Lions Rankings, the most awarded agency at the Athar Festival of Creativity, as well as the most awarded MENA agency at LIA.
Heide Cohu’s background includes eight years at Red Bull as global brand communications and media director, where she led projects such as Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic free fall from the edge of space in 2012 and helped drive the creation of Red Bull Media House. After three years as global brand communications and creative director at Bacardi, she founded Studio Art + Commerce, a successful entertainment and experiences agency, and built a portfolio of international projects and global brands.
The ADFEST 2025 3-day Program is now online packed speaker sessions, workshops, mentoring programs, screenings and networking events. ADFEST is the region’s only original and most celebrated creative festival. The three-day event brings together the industry’s top minds, rising stars and most innovative ideas.
Be part of the ADFEST experience and register now at www.ADFEST.com to COLLiDE at ADFEST 2025, Thursday 20 to Saturday 22 March 2025 at PEACH, Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand.
ADFEST is a not-for profit entity that believes passionately in its role to nurture and support the creative industry in the Asia Pacific and MENA region. It is 1 of only 7 regional creative festivals included in the WARC Creative 100 Rankings, and 1 of 12 awards included in the Campaign Brief Asia Rankings.
13 February, 2025
