Business

Saturday September 15, 2012

Academy offers first-hand industry insight


SPIKES Asia Festival of Creativity and Cheil Worldwide are again teaming up to form the Spikes Asia Creative Academy, offering a unique learning opportunity for a select group of students from across Asia-Pacific.

The three-day Spikes Asia, which is organised by Lions Festivals and Campaign Asia Pacific publisher Haymarket, will be held in Singapore from tomorrow.

The organisers say in a statement that the academy's three-day programme, aimed at inspiring young creative talent, is tailored to the needs of its students and includes tutorials and master-classes from top industry figures as well as participation in the Spikes Asia seminar and forum programme.

This gives them exceptional first-hand insight into the creative advertising and communications industry of which they will be a part of in the future.

The academy's activities will culminate in a graduation ceremony.

This year's group of 15 students include two students from Saito College in Malaysia.

The students, currently in tertiary education studying advertising, marketing and communications, will be tutored by Noor Azhar, a senior lecturer at the Singapore Polytechnic Design School. Noor practiced advertising as an art director at CreAds Advertising and Batey Ads and then went on to set up integrated brand communications agency Just Media (now JM Asia). Noor has tutored the Academy since 2009.

“The Spikes Asia Creative Academy will expand the students' knowledge and provide an unforgettable insight into the advertising and communications sectors, enhancing their skills and knowledge for when they embark on a career in the industry.

“We are delighted to continue working with Cheil Worldwide to deliver this exceptional learning platform and we look forward to welcoming this year's group of students,” says Steve Latham, director of talent and training for Spikes Asia.

Commenting on Cheil's Spikes Academy sponsorship, Cheil Worldwide president and chief executive officer Nack-Hoi Kim says: “This will be our third year sponsoring the Spikes Academy, and we are very excited to be inviting 15 promising students in Asia to attend the festival this year.

“We have no doubt that these students will learn and be inspired from the industry leaders as well as the wonderful, rich programme which will be tailor-made for the group. I hope that this experience will inspire them to reach their fullest potential in their future endeavours.”

Meanwhile, this year's Spikes Asia Awards attracted a record 4,860 entries from 23 countries. The highest number of entries is for the outdoor category (749), followed by print (554) and film (454).

“The extraordinary growth in the number of entries this year is not only testament to the importance of Spikes Asia to the creative community in Asia-Pacific but is also an endorsement of the great work being produced in the region which will ultimately reverberate around the world,” says Terry Savage, co-chairman of Spikes Asia.

The Star is the official and exclusive Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity representative for Malaysia.

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