White Square International Festival of Creativity continues accepting entries. The final deadline is May 3. Agencies and brands can submit best projects in eight contest categories covering the entire spectrum of the communications, marketing, branding and creative industries. Today with us is experienced jury member of White Square, Creative Director Kestrel Lee, with over 20 years of experience in advertising, creative, integrated and digital marketing, winning nearly 100 digital and integrated awards at award shows such as One Show and Spikes Asia, Kestrel was recognized by Campaign Asia Pacific Digital A-list for ecommerce in 2016 and was one of 2 Chinese appointed to the first WARC Rankings creative advisory boarding 2020, which is about supporting creative excellence in award shows.

According to your opinion, what role participation in creativity festivals and winning them plays for agencies and creative people from advertising industry today, in the era of global disruptions, rapid digitalization and the appearance of AI?

The best award shows curate the best work with global standards but local nuance so the industry can keep learning and moving forward. Technologies are just tools, not actual solutions, to create better work.

Projects with your participation have won numerous awards at prestigious international creativity festivals. Are there any cases among them that are most valuable to you, which brought inspiration to you during their creation? Can you tell us a little about them and why they are valuable to you?

It is my Martel Ultimate Start-up Space campaign which ran from 2009 to 2010. This crowdsourcing campaign won more integrated and social awards in Singapore that year than anything else. I was the interactive group lead for the social media strategy and creative work. Leveraging on the previously unknown insight that social content will drive search results, it was at a time when most agencies had not even started in social media. Most admen don't do innovations for the sake of innovations, unless they want to scam for awards. Most of us are just trying to make our work. At that point, I moved away from advertising thinking and relied on innovative ideas related to using social media to increase the effectiveness of the campaign. This is what helped me to successfully implement the project!

You have judging experience at many international creativity festivals, and this year you will be judging the entries of White Square Festival. What new aspects would you like to see, what are the key criteria for evaluating projects for you?

I am keen on seeing better work for Creative use of Technology and Data. I don't think AI should be a separate category but it should be featured as an enabling component for different award categories and would be a key criteria for me when judging them.

What social values are most actively supported by brands in your country?

Currently in Asia, ESG or Environment-social-governance are key areas.

What inspires you for your work? Perhaps, hobbies, family, friends or colleagues?  

My hobbies in gaming, reading internet novels from Korea, Japan and China, as well as my experiments in AI, VE and social media keeps me inspired.

What would you like to wish to the participants of White Square Festival 2024?

Working hard to solve client's actual problems would keep you employed long beyond an award winning piece of scam work.

Learn more about the nominations and submit the entries White Square Festival you can on the official website until 03.05.2024.