White Square Festival, promoting creativity, highly values ideas and people in the industry, shares the principles of socially responsible marketing, peacefulness and defends universal human values.
This year 759 entries from 35 countries all over the world took part in the contest program of White Square Festival 2023.
The high level of judging, professional competence and impartiality in the evaluation of entries are one of the strengths of White Square Festival. The entries of the festival were evaluated by 4 line-ups of international jury represented by experts from more than 40 countries with worldwide recognition in the advertising industry, numerous awards and experience in judging prestigious creativity festivals around the world.
The jury highly appreciated the level of entries of White Square Festival 2023. Chairman of Creative & Branding jury, Michelangelo Cianciosi, founder and CEO of The Bunch, Italy, noted that every year the festival strives to expand the geography of its participants and cover more and more new countries. Michelangelo appreciates the uniqueness of the festival and the possibility to explore the creativity of countries and cultures that often are out of the spotlight.
According to Chairman of Marketing & Digital Jury, Kestrel Lee, Creative Lead/ECD, Integrated Solutions, Dentsu China, there is a trend to interject AI and data into creative projects among the festival's entries. Most of the entries show superficial applications of AI rather than a basic build from machine learning, understanding of copyright issues and actual measurable results. People thinking of using AI to win awards, should remember that Nobel Prizes are not given to applied physicists of String Theory but the actual people who came up with the theory. You cannot out-tech geeks who invented the technology unless you become one yourself.
This year, for the first time, Craft jury line-up was formed. Chairman of Craft jury, Alex Teodorescu, executive producer of Saga Film, Romania, thinks the overall level of the entries was good with some executions being exceptional. He believes the festival attracted some ambitious projects and is stirring excitement, creativity and craft in different countries. In terms of trends Alex noticed a return to a longer format for most audio-video entries and a genuine interest in creating relevant work by mixing production tools – with CGI (visible or invisible) being omnipresent. This year, the eye-candy, more complex and more surprising executions took the stage from basic storytelling and insights.
Chairman of Mass Media jury, Krassimir Papazov, editor-in-chief of RedLink, Bulgaria: «I think the entries of White Square 2023 Mass Media Contest prove that brands are taking a stance globally and are actively engaging with their audiences on various social issues all over the world. Creativity is a powerful force that is driving the change for good all over the world. It is evident from the high number of longlisted entries after the first round of judging, shortlisted entries and the number of gold awards that competition at White Square Festival 2023 was quite strong, and the overall level of the submitted entries was high, not to mention that some of the awarded entries have already won awards on other local, regional and global festivals».
The winners of White Square Festival 2023 will be published on June 1 on the official website of the festival and later on the industrial resources of more than thirty countries around the world.