Hamming it up in Pattaya

Just Doing It! 
THE HAMMER

I’ve left the house and am heading to KLIA: Destination Pattaya for AdFest 2023, to join the biggest constellation of advertising creatives and ground-breaking work in Asia.

Last night, AdFest announced the Finalist for 18 categories. And Malaysia has only ONE piece of work that made it to Finalist.

A joint effort by Ogilvy Malaysia and Singapore (or Ogilvy Singapore and Malaysia) for Cadbury Milk.

The same work won Finalist at Spikes Asia 2023 earlier this month.

To be fair, I don’t know how many entries from Malaysia entered AdFest, while I know there were 52 Malaysian entries to Spikes Asia, Shortlist/Finalist 5, no metal.

While this is an early dampener for my trip, and short of sounding like a broken record about Malaysia’s creative conundrum, this trip is in the memory of my good friend the late Jimmy Lam, Co-Founder of AdFest together with the man who can talk paint off walls, Vinit Suraphongchai (President of AdFest).

And since I ravaged Vinit’s minibar in his royally-appointed suite and recklessly littered his majestic balcony at the Royal Cliff multiple times, I am bringing him a litre of JW Green Label to atone for my sins.

So many friends, so little time…… Kim Shaw, Kem, Meen, ThinkTankers, Gigi Lee, Angel & David Guerrero, Ted Lim, Guan, Valerie Madon, Ronald Ng, 7Sundays – Afeeq and Tina, Andrew Lee, Dato Johnny Mun, Paul Kemp-Robertson, Gordon Tan, Sara Fielding, Lauren Thevenet, Rahul Mathew, Rob Sherlock, Akira Kagami-san and hundreds more….

We have done much coverage on AdFest over the years. You may want to check one customised edition here.

This is what I wrote six years ago…in between, COVID bit a few years off.


In the meantime, to all my Muslim brothers and sisters, Happy Fasting and Ramadan Mubarak.

Everything in life is a test of one’s faith. No “Thai Hot Guy” shows for me!

All about AdFest 2023 is here: http://www.adfest.com/index.php/Home/Index/index.html


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The Malaysian Marketing Conference & Festival 2024 at the Sime Darby Convention Centre is a TWO-day marketing event for all those in Marketing, Media, Advertising, PR, Digital, Data, and more….

The experience is on May 15 & 16, with Keynote Speakers, multiple tracks or Breakaway Sessions hosted by our booth partners who will show you the latest in the industry. 

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