LAHORE: Master brand makers and image builders from home and abroad on Wednesday explained in the first session of the AdAsia Lahore 2019 how they did marvels with innovative techniques instead of following the routine.

The first Pakistani woman to climb Mount Everest, Miss Samina Khayal Baig, was among the speakers at Alhamra on the second day of the world conference, and won standing ovation from the audience, comprising mainly advertisement giants and media persons, by telling how she became a symbol of women empowerment.

The mountaineer from a remote village of Gilgit-Baltistan lacking even basic civic amenities, appeared to have moved the people assembled only to know the latest global advertisement trends by explaining them how she surmounted all hurdles in the way of women while climbing the highest peaks in the world.

The first speaker was Creative Change Catalyst Tay Guan Hin who has over the past around two decades transformed and changed global brands by developing an array of integrated creative business solutions that contributed to the growth in as many as 12 key markets.

His theme was highlighting imperfections to create a connection with people. “Doing so would create a connection with people, making it easy to sell your idea,” he said, adding “perfections look artificial, do not create connections between the idea and the people and do sometime intimidate the target audience,” he said.

Quoting his personal examples, he said how as a cleft lip child he faced embarrassments but a teddy bear given to the brother of his wife who suffered from blood cancer created a connection for him.

To make his point clear he showed some advertisements which were made on the same principle and drew attention of the audience. One was about the survivors of a car crash, choosing a safe car, and as a result

making people trust it actually is. Another was for getting donations for the cleft lips persons by making people donate their online faces for turning them into cleft lips children.

Mr Vange Kourentis, a commercial and digital media specialist with 25 years experience among the world’s leading football clubs, leagues, federations and players, explained how his team made Manchester United (football) a universal brand.

He said the main slogan of the campaign was to be the best football club in the world both on and off the pitch. The strategy was to maximise revenues from the stadium, build a cohesive media presence, develop strategic partnerships and adopt sustainable international expansion. Mr Shahzad Nawaz and Mr Faraz Maqsood Hamidi who created Markhor symbol for PIA and a security agency separately said creating such things was madness. Thinking differently after drowning in the concept of the brand leads to creativity, they said, explaining how their individual working styles that helped them carve a niche in the advertising sector in Pakistan.

Mr Bharat Avalani and Mr Jonathan Chen gave details of the upcoming advertisement events and invited the audience to attend them.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2019