Santosh Padhi announced jury president for AdFest 2013

Santosh Padhi, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot has been announced as jury president for AdFest 2013 that is to be held during March 17-19 at Pattaya in Thailand.

Padhi says, "I have always been on the other side but this time I have been given a difficult responsibility to pick the right campaigns that become the standard for the next year."

He adds that AdFest is one of the oldest award functions for the Asian ad community and people have a huge respect for it. It is an honour as well as a challenge to win an award at AdFest.

Jimmy Lam, president, AdFest, says, "Paddy's credentials as an art director and designer are formidable. He has been involved in some of India's most celebrated print campaigns, which makes him our undisputed choice as jury president of Design and Print Craft in 2013."

AdFest 2013 has 16 categories in all, of which two categories have been added this year - Mobile Lotus and Creative Effectiveness Lotus. The other categories are Film Lotus, Press Lotus, Outdoor Lotus, Radio Lotus, Interactive Lotus, Direct Lotus, Promo Lotus, Design Lotus, Print Craft Lotus, Film Craft Lotus, New Director Lotus, Integrated Lotus, Innova Lotus and Lotus Roots.

Popularly known as Paddy in the Indian creative circles, Padhi began his career 18 years ago with Mudra and later joined Leo Burnett as senior art director in 2003.

In 2009, he launched Taproot India with Agnello Dias. Together, Padhi and Dias have handled several big accounts such as Pepsi, Nirma and others.

Paddy has won more than 40 awards for his work and has been featured in several big magazines.

Graham Fink, chief creative officer, Ogilvy & Mather, China is the grand jury president and the jury president for the Film Lotus and Radio Lotus categories. Valerie Cheng, executive creative director, JWT Singapore is the jury president for Interactive Lotus and Mobile Lotus categories, and Ronald Ng, chief creative officer, BBDO/Proximity Singapore is the jury president for the Press Lotus category.

The AdFest has celebrated creativity in the Asia Pacific region since 1998. For the first time in 2013, AdFest will also include entries from West Asia. The call for entries is open until January 18.

In AdFest 2012, McCann Erickson won a gold and four silver metals. Leo Burnett, too, was a big winner with one gold, one silver and four bronze metals. DDB Mudra won three silver and five bronze metals. Ogilvy India, Grey India, Creativeland Asia and Happy Creative Services also won one silver each.