This year, the Gong Awards, a prestigious local advertising competition in Singapore, decided to shake things up. Instead of the usual fanfare, they chose to pit ideas against each other in a literal fight for recognition. Leading the charge behind this innovative campaign is Nico Tangara, the Associate Creative Director and Creative Technologist at BBH Innovation Lab.
In this interview, Nico takes us behind the scenes of this unique project, sharing the inspiration behind the concept, the hurdles faced during development, and the playful spirit that infused the entire process. From brainstorming to beta testing, Nico reveals how his team turned a simple awards show into an unforgettable game, all while reminding the industry that creativity is most powerful when it’s fun.
What was the brief?
We were asked to create a campaign for the Gong Awards, a local advertising awards show in Singapore.
How did the initial pitch/brainstorming phase go?
We looked at other awards show marketing and noticed it all tends to talk about celebrating the best ideas, which can become quite repetitive. As a local awards show in Singapore, we thought of injecting a lot more fun into this year’s competition with the idea that the ideas are quite literally in a fight with each other to win – and how we could turn this into a game.
What was the process behind ideating the concept?
Everyone was very excited about the idea but questioned how it could be made playable. So that was a challenge – along with the fact that we only had three months until it had to be ready for the launch of the call for entries.
What was the production process like?
There are many ways to make a game, each with its own pros and cons to it. But ultimately we want to exercise our creative juices, so we took a real maker mentality and developed it in-house at the BBH Innovation Lab. That also meant we wouldn’t have to make compromises that might have ended up with an experience that wasn’t actually worth playing.
What was the biggest challenge during production? How did you overcome it?
Great fighting games have amazing characters - a big challenge was creating our cast of fighters, and giving each one a unique look and fighting style. And we needed to balance the fighters as well - so none had an unfair edge. That took a lot of beta testing and practice matches.
What kit/tools/software were used to create the project?
After trying a few different options, we ended up going with Unreal Engine, a game engine by Epic Games that we’ve used previously on other client projects. Game development is not a very common capability for an advertising agency but we have people who are makers at heart and love to try new technology like this, which is how we came to have experience in this area.
What is one funny or notable thing that happened during production?
One of our interns thought it would be funny for the Shit Idea character to only make fart sounds – not only is it funny, but it also makes the game a lot more unpredictable.
What’s the main message of this project and why does it matter?
The Gong Awards are about celebrating brilliant ideas, but that doesn’t mean they have to take themselves too seriously. We can make it fun and memorable for the audience!
How long did it take from inception to delivery?
It took us three months from conceiving the idea to release – the same gestation period as a leopard, FYI.
What do you hope it achieves for the brand?
We hope it tells people how great the Gong Awards are and that it inspires them to enter, and to come along and celebrate the joy of making creative work together. As a bigger idea, we hope it reminds our industry that when we are having fun, we can do fun work.
