As juries deliberated the winners of the London International Awards 2012, 60 junior creatives gathered for the final day of Creative Conversations with Neil French, Scott Elias, Faris Yakob, and Jonathon Ker.
Guest speaker Sonal Dabral, National Creative Director, DDB Mudra, opened his session by breaking into a rendition of his favourite Bollywood song. He kept the audience engaged, sharing his career experiences and offering gems of encouragement.
"Just because it came easy doesn't mean it's not a big idea," he says."The envelope was made to be pushed"
The day finished with an audience with Phil Growick, author of the book My First Time, Susan Credle, CCO of Leo Burnett USA, Ted Royer, ECD of Droga5 NY, Tony Calcao, ECD of CP+B Boulder, Jeremy Craigen, ECD of DDB UK and Israel Diaz, CCO of Y&R Toronto.
The topic of the final panel of the day was 'My first time'. The panel shared with the audience their first experiences from when they started out in the ad industry and how they overcame their fears and fought for their ideas.
Ted Royer, who revealed that he was inspired to go into the advertising industry by Darren from TV show Bewitched, advised the young creatives: "Don't ask permission - just say sorry".
Young Creative, Daniel Maree, of McCannNY said: "I especially found what Susan Credle had to say informative and insightful. Meeting like-minded people here in Vegas has helped me join together a lot of dots about the potential of the industry".
Both the seminars and the one-on-one's have been received extremely well and the attendees have loved the opportunity to meet their fellow creatives from around the world.
Judging will be completed within the next three days and the entire shortlist will be announced next week.