Another Con


Cebu played host to this year's Advertising Congress.

Over the weekend I attended the Awards Night of the 2005 Advertising Congress. It was a tiring but fun way to spend time, although it did take it's toll on my stamina. The actual Ad Congress actually took place over the entire week, but I only went to attend the finale. Took a nice, short flight over via Cebu Pacific Airlines and finally had my first vist to Cebu.
Cebu's a nice place- it actually reminds me a lot of Manila, save for the occasional Cebuano name and the way they don't use jeepneys for their... well, jeepneys. The place has a rural feel to it, which is refreshing in many ways.



We all stayed at the Waterfront Hotel, which is one of the nicest hotels I've seen locally. Too bad I only really got to stay there barely two days. And most of that time was spent working on our stuff for the AdCon's Awards Night, preparing our stuff for the parade which was the highlight of the event.


We gorged ourselves on great food at a nearby restaurant. YUM!

Sadly I wasn't able to go around much, but I did partake of a feast at a nice restaurant called The Golden Cowrie. We had sisig, tinola,tuna fillets, baked scallops, ribs, crispy pata and MORE. I mean, the food seemed to go on forever. It was bliss. After a while my jaw just got tired of working and I settled into a nice buzz. Well, we needed that energy for the night. The opening parade of the Awards Night had several competing agencies show off costumes done to the theme of 'The World's Great Cities of Advertising", and we got Mumbai, India. Our idea was basically a walking Kama Sutra, and we had these large boards with images of the erotic artworks (properly censored, of course) with holes for our faces. Several dancers showering the place with petals and drummers with body paint completed our entourage. How did we do? To put it simply, we were a hit with the crowds and we took home first place for the night.
The fun didn't end there, and our agency took home several awards, ranging from a Gold to a couple of Silvers and several Bronzes. Not as much as some of the bigger ad agencies, but it was a GREAT showing compared to our last AdCon. Bottom line, we went away happy.



We celebrated at the Hotel Casino's restaurant, pretty much starving after the several-hour awards night. By the time I lugged myself to bed, it was about 3 AM. We all got up at around 7:30 AM to check out and get ready for the flight home just before lunchtime.

All in all, a tiring, whirlwind weekend that was, thankfully, extremely rewarding and memorable. Here's looking forward to the next AdCOn in 2007!