VIDEO: TBWA's Tom Carroll on Asia's creative potential

Certainly those predictions have been made before. After TBWA's local team produced the gold Lion-winning Adidas campaign for the Beijing Olympics, many heralded a new dawn of creative genius from Asia-based talent. But nearly three years later, that potential has not yet been realised. Carroll says it is still there, and is "ready to explode", particularly with the effects of the global financial crisis now behind the region.

"It kind of took the air out of things," he told Campaign. "(But) it's coming back now. It's here; it's just about to explode."

Carroll also explains how creativity develops in an emerging market - with competitive businesses seeing small, incremental improvements to their market shares with each new idea. "There's no magic formula - the business will demand it."

But another key to ensuring this happens is creative leadership. In this light, Carroll celebrates the recent appointment of Edmund Choe as co-president for TBWA's Greater China region. "Once you get good creative leadership it will bring the best out of all the creatives that are here."

Once that happens, the awards will quickly follow, he suggests. "Ten years from now in Cannes, we're all going to be kicking ourselves. We're going to have a lot more competition for those gold Lions. That's just a fact."