Cannes the Cannes

The problem with advertising awards is that they judge creativity.

Well, they judge creativity without a benchmark of where the ad came from. No idea of how tough the birth of this idea was. It also tends to be based around a fixed set of creative principles.

To me, judging agency awards based purely on their creativity is rather like judging the quality of a school based only on the final grades of its pupils. Is the 10 A's averaging school in a rich area better than the 3 A's school in a poor area where English isn't always a first language? Surely understanding how hard it has been to get to the results, and the starting point going in are more than relevant to the success?

If you don't understand the initial problems and the process involved in an ad, is it not a little unfair to then reward only the outcome.

To me, an agency that gets a half decent idea out of a really difficult client is just as, if not more deserving of reward than the agency that makes a great ad for a great client.

It's why I keep hoping for good ads from DFS... when they get a good ad through we will know it deserves praise because of how hard it has been to sell in good work (so it seems at least!).

I am also a hater of the term 'regional' agency. A term that seems to brand agencies outside the M25 with a semi-rural status that is sometimes used in quite a demeaning way. I'm not criticising 'regional' awards, but it seems wrong to me that supposedly national/international awards ceremonies often fail to truly be so. We may have smaller clients who need more direct work in much less development time up here, but that does not mean we are less creative.

Judge based on the full story.

I'd like to see awards that balance out the skew towards those with great clients and challenger requirements:

• Best ad to get through a difficult client



• Best squeezing of ad copy past BACC



• Most creative incorporation of mandatory product features



• Best price / product ad (Aldi - Tea!)



• Most warmth created for monolithic soulless mega-corporation



• Least soul-destroying daytime TV direct ad
  


• Most improved advertising

Review of the Year - Part 2 - Awards!

Not quite the Cannes Lions... but it's been a great year in many senses for advertising, lots of exciting and engaging campaigns worthy of merit. Here are The Ad Pit Awards 2010!

Best Campaign

Nike - Write the Future - Talk about catching the moment and running with it. A brilliant, if sadly prophetic piece of work. Making big superstar spokespeople utterly relevant and endearing instead of shoe-horned.

Runners Up: E4 Flashmob (Utterly brilliant), John Lewis - Always a Woman, Nike Grid, Old Spice, Skoda - Meaner stuff, Match - Music shop

Best Surprise

Ikea - Kitchen at Parties - Jona Lewie brought back to popular culture and a magnificent use of music to demonstrate product.

Runner Up: Gillette - Federer video

Most Improved Advertising

Virgin Media - Speedy Gonzales - Welcome back Speedy. This is how to use existing characters to sell a product. Hits the nail right on the head in a way that manages to sell whilst still being funny.

Worst Advert

Go Compare - Opera Twat - Somehow, somehow they made this even worse than last year. A campaign surviving solely on media budget, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not engaging, it's not entertaining, it makes me want to have nothing to do with the brand in a way I haven't felt since Jamster.

Runner Up: Argos - Xmas (Nice ad, now why not wait til Christmas to show it?)

Most Disappointing Work

Cadbury's Dairy Milk - Charmer - Product product product nice soundtrack product product product product product. Not what we expected from one of the most engaging campaigns of recent years.

Agency of the Year

Wieden + Kennedy - Nike write the future, Nike Grid, Old Spice Man... I think there could only be one winner this year. Some agencies have made great work, but this year W+K have been consistently outstanding.

10 Years in Advertising and Marketing

So, we are coming to the end of the first decade of the new millenium (It doesn't feel new despite us being only 1% through it).

It has been a rollercoaster for our industry, the expansion of media types changing the way we think about planning and creative work forever.

To mark the passing of the event I would like to call for nominations for the 'Ad Pit Decade Awards' (I use the word awards loosely). If I get enough interest I will do a big feature on this nearer Xmas.

The categories are as follows, campaigns must have run between 2000 and now:

• Best TV ad


• Best Print ad


• Best Online content (not website)


• Best Website


• Best Thought in a Campaign


• Best PR campaign


• Best Account Person


• Best Planner


• Best Creatives


• Best Ad/Mkt/PR book


• Best Industry Spokesperson


• Worst Ad


• Best Agency


• Worst Agency (please include a brief reason so I can exclude unconstructive votes)

Please reply or send your nominations to me: rob (at) ad (dash) pit (dot) co (dot) uk

Hey Dad it's One for the Show...

At last! Both the One Show and D&ad awards have announced that they will take action against scam ads that were not produced to a brief and requested by the client. Brilliantly, D&ad will make ECD's vouch for each ad submitted, and will name and shame those who break the rules.

It's great to know that only real ads will be included after the numerous debacles over the last few years. Admittedly there is still space for fractional media budgeted pieces, but 1 problem is better than 2!

I'm all in favour of showing off the best creative we can make, but recently it's been like drugged up athletes winning medals; it's an unfair advantage that should never be merited. That said, I am in favour of creating a specific award for un-sanctioned ads, a space for us to push the boundaries without cheating.

Wrestling with fakery

So a fake WWF ad by DDB Brazil win an award, no surprise there.

Adland awards are (it appears) so blighted by scam they need to start taking action, you cannot expect unapproved, unguided creativity to be judged on the same level as something that has gone through a client and a real process.

All unpublished ads should say so or be banned. Those which ran once on a bus stop in Luxembourg, and once on an obscured poster site in Malta should say so, and not be accepted as a "pan European campaign"

The annoying thing is, despite the unrewarding video here; the message that one incident of nature killed more than 100 9/11 disasters is pretty powerful.

Annually Retentive

(Yes I know that's the title of Rob Brydon's mock panel show)

History is a dangerous thing in advertising. We often look back at our history and revel in the great work and the people who produced it. But we have to beware of letting nostalgia and hindsight affect our judgement of ads gone by.

The example that brought this to mind was the VW 'changes' ad from the 1980's.

It's so often referenced as being completely of the moment, of fitting the landscape perfectly. Treated as some kind of marker for the way society and advertising was at that point. But of course advertising was mostly full of identikit haircare/beauty ads, hard sell bollocks and local 'slideshow' ads.

Not only that, I have never heard anyone talk about how successful it was. How much product it sold or how it changed people's perceptions of VW. All I hear is a praise of the creative and director.

This of course is the danger of D&ad awards, Cannes, Clio's etc. That we let creativity become the only factor in which we judge past ads. Now of course I am not saying that creative is unimportant in ads, just that we cannot let it be the only factor we objectively use to judge past ads.

If we look back at 2000's in 20 years time, our ad history won't include Barry Scott and Cillit Bang, but he created a strong brand, got into popular culture and sold shitloads of cleaner.

Which is why I like public ad polls. You tend to find that ads which mixed creativite brilliance with an idea that really resonated or sold product get to the top. Smash martians, Honey Monster etc. A public poll would put Barry Scott and the Gorilla together, one creative brilliance, one creative annoyance, but on impact and results, both worthy of a place in ad history.

Advertising Awards are a Joke

I love controversial titles, but really they are. I know this topic was about a few weeks ago but I just got reminded of it and had to mention it.

Award ceremonies are supposed to be about things that get made. Oscars are not awarded to actors who did well in rehearsal, or to films that never got released.

So why do adland's big awards all seem to consist largely of concept ads that ran in one local newspaper on page 47, or in one case this year, was produced by for a client by a competing agency!

It's all well and good if you seperate concept ads from ads that actually had to get through the client; but frankly its time the adland awards folk sat themselves down and admitted this is wrong. Why should work that has never had go through critique, relevance testing from client, or any of the other procedures of everyday advertising be judged above those that have.

And to agencies that submit concept work or unapproved work to awards shows: shame on you. Really big fucking shame on you.

In the words of Graham at Words and Pictures: Celebrating your ghost ad's triumph over ads that actually had to go through client is like beating the shit out of a Down syndrome kid and calling yourself a Special Olympian boxer. You didn't play by the rules, it wasn't a fair fight and your victory is worthless. Worse, you've devalued the award of every legitimate winner.