Adrian Miller: D&AD is fundamentally a British show masquerading as an international one. Enter at your own risk.
Saatchi& Saatchi Malaysia ECD Adrian Miller is in London for the D&ADjudging and is writing about the experience on the Press Jury for the CB Blog. You won’t believe how few ads survived…
DAY 1
At 9:06am I found myself standing in front of 1267 print ads. Our jurycoordinator then proceeded to tell us that last year there were 1800entries and 45 made it into the book.
One of the British judges shook his head in dismay and muttered something about the jury being overly generous last year.
AnotherBritish judge saw this as a chance to admonish any ads made forScrabble. I looked up and in my line of sight were three campaigns forScrabble. I silently said my goodbyes.
Then the conversation turned to scams. Apparently they are okay as long as they are brilliant and not for board games.
Also,the ads must have run and been signed off by the client. FP7 aside, I’msure this is standard practice across the world. Perhaps no one sentthe guys in Doha the memo regarding this rather touchy subject.
Imade a mental note of the expectations and walked off into a sea ofprint ads. Ad number 1 was for a torchlight. Out. Next, an ad for ahumanitarian organization that looked like an ad for a torchlight. Out.
Iwandered past one of the British judges and he asked me why the Cluedo(board game) client would run a full colour double page spread ad. Notknowing the Cluedo client personally I had no answer for him. Out.
Thenext four hours looked something like this. Knife ad, out. Highlighterad, out. Travel agency ad, out. Harvey Nichols ad, in. Pen ad, out. Penad 2, out. Pen ad 3, out. WWF ads 1-29, out. Scrabble ad, in (I wasfeeling rebellious).
Lunch was a solemn affair. It consisted offish cakes, salad, a couple of boiled potatoes and a discussion aboutthe decline in quality of print advertising. One of the judges remarkedthat we should immediately throw out any ads for torches. Another saidhe didn’t like boiled potatoes. I couldn’t decide whom to agree with.
Afterlunch we continued to slaughter and maim print ads. As I marked thelast ad on my list (out of course) I felt that maybe, just maybe we hadbeen unreasonably harsh.
For a fleeting moment I wanted to return tothe beginning, to that very first torchlight ad and vote it in. Then Iremembered this is D&AD.
Unreasonably harsh isn’t harsh enough.
DAY 2
Entering the Olympia on day two, I was greeted by arather shocking sight. 1267 entries had been whittled down to a paltry45 entries.
One of the British judges walked up and down the singlewall of remaining print ads and said, “we can cut this down to about11”.
Now I’m all for quality control, but this seemed a little overzealous. Thankfully he was sidetracked by a cup of tea and forgot thathe cracked that joke.
The scrabble judge brought up his resentment of scrabble ads again. Iwas beginning to think that he really sucked at board games and wasfeeling insecure.
Eventually group discussion time arrived. Never have I discussed ads insuch detail. Every detail of every print ad was pulled apart, analyzedand compared.
We discussed people’s motivation for making certain print ads. We evendiscussed what might have been written on the brief that led to the adin question. It was like an episode of CSI. Only instead of blood typeswe were discussing typefaces and logo sizes.
I stepped back from the discussion for a moment and thought what afucking insane job I have. Out in the real world, people are dying andhere we are comparing which sales message is better.
I then enthusiastically jumped back in and yelled, “How can that be adouble-page newspaper spread. The headline lies flat bang in thegutter”.
Our 45 print ads soon became 32 print ads. Out of that we picked 9 silver nominations. Next, we voted on the yellow pencil.
The general consensus was that most of the ads felt like scams. Butthey were rather good scams. And the ones that weren’t scams felt likescams too. So it was a no win argument really.
We settled on the fact that we were the best jury ever to judge atDA&D, took a group photograph, hugged and went for a drink at thenearest pub. Where, I might add, we continued to discuss what exactly ascam was. After 5 minutes that got boring and we started talking aboutthe giant particle accelerator beneath the Franco-Swiss border.
Lastly, a judge on the poster jury was heard saying, “This isn’tCannes. It’s D&AD”. While this might be a blindingly obviousstatement to most people, it does raise an important point: D&AD isfundamentally a British show masquerading as an international one.
Enter at your own risk.
26 Comments
Thanks for the amusing and light hearted take on something so many people take so seriously.
Yep.
That’s why British ads are better than ours.
They’re crafted to within an inch of their lives and they’re not for binoculars.
It’s why D&AD is the book to be in, if you get in, your ad’s GOOD.
Cannes? Pah.
Yep. Great reading.
Finally one of these diaries that’s funny, informative and enjoyable to read. Thanks.
Says the Ex Pom or handful (being generous) Australian/Kiwi that has actually won a pencil.
When I look at the Cannes reel, I get a perspective of how things were that year. When I look at the D&AD book, I get the feeling of what’s cool in London that year.
What a great write up.
Bloody funny, and very honest.
Good work.
This raises a few points:
This isn’t exactly news is it. It always has been and always will a British show, no amount of PR spiel will change this, but b/c of the advertising world’s outdated inferiority complex about British advertising we keep entering like lemmings.
The remark that all the print looks like scam? That’s because it fucking well is. And by scam I mean ads produced solely to win at shows. It’s a wide definition of what scam is but seems to be what most people mean when they use the term. Maybe the client signed it off after the agency produced it but it certainly wasn’t a big media spend in a national newspaper. It’s pretty bloody obvious when there is a beautifully crafted dps for highlighters, torches, Amnesty etc. But even the Harvey nicks stuff falls into this category. I lived in London for 4 years and never saw a single print ad that got into D&AD in the wild.
The above applies to every award show not just D&AD, the brits just think of themselves as the world ad police. ‘We’ll catch those dirty scammers Fuck Yeah!’
At every award show the print category is all chemically enhanced ads, and everyone is doping. It’s a bullshit system that arose from award winning creatives getting the big gigs. But what would you rather see in someone’s book. An award winning campaign for highlighters or a Tap project/Lynx jet/Halo integrated campaign? In a few years they won’t even have print in award shows and that will be the end of this boring groundhog day debate, thank fuck.
That’s why it’s the one everyone wants to win and the one any CD anywhere in the world who knows about advertising will recognise in your book.
I really enjoyed that. Thanx for your time.
A great read.
I unfortunately have never done anything worthy of entering D&AD but have shamelessly entered them in other shows, some even won.
Nice one.
How can it be a scam if it’s been verified to have run and been signed-off by the client?
regardless of how english-centric it is, and it is…
it’s the one everyone wants to win. it’s harder, the work
is always better than the soft-political-please enough
body of work that cannes selects.
At last a funny take judging.
Really funny and very entertaining.
Thanks very much for the read.
What is a scam?
By definition, a scam is a confidence trick or deception.
So, a scam ad is one that contains a level of deception, which may manifest itself in any number of ways.
A director’s cut / agency’s preferred version of an TVC.
An ad that the agency rather than the client paid for
A big brand-looking ad that really ran once at a fifth the size in a publication no-one has ever heard of.
The moment there is a deception in your work – when it tries passing itself off as something it isn’t – then it’s a scam.
And to the Brits’ credit, it should be dealt with mercilessly because it fucks all of us by tainting our industry.
After all that culling, I heard many of the “best” Asian scams got through, and some will win a Yellow Pencil. I think if they didn’t, D&AD would lose half its income next year!
dealt with mercilessly? if it was, the print section of the book would be empty. The british stuff that gets in is just as scammy as the asian stuff except that it is for bigger clients. It’s still work created without a brief with the sole object of winning awards.
Fair enough, 1:27PM.
You may be right about British print work. I just don’t know if being totally focussed on winning awards makes an ad a scam. I have worked on real briefs for real clients that put real money behind the projects.
I have taken that opportunity and gone out of my way to try and win an award without giving a toss about the client’s business. The challenge has been to put up something potentially award winning that the client will also buy.
To me, threading that needle is the key and it is the work that successfully does so that should be awarded at shows. The creative’s motivation was to win an award, but he or she can still look the universe in the eye and say that the work is free of any deception.
1.27
Whatever you say it is EASY to spot the scam work, british or otherwise. That is why none of it gets up. D&AD judges kind of pride themselves on being the toughest jury in the world
2.40
An ad that is totally focused on winning an award isn’t by definition an ad, especially if it runs once in the agency toilets.
An advertisement is a form of communication made with the intention of selling something ie a client’s product.
I’ve done ideas with the intention of only winning awards and they have, but it’s only advertising in that it has some kind of client logo in the corner that rounds off the joke/ thought/whatever.
The longer I work in this business the more hollow the whole bullshit caper of doing ‘ads’ for a jury of you peers becomes. Thank fuck for beautiful TV spots like the Boags ad that’s on at moment, makes me reakise why I still do this job.
Fantastic. That was so funny, I had to leave for the bathroom halfway through for fear of soiling my new 501s. Well done D&ADRIAN.
4.52
Actually, by definition, it is still an ad. Think you might be confusing your definition of ‘definition.’ It might not be a successful or particularly communicative ad, but it’s still an ad.
Talking of scam. Anyone read what the masters of the art have gone and done?
“FP7 punishes Doha office over Lynx scam scandal
by Staff, Brand Republic 24-Apr-09, 10:30
DUBAI – Several creative staff are parting company with FP7 Doha and the office is handing back all of its Dubai Lynx awards, it was announced today in the wake of the scam ads scandal.
Parent group Fortune Promoseven has issued a statement following the conclusion of its internal investigation into the affair.
The action has been welcomed by the organisers of last month’s Dubai Lynx, who are overhauling their entry regulations in light of the recent issues.
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The names of the staff leaving FP7 Doha have not been disclosed – and nor whether they have resigned or been fired. However, it appears likely that creative director Fadi Yaish will be among those moving on.
Fortune Promoseven’s full statement is as follows:
“Fortune Promoseven had committed to thoroughly investigate FP7 Doha’s entries into Dubai Lynx 2009. This internal investigation has now been concluded.
“It seems our strict policies and procedures for awards entries were circumvented. This is clearly unacceptable to our company.
“As a strong demonstration of the seriousness with which we view such behaviour, it has been decided that FP7 Doha will hand back all of its awards from the Dubai Lynx festival, and FP7 Doha has also been instructed not to submit any entries to Cannes Lions 2009.
“Corrective actions are being taken and several staff responsible will part ways with the company. In addition, FP7 Doha is strengthening its policies and procedures to ensure compliance for all future awards entries.” http://www.brandrepublic.com/Discipline/Advertising/News/900915/FP7-punishes-Doha-office-Lynx-scam-scandal/n, FP7 Doha is strengthening its policies and procedures to ensure compliance for all future awards entries.”
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See you can get away with that Dubai stuff in Asia. And 12:40 PM, The Manly Daily isn’t some little publication no-one’s heard of, it has a readership of 400 seagulls and two homeless dudes.
Thanks 12:40. I thought I was going to get acid thrown at me for asking that question.
Is it a scam if the client pays for the work and the media space but it only runs on a community TV channel at 4am in Darwin?
Firstly, 2:44PM, never be afraid of acid. I’ve had some great times on the stuff.
Second, from a letter-of-the-law viewpoint, your example is not a scam. It did run.
However, I believe such a spot is deceptive. If the ad purported to have a genuine brand-building goal and yet it ran to such a limited extent, then it’s deceptive.
And the client is a fucking idiot. I know this does happen, though.