Madeleine Page’s LIA Diary #1: Early takeaways from the LIA Creativity in PR Jury Room

Madeleine Page, Head of Consumer and Brand PR, Dentsu Creative Public Relations, is representing Australia on the LIA Creativity in PR jury. Here, Page reports exclusively for CB.

Las Vegas. Lights and luxury. The perfect setting to deliberate some of the world’s best creative work. Two days down at the London International Awards and the Creativity in PR panel is locked in.

Day one we shortlisted. 9 hours of case study reviews and a simple question: Yes or no. We separated the good from the great.

Day two we ranked the short-ish list. With still over 100 entries in the mix, the scale increased. This time 1-10.

Three things that have stuck we me so far:

1. There’s a tension in the way you review the work. Does a good PR campaign need to have earned in its ideation, or does earned cut through come from the best ideas regardless of channel and investment? Relevancy and a talkable truth can be uncovered at any point.

2. Truly global ideas are near impossible to crack. The best work has been regionally or culturally nuanced.

3. Doing something is, almost always, the only way to stand out. The best ideas have built, created or changed something in a meaningful way. Saying something isn’t enough – brands and organisations must act.

Itching to get back in the room for tomorrow where we will discuss and debate what work rises to the top.