London International Awards judging concludes in Las Vegas – Shortlists announced next week
The London International Awards judging has now concluded following anamazing week of judging at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas. For thesecond year in a row the various LIA jury panels have been veryselective with their all their metal decisions. Jurors the likes ofMarcello Serpa (Almap BBDO Brasil), Jeremy Craigen (DDB London), DavidNobay (Droga 5 Sydney) and Susan Credle (Leo Burnett Chicago) all haveremarked to Campaign Brief that anyone that wins a Gold this yearshould be very proud of their achievement.
MarcelloSerpa (left) said the LIA’s has great credibility due to the fact thatthey put together a great jury and then ask them to be tough with theirdeliberating. He said the whole judging process was excellent and runvery professionally.
“As for the winners I saw enough good workthis year, but it would have been good to see a bit more,” said Serpa,who was LIA Jury President for Print/Poster/Billboard/Non-traditional.
“I think the Jury was tough but fair. We were looking for work that made sense to the consumer; worked that was engaging and changed behaviour. We are not judging for people in the business. As judges, it’s our responsibility to make sure we have good work in the award annual, and work that lasts the test of time. This year’s LIA book will be one that I am very proud of as a Jury President.”
This year was the first time the Radio Jury panel has convened for the judging process and according to Jury President Terry O’Reilly (left) from Pirate Toronto it was “wonderful to judge with people who are passionate about radio.”
“Radio is the toughest medium to write and there usually isn’t a lot of good radio in any given year. But when it’s good, it’s extraordinary,” said O’Reilly.
“The criteria for good radio is, ‘I wish I had written it’ and there was a campaign that made me feel that way this year. It had the right weight of good idea to good execution. That’s what makes a Gold. On the down side, we found less in humour. I think it could be attributed to the recession we’ve had. Clients become more cautious and generally tend to default to just presenting straight facts. Overall, I think we managed to award some very deserving work including quite a lot of foreign ads.”
Grey Worldwide New York’s Josh Rabinowitz (left), was LIA’s inaugural Jury President for Music.
“I am very glad that LIA is awarding work in this area. Music has for far too long been neglected. Music is such an important element of communication, In fact, from a scientific point of view, sound stayswith you far longer than an image. Humans can filter out visuals but sound resonates with them,” said Rabinowitz.
“Overall, the standard was surprisingly good. And I had a wonderful jury of people who work in the Music industry to help me sift out the best pieces. They all had the experience to understand that the music or sound had to connect with the images. We were critical but fair. And in the end, the Statue Winners in the different categories were all very well deserving.”
Rabinowitz said to successfully use music to your best advantage you need to think about the music early – as early as at the conceptual stage, and it will help greatly.
Finalists will be announced shortly and the winners will be revealed at the LIA 25th Anniversary Gala, to be held on Monday 8th November at Troxy in London. See www.liaawards.com for more details. Representing the Asia-Pacific region on the panels this year were Jureeporn Thaidumrong (JEH United, Bangkok), Jagdish Ramakrishnan (Ogilvy Singapore), Naoki Ito (Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo), Kentaro Kimura (Hakuhodo Kettle Inc, Tokyo), Ralph van Dijk (Eardrum Sydney), Paul Swann (Naked Sydney) and David Nobay (Droga5 Sydney).
Here are a few photos from the second last night of the judging (more coverage tomorrow).
