If you read my rubbish regularly you know that I have a funny relationship with advertising. But as I’ve tried to stress before I don’t have anything against the advertising industry.
I just think that the digital world has perhaps an uneasy relationship with the advertising establishment. I’ve tried not to get emotional about this or read too much into any of it, but here’s a few things I witnessed at the 2007 Clio Awards in Miami.
- The interactive category got less time in the awards than the student category (it did get more time than radio but only just – and radio only had 2 winners)
- RGA won a grand Clio and two gold awards for Nike+, I was sitting next to a nice man called Chapin from RGA. He didn’t get asked to go up and pick up the awards. Every other agency that won a grand Clio had the whole team go up and get recognised
- The interactive jury didn’t get to meet up to discuss the winners, we did the whole thing online. (In my humble opinion this meant that lots of great work got missed out). Every other jury seemed to have had physical meetings to go through the work – except for perhaps Radio which also seemed to get a bit of a raw deal
- The TV/Radio night was definitely the ‘big night’. The auditorium was full as opposed to 1/2 empty. Even the music changed, a subtle difference, but one that was noticed
- In the ‘gallery’ you could view winning work from print, tv and radio (through a bunch of iPods). But you couldn’t see or experience the digital work anywhere.
I’m not particularly annoyed about it. And it’s probably right that I’m not. Perhaps I should shut up and actually enjoy the fact that digital it still little bit underground and grubby. In fact that’s exactly what I’m going to do :-)
yeah but the clios are for gays. everyone knows that.
Its a tricky bit. Clios (and the Cannes TV-fest coming up in a few weeks) are still “Advertising” shows, and what is happening with digital and interactive marketing feels a bit different than traditional advertising.
Still, we get frustrated by the table leftovers digital gets at these shows, the industry still doesn’t recognize it the way it should be…and yet we still look for some validation from it perhaps, hence our frustration.
My own sense is that the awards that matter most are (will be) the Titaniums and the Integrated awards…ad perhaps Digital. I say “…and digital” because I think truly integrated campaigns, brand ideas, business changing ideas, will have digital throughout.
Its a catch-22 in that we want Digital to have more prominence yet its exactly that silo-ed approach that is “old marketing”.
Clients care increasingly more about integrated awards than a TV spot or a Radio spot or a Website or a Banner ad…and we ourselves as an industry will care more for those as we can be more creative and have more significant impact on brands.
…then again, lets be honest, these award shows are more for the parties, networking and boozing than anything else!!
I know this is a bit late but I was at an awards ceremony last week. When a digital category was about to be announced a guy from an advertising company turned to me and said, “This is the bit were everyone can fall asleep”.
Your Digital Leper post came rushing back to me in perfect clarity. I was really quite shocked and told him, “Shut it”. Wasn’t really a young Oscar Wilde that night but I was so frustrated. A week later and it’s still making me think.
Its a tricky bit. Clios (and the Cannes TV-fest coming up in a few weeks) are still “Advertising” shows, and what is happening with digital and interactive marketing feels a bit different than traditional advertising.
Still, we get frustrated by the table leftovers digital gets at these shows, the industry still doesn't recognize it the way it should be…and yet we still look for some validation from it perhaps, hence our frustration.
My own sense is that the awards that matter most are (will be) the Titaniums and the Integrated awards…ad perhaps Digital. I say “…and digital” because I think truly integrated campaigns, brand ideas, business changing ideas, will have digital throughout.
Its a catch-22 in that we want Digital to have more prominence yet its exactly that silo-ed approach that is “old marketing”.
Clients care increasingly more about integrated awards than a TV spot or a Radio spot or a Website or a Banner ad…and we ourselves as an industry will care more for those as we can be more creative and have more significant impact on brands.
…then again, lets be honest, these award shows are more for the parties, networking and boozing than anything else!!