Via, www.contagiousmagazine.com
Mark Tutssel, Leo Burnett's worldwide chief creative officer takes us through the final judging of the International ANDY awards in Mexico.
An award show is a barometer of the health of our industry. Its focus is to identify the world’s best ideas, to acknowledge and reward inspirational thinking and, in doing so, force everyone in this business to try a little harder.
The International ANDY Awards attract what is generally acknowledged to be the most prestigious group of judges in the industry. This year was no different. Mark Waites (Chairman), Jeff Goodby, Tony Granger, Gerry Graf, Andrew Keller, Bob Greenberg, Prasoon Joshi, Mike Byrne, Ted Royer, Ty Montague, Jose Molla, Feh Tarty, Jureeporn Thaidumrong, Oliver Voss, Simon Waterfall, Hiroki Nakamura, Carol Lam, Pete Favat, Susan Credle, David Eriksson, Raul Cardos and Marie-Catherine Dupuy made up the toughest jury in the world.
As the first major creative awards show of 2009, the ANDY results set the tone for the industry and the show is the first opportunity to see the finest work in the world. Unlike other shows, the all-star line-up judges every category in the show.
On the first day, the standard was set. We were greeted by a sea of print and poster work (2,000 global entries in all) and from it, only four ideas were deemed worthy of a coveted Gold ANDY statue. (That’s a mere 0.2% of the entries.) We were looking for work that moved the industry forward and for brands and agencies who are taking full advantage of the infinite creative canvas now available to us.
From there, the competition remained fierce. In fact, this year, the ANDY’s introduced a new future-facing category: ‘NEXT’. The category is designed to reward brilliant fresh, new, innovative ideas that take the industry to the next level and create content and contact that blows people away with the power of the creative idea.
As you might expect, when you have a room full of talent of this caliber, there are always strong opinions, intelligent compelling points of view, disagreement about the work and healthy debate. Each potential ANDY winner was relentlessly examined and probed. Winning work had to be outstanding. In the end, we reached mutual agreement and each juror signed his or her name to the winners.
As this Diary piece concludes Final Judging, I have a few takeaways from the week as a whole:
• For obvious reasons, digital was the biggest and fastest growing sector this year, but sadly very few creative minds took full advantage of its transformative nature. This year, there were only a few ideas that were different and ground-breaking and that truly utilised digital media.
• During our film evaluation, I sat for hours reviewing entries, fully equipped with my remote-control voting pad. A few gems emerged, including: Coca-Cola, Shelter, VW, P&G and Burger King. Each displayed a human touch.
• We are living in the ‘People Era’ - an era when marketers have to be more human in their behavior, insight and voice than ever before. This year we discovered a few brands that used the power of creativity to transform human behaviour. Brands that rewarded people for the time they spend with our communication. Some of the brands that understood this fact brilliantly included:
o The pilot program for the New York Department of Education, ‘Millions’ created a responsible kid network by giving a million NYC children special mobile phones, which were locked into 'school mode' during the day and then, during the evening, provided educational tools and rewarded academic performance with talk time, text time, games and more.
o The brilliant integrated James Ready Beer ‘Share Our Billboard’ campaign. The idea was to engage people in an ongoing cause to keep their favourite beer a buck by helping keep costs down. This idea transformed a traditional medium into something truly interactive, turning James Ready drinkers into mini celebrities within their communities.
o The band Oasis ingeniously introduced their new album to the people by having Manhattan street musicians play their new songs before the album was released. ‘Dig out your soul in the streets’ wove the music into the audio fabric of New York life.
In all, serving as an ANDY juror further cemented the fact that brands are built and defined by the people who buy them - people with the imagination, tools and enthusiasm to share their feelings and opinions about their favourite products with their peers.
To discover the world’s finest work with the world’s finest jury was an incredible experience. I believe we all emerged from the jury room in awe of the age that we’re working in: one in which new channels and platforms are rapidly emerging, opening up countless opportunities for connecting with people everywhere.
www.andyawards.com
