88 strong jury to judge the 39th AWARD Awards
The Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association (AWARD) has today announced the full line up of jurors for the 39th AWARD Awards – an annual celebration of the most outstanding creative communications work in the Asia-Pacific region.
A total of 88 jurors made up of creatives, senior marketers, senior management, senior planners, directors and production company specialists will be tasked with selecting the 39th AWARD Awards winners, with online pre-judging from 23 February to 9 March 2018 and in-room judging 15 to 26 March 2018.
This year’s jury chairs are:
- James Dive, Special Projects, Scoundrel
- Tara Ford, Executive Creative Director, DDB
- Emad Tahtouh, Director of Applied Technology, Finch
- Ben Coulson, Chief Creative Officer, Clemenger BBDO
- Rebecca Carrasco, Freelance
- Kat Thomas, Founder/CEO, One Green Bean
- Grant McAloon, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett
- Tara McKenty, Creative Director, Google APAC
- Cam Blackley, Chief Creative Officer, M&C Saatchi
- Paul Middleditch, Director, Plaza Films
- Toby Talbot, Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi NZ
Says Mike Spirkovski, chairman of AWARD: “For the first time the jurors have been selected from a combination of creatives, agency CEOs, client CMOs, planners, directors and production company specialists. These leading industry professionals have been responsible for creating some of our region’s best work and know what it takes to consistently deliver award-winning ideas. The decision to do this was to ensure the work is judged by extremely qualified jurors who are highly respected in the industry.
“Running for 39 years, the AWARD Awards have become a huge annual celebration and a respected benchmark for creative excellence in our region. Each year, we rely on the support of our industry’s top talent to help identify and set those standards, and as anyone who has judged in the AWARD Awards before will understand, it is no quick and easy task. I would therefore like to thank our impressive list of judges in advance, for what will be a rigorous few weeks ahead.”
The annual AWARD Awards presentation will take place on Friday 25th May 2018 at CarriageWorks as part of the three-day Semi-Permanent festival of creativity and design.
21 Comments
What a slap in the face for female creatives. Pretending to make juries diverse, but the majority of females are clients, ceos or producers. Is that all you think there is?
Very predictable…same ‘old’ faces…just asking, but why has one certain prod co got three people judging? Time for a bit of reinvention, I think!
Toyota, Westpac, Bank SA????
‘Regions best work’ more like Saatchis only work. This is a bit of a joke Spirko, you’ve put 3 of your staff and 3 of your clients on jury’s and Publicis haven’t entered awards for 12 months. What about some reps from agencies that have been picking up metal recently. McCann, CHE Proximity etc?
The dearth of female creatives here is pure laziness. This mixture is apt for mumbrella’s jury room, not award.
Did Spirko just finger pick them himself or something?
I remember when AWARD was judged by the very best from Australasia. Now it’s all about which agency pays the Comms Council the most gets the most judges. Sad. very sad.
Not exactly the cream of the crop.
Here’s just a couple of agencies not represented at AWARD that won gold in the last year or so. CHE, BWM, Y&R, Ogilvy, McCann.
Did you just assembled your mates and your clients, Spirko?
So agencies and production companies pay fat cheques and are promised spots on juries but don’t score any. But Spirko’s mates who don’t pay do? Isn’t it time we asked what agencies are getting for their money and maybe directed it towards an industry organisation that will spend the it on promoting and celebrating creative work?
So agencies and production companies pay fat cheques and are promised spots on juries but don’t score any. But Spirko’s mates who don’t pay do? Isn’t it time we asked what agencies are getting for their money and maybe directed it towards an industry organisation that will spend the it on promoting and celebrating creative work?
AWARD just became more of a joke.
Agree, all familiar faces.
Come on Spirko you were meant to fix things not make them worse.
So many of your mates are on the juries, plus a heap of Publicis people and your very own clients! … AND … I’m sure you’ve invited clients you want to poach too.
Very transparent. Why else would you invite people who know nothing about creativity?
Can’t believe the council let this happen.
I doubt the council had anything to do with judging decisions.
Looks alright to me.All of them would know good work when they see it.Don’t get the problem.
Some angry and unappreciative people on here. This is definitely a better jury than the past few years and that’s a good start.
Can you honestly say this is an impressive Jury? Doesn’t feel world class or even just best in oz. Like others have pointed out this seems like people the Chairman wants to impress or keep happy at work. Certainly lost a bit of shine this year
88 people, but not one from Ogilvy. Or McCann.
How can this be Australiasian when less than 6% of the jury is Victorian? Not sure how the other states and New Zealand stack up to, but c’mon – there is clearly NSW bias here.
Shit work from AWARD.
Just to set record straight Michael Canning is no longer at M&CSaatchi.
What would a CEO know about film craft? AWARD= Australian Writers ARt Directors…
Some really good people here. Not much in the way of post & VFX considering their contribution to the industry though.
After reading all these comments I had to read through the jurors myself, normally I just assume they’re industry people who’ve been involved in making award winning work in their selected category. It blows me away to see a guy who I worked with as an account manager before he went to AirBnB as a client sitting on a jury for craft!!! There are literally people in our finance team that are more qualified to talk about the craft of typography and illustration. Something seems way off with this years awards.
You’d think to judge AWARD you should have at least done AWARD school, and there’s a ton of names here I know for a fact never did. Being a client or making nice images doesn’t count. Even some of the females, hey its great that there are a few, could be more. But even so, some have never had any exposure to AWARD other than being a client or a service provider and they’re not the best ones to be a judge.
What a joke.