London International Awards judging is in full swing at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas

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Encore.jpgCB in Vegas – Judgingis underway at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas for this year’s LondonInternational Awards. Three juries have already completed their judging- Digital, Design and The NEW Category – and five other panels aremeeting each day this week until the process is completed on Saturday.

The2010 list of Jury Presidents is made up of Marcello Serpa of AlmapBBDO,Brasil  – Non-Traditional, Print, Poster and Billboard; David Nobay ofDroga5, Australia – Integrated and Television/Cinema/Online Film; ReiInamoto of AKQA – Digital; Faris Yakob of MDC Partners, New York – TheNEW Category; Garrick Hamm of Williams Murray Hamm, London – Design andPackage Design; Rocky Morton of MJZ, Los Angeles  -Television/Cinema/Online Film Technique; Josh Rabinowitz of Grey Group,New York  – Music; and Terry O’Reilly of Pirate, Toronto – Radio.

JoiningDavid Nobay in Las Vegas from the Asia Pacific region are JureepornThaidumrong (JEH United, Bangkok), Jagdish Ramakrishnan (OgilvySingapore), Naoki Ito (Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo), Kentaro Kimura (HakuhodoKettle Inc, Tokyo) Paul Swann (Naked Sydney) and Ralph van Dijk (Eardrum Sydney).

president_20100204235127.jpgRei Inamoto (left), Chief Creative Officer of AKQA is Digital Jury President felt the overall standard of work that he saw was down on last year.

“This is the first time in LIA’s judging history that all Digital judges got the chance to interface with each other in a judging room.  It was wonderful as every jury member brought their rich experience into the judging room.  Sadly, however, this is not a vintage year for Digital and we awarded  fewer Statues than 2009,” Inamoto told Campaign Brief Asia.

“I was personally disappointed that 80-90% of all the finalists work has been seen before.  I found micro sites the most lack lustre category. A lot of the work had no sustaining power. As change is constant, agencies should not treat digital as separate from

the whole communication process.  It is a means of distributing content,” said Inamoto.

NEWjury.jpgThe NEW Category Jury President, Faris Yakob (second right with fellow NEW jury members), took on the role again this year following the introduction of the category last year.

“Having been Jury President for The NEW Category two years consecutively, I found this year’s work a little less inspiring and dramatic than 2009,” said Yakob.

“There were less Gold Statues awarded this year in comparison to last year but the Golds we have awarded are very deserving. But just using technology doesn’t make it work. Communicators should think outside the usual standard responses as a solution. Novelty is not enough. To be truly NEW, novelty is just one aspect of it. The work must be relevant; it must play on a broader palate; it must have cultural interfacing. In short, we should pave the path to new thinking. So it is all about setting new directions and creating new kinds of solutions,” explained Yakob.

“I thought it would be a tough year but was pleasantly surprised at the number of Gold Statues that were awarded this year,” remarked Garrick Hamm, LIA Jury President for Design/Package Design.

“It wasn’t so much about the design per se but all about the power of the idea. Personally, I was most disappointed with the Logotype category. That’s where most of it fell short for me but on the upside, I was delighted with much of the work that we saw in the other categories.”