Tony Clewett’s Diary: Day One, Two, Three + Four

| | No Comments

IMG_2740.jpgTony Clewett, executive creative director, FCB Auckland is New Zealand’s representative on the Cannes Lions Promo & Activation jury. Clewett, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is reporting exclusively for CB.

Crikey. Judging’s tough. And you forget just how brutal it is until you see 90% of the entered work lying there bleeding on the judging room floor. Stone cold dead. Hopes, dreams and ‘2 minutes of case study nirvana’ all dashed. And that’s just trying to get through to the Shortlist stage.

>> If it picks up a piece of metal, no matter what the colour, it’s a bloody amazing thing. And it hurts just that wee bit more if some of that ‘dead’ work is yours. How could 24 other jury members get it so wrong? Oh well… I won’t employ them. Any of them.

IMG_2732.jpgBut on a brighter note, I’m lovin’ this Promo/Activation category. I may be biased, but it’s the best. In many ways, it feels like the immediate future of our industry (not ballsy enough to predict the long term one…). It encompasses every channel, every tweet, every share and every soppy piece of content (which I have to admit, I’m a sucker for), all culminating in a tangible and measurable result or action (DT, you’d love it).

And things cranked up a notch once we got to day three, with the scoring system changing from a simple 1 to 9 (1 being the kiss of death), to a more complex four category one. Creativity, Strategy, Execution and Results. All are now individually scored through to 9, meaning more brain power required from the Jury. And more work being slaughtered as the last category, Results, counted for 30% of the overall score. Ineffective or ‘didn’t even know that ran’ work didn’t stand a chance, which is a brilliant thing for our industry.

Tomorrow is metal time. Although I guess I’ve got a problem now that I’ve fired the rest of the Jury. It’s going to be a long, lonely day. Oh well, as I said earlier, it’s tough judging.