Dejan Rasic’s D&AD Diary

Australia’s jury representative on the D&AD Integrated Jury is Dejan Rasic, creative partner at CRC, Sydney, whoreports from London, exclusively for the CB Blog.

After a cup of coffee and a quick briefing session, we were tucked into an odd little inflatable structure to watch all the entries. The voting system was via iPod touch and remarkably simple.

Entry video after entry video kind of read like, “We featured this mega awesome campaign on YouTube and got heaps and heaps of hits. We embraced social media and the campaign extended to Facebook and MySpace. Twitter was used to update people all the time and Flickr allowed you to download images. News coverage went mental. Results exceeded expectations by 5000%. So there. Did I mention Twitter? Yeah Twitter rocks and we used it. We’re cool.”

The integrated entry video is getting a little silly. It was hard tobattle both jetlag and this at the same time. But then along came thefew nuggets of genius we needed for the book. We held onto them anddidn’t let go.

It’s interesting to note the stronger the idea, the less glossy theentry video was. The good stuff just explained the idea in a conciseway. No bells and whistles needed. They got to the point a lot quickerwhich is important when you’re presenting to a jury who has just satthrough hundreds of them and is getting kind of cynical.

The judging was tough but purely about the quality of the work. If youwon something you deserved it. At one point we discussed what anintegrated campaign actually meant? When is it integrated? Does PRcount as a medium? No detail was left without debate. I’ve never seen ashow with so much scrutiny. It’s good and is what makes winning atD&AD such an achievement.

After a tonne of those blah blah videos, I needed a drink and headed todinner with some old friends from Singapore. The sommelier came roundand we asked him to suggest a nice Pinot Noir. He came back with abottle and what sounded like another entry video. He explained, “Thegrapes were grown at high altitude on the border of Austria and Italy.This means the sun was shining more brightly on them, which is why ittastes fruity and light”. Arghhhh, just pour the thing. Please.