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AwardsFriday Sep 05, 2008
Going Down In A Blaze Of Glory
As you know, this is the very fine Art Director's Club way of selecting the vanguard of young talent. No, you can't see their work right now. Yes, we'd like to see it to, but alas. The site does not link to homepages or entries. That said, there will be an exhibit in New York on September 5 to the 19th. If you don't live here to bad. You'll have to wait for the winning entries to go live in the permanent online collection on the 22nd. By then, you will have forgotten about it. Silly, silly ADC. In the mean time, the list of winners is after the jump. We wholeheartedly say congratulations! We're all for some new blood, fresh ideas, total renegades, all that jazz. Tuesday Sep 02, 2008
Bullshit On Cannes: Ghost Ads, Cannes Farms And Cannes Itself Isn't Going To Listen To The Industry
Cannes has come and gone. The festival officially ended in late June, but the ad world is still aflutter with cries of foul. One question has been filtering to the top of blogs and ad magazines: What to do about Cannes? This year's festival like the many that have gone before had the annual outing of fake ads beginning, but not ending with JC Penney's "Speed Dressing." The dark side of client dabbling also hit the spotlight when Amnesty International ran an ad just once in order to qualify for the awards. These dust-ups have lived beyond the life of the festival and regenerated across the blogosphere with new details and bold speculation attached. In the internet age, where everyone is a journalist, twitter confirms rumors and nosy blogs (just like this one) look to entertain, skeletons in the Cannes closet will continue to filter to the top of Google rankings. What once was privy to those in the industry is now fodder for everyone to enjoy - like it or not. So, what are we going to do about it? As R/GA CCO Nick Law put it in Adweek, it "is first and foremost a business. It will do what it has to do to survive." Really? Then they best get on it. After the jump, see what Cannes is prepared or rather, not prepared to do to tighten up the Cannes Lions Festival..." Thursday Aug 28, 2008
Advertising Week: It's That Time Again
Advertising Week is almost upon us (September 22-26). Mark your calendars. Get pumped. It's a long, long week. As usual, it's time to vote for your favorite slogan and icons, one of each will be added to the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. Vote here. Nominees are listed after the jump. Warning: As usual, there's about two thousand entrants in each category. Tuesday Aug 26, 2008
Lubars And The Creative Director's Dilemma
Creativity's 2008 Awards Winners list just went up. The list tallies the results from the major advertising awards shows and spit outs the top winners over all. BBDO is taking top honors in the agency network with 2015 points. Almost half of that is from BBDO New York, which earned a whopping 845 points. Nice work, guys. Lubars, the great CD in the sky, is naturally in the number one spot on the creative directors list. The stories about Lubars are legendary, as they would need be at this point in his career. How much of a hand does the Great One have in the work that is produced by the shop? Parker pointed out the rumors today that David has little involvement in the creative process. "Dave Lubars is listed as CD on 720 winning campaigns... which means he must have spent at least two minutes on each one..." Just like you, we've heard that same line. For example, what about Lubars' barely there involvement with the HBO Voyeur campaign? Cheers to the staff at BBDO for a great concept and execution. However, we hear the big man didn't come into the picture until it was at end game. Then, like a good CD (?), he firmly defended the shop's creative process in the Big Spaceship dust up, as if he had been there the whole time and knew the intimate details of how it all went down. If you recall, in an e-mailed statement to AdAge, Mr. Lubars said his agency was "the source of the idea." He went on to say that, "On 'Voyeur,' BBDO thought of the idea, shot the idea, then brought in Big Spaceship to do what they do." Come on Davey. You have no idea what they do! And for the record, we hear that your version of things is a bit off base. We hear that Big Spaceship had a huge hand in taking the concept from one level, a video player, to a dynamic website experience. We also hear that BBDO didn't even give Big Spaceship a brief, because you know, for a video player, you don't really need a brief, now do you? There's more details, but lets skip all the nitty-gritty-shitty stuff, yeah? The campaign, as we all know, went on to win several Lions including a Cyber and an Integrated. Somewhere in there, Big Spaceship, deserves a whole ton of credit on the creativity side. So, the man can't get with the program and make nice with digital agencies. Lots of traditional CDs can't, but you know... they have other good qualities. Consider that Lubars certainly deserves applause for nurturing along great talent and keeping his team together to churn out big campaigns like Voyeur. The function of the CCO or ECD is a difficult one all around. You are responsible for all of the work that comes out of your shop. You answer to the big guys. You lead. You defend. You inspire and you also take the fall if it goes pear shaped. Not easy to do day in and day out. Some creative directors do it better than others. For example, we hear nary a bad word about Geoff Edwards from TAG. So, where does Lubars fall on the great CD scale? You could argue for the top or the bottom. For now, we'll say we're undecided. Got something to say about this? Try the comments section or email us - agencyspy at gmail dot com Monday Aug 25, 2008
Cannes Is Kind Of Like A Game Of BolitaI've been spending a lot of time thinking about Cannes after this year's snafus and blow-ups. There's a lot of ground to cover when it comes to the Lions. Lets start by looking at the money end of the festival, shall we? In 2008, over 28,000 entries from 85 countries competed for the coveted Lions at the Cannes 55th International Advertising Festival. That's an increase of 10.2% versus 2007. Wow-zee, woozers! Without taking into account the new Design Lions category, that increase is 5.8%. A lot of those new entrants also come from the break out of TV to include other screens. In order to enter your work in Cannes, you're paying anywhere from $466 US (Radio Lions) to $1120 if you're entering into the Film Lions. If you're living in the UK, it's a little bit more. The average entry fee cost (considering Film, Outdoor, Cyber, Direct, Radio, Integrated, etc.) is $816.84 (roughly). Stay with me, ok? So, that average times the 28,000 entries? $22,871,576. Oh yeah dawg. Read it and weep. If you want to go for the full 4 days and go to every event the festival has running it'll cost ya. That's 2386.02 pounds or 4455.42 US dollars (that includes the French TVA fee). For arguments sake, let's say that of the 10,000 reported delegates, not everyone got the full package. Lets say they ponied up for three days. That's still $3126.61. Okay, multiply that by the 10,000 or so delegates. I'll wait. Friday Jun 27, 2008
Cannes Takes Back Their Award
CEO Philip Thomas is said to be "pleased" with the outcome, and happy that the festival didn't have to actually revoke the award. They are taking the work off the Cannes Lions 2008 website and striking the win from the record. Lesson learned? Guess we'll have to wait until nex year to see. Thursday Jun 19, 2008
Wrath of Cannes Tonight!
Well the night you've all been waiting for is here. The anti-Cannes event, Wrath of Cannes, will be taking place at Cha Cha Cha's on Coney Island. Yeah, it's a bit of a hike, but where there's free drinks, there's Agency Spy. We're not really covering the real Cannes, since, it's a huge fucking waste anyway. A friend of mine pointed out yet another way in which the annual event has become more ridiculous. It makes little to no sense, he says, that so many big agencies are spending thousands of dollars when they have other bills to pay but can't due to a lost billings. Everyone wants to be a celebrity, I suppose. Anyway, we're looking forward to seeing the work tonight, and enjoying Coney Island's freakish delights. I've grown a mustache just for the occasion. See you there. Monday May 19, 2008
Return Of The Wrath Of Cannes..."Those who can go to Cannes. Those who can't go to Coney." There's no call for entries. No fees. Juniors are welcome and you know this "awards show" will devolve into a drumken hot mess. Yes!
The Clios Happened
Monday May 12, 2008
Mindless Mumbo Jumbo About The Clios
"I certainly had that voice screaming in my head, 'I wish I had done it!'" Granger goes on to say that the judges were "really tough on the work." Other yawn worthy highlights (really, why was this piece even penned?) include jury member Bruce Henderson, group creative director at Ogilvy & Mather in New York, saying such wise words as:
One would bloody well hope so, Bruce! One would hope. Evan Fry, VP creative director at Crispin in Boulder, said: Well that's a bright spot. The kids still want in! Hot. Okay, no more picking on this piece, but really... talk about taking up brain space.
PreviouslyTonight's The Night, The Niiiiight Checking In With Neil French And The World Press Awards Double Digit Gainers: The B-to-B Awards The One Show Shortlist: Full Disclosure Leaves me thinking of a Wizard of Oz quote... Meet The Prom King And Queen Of The Andy's The Cool Kids Are Headed To India |
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