RE: UKNM: Banner creative and Yell awards

[Robert Hamilton]

Hi All,


Ross makes some good points about the types of awards, and though I'd

taken a personal pledge (only last night over dinner!) to give it up on 

talking about awards I've been tempted, Friday pm as it is, into 

responding.


It seems that we have two camps: those likely to shout "Bollocks - 

creativity doesn't matter, it's results we're after", and those who

are aiming to produce "A great piece of work".


Well, in my experience of advertising, those who do the best work 

care about both. We do not generally have the luxury (I use the word

advisedly, as ever) of account planners in online media, but their role

in advertising should not be underestimated. If they have done their

job well, then the creative team will have been delivered the right

proposition as a basis for their work. Armed with that, they are then

able to produce work which can be as creative as they like, provided

that (paraphrasing Mr Sleight) the core proposition is communicated.

This *should* produce creative work which delivers results.


What's frustrating is that the former camp tends to say "It may not

be pretty but it works". Well, some of us would like to do pretty things

that work, thank you very much, and I don't believe that we should be 

denied by cheapskates knocking out "Click here for Brand X..." by the 

yard.


Why do so many people believe that effective work can't be creative

and vice versa? Try telling that to Levi's, Tango, Boddington's, etc.

If creative work couldn't be effective I for one would be taking my

bat home without a moment's hesitation.


Just to contradtict all of the above, as I said a while ago in another 

place, creatives' offices tend to be cluttered up with pencils, lions 

and arrows, not sales charts. However, that's fair enough, since the

planners tend to be the ones that enter work for effectiveness awards

(please email contradictory case studies to:

trashbrandwidth [dot] co [dot] uk

).


OK, so this leads me to agencies being paid by results (a rare insight

into how my head works there). Well, if agencies were given complete 

control over the work that might be viable. However, if the agency's 


idea is diluted and distorted by the client (it happens...), that's 

not always the agency's fault. Should they be punished if the work

subsequently fails to deliver? After all, power is nothing without 

control.


Creative <------|-----> Crap


Effluent <------|-----> Effective


Slide away.


To be this cynical takes ages (after you know who)


R


Robert Hamilton


Creative Consultant, brandwidth

robertbrandwidth [dot] co [dot] uk

   0171 697 0049

   0973 989 208