Is it really direct?
Alex Schmid believes that direct marketers have traditional agencies—which have been talking trash—to thank for their troubles at this year's Cannes festival.
Alex Schmid believes that direct marketers also owe this year's Cannes misery to classic agencies that have eaten over the hag.direct marketers' main medium, mailing, performed poorly at this year's Cannes Festival. No Golden Lion was awarded in the supreme discipline. An attempt at an explanation: awards for direct marketing are relatively new, and direct marketers are not yet really familiar with presenting their results on cardboard. Advertisers are better at this. Accordingly, many entries came from traditional agencies, which is perhaps an expression of a cyclical "we do direct too" mentality. The attention and favor of the judges was wildly courted with elaborate "Schächteli" mailings and slick invitations. As a result, many a good 2D mailing fell by the wayside in the preliminary round - regardless of its results. And no one asked themselves whether the cost of some boxes, including postage, was in any reasonable proportion to the task or the result.
Our clients also noticed this and wondered what was going on with the DM industry. We on the jury often had to ask ourselves "is it really direct?" or just another lively advertising idea. Constructed entries for the sake of it, as well as works with no business relevance and without adherence to the DM principles, were consistently sifted out by the Cannes jury. After all, spreading advertising messages via direct media is far from being direct marketing. And a big box does not make a flat idea into a dialog campaign either. Unfortunately, no mailings made it into the final round (either).
We DM providers - and I am referring in particular to the BSW's group of specialist agencies - are now called upon to redevelop and demonstrate the professional level of our discipline. BSW agencies, says association president Peter Leutenegger, are guarantors of professional communication work for their clients. That is why I would like to use my Lions experience to strongly advise all advertisers to work with experienced specialists and not to rely on "me too" strategies.
The organization and jurors agree that new categories need to be created for the entries. Perhaps the judging criteria should also be reconsidered. Cannes is by no means alone in this task; developments could also be observed at the Swiss DM Award this year that require correction. Presumably, there simply needs to be sharper distinctions between the various award categories in general. This should probably be possible, as hardly anyone would seriously claim that there were too few events in Cannes.
> Alex Schmid is the owner of the DM agency of the same name and was a member of the Lions Direct jury in Cannes this year.
Guest commentary Direct marketers also have classic agencies to thank for this year's Cannes plight, Alex Schmid believes.
Our clients also noticed this and wondered what was going on with the DM industry. We on the jury often had to ask ourselves "is it really direct?" or just another lively advertising idea. Constructed entries for the sake of it, as well as works with no business relevance and without adherence to the DM principles, were consistently sifted out by the Cannes jury. After all, spreading advertising messages via direct media is far from being direct marketing. And a big box does not make a flat idea into a dialog campaign either. Unfortunately, no mailings made it into the final round (either).
We DM providers - and I am referring in particular to the BSW's group of specialist agencies - are now called upon to redevelop and demonstrate the professional level of our discipline. BSW agencies, says association president Peter Leutenegger, are guarantors of professional communication work for their clients. That is why I would like to use my Lions experience to strongly advise all advertisers to work with experienced specialists and not to rely on "me too" strategies.
The organization and jurors agree that new categories need to be created for the entries. Perhaps the judging criteria should also be reconsidered. Cannes is by no means alone in this task; developments could also be observed at the Swiss DM Award this year that require correction. Presumably, there simply needs to be sharper distinctions between the various award categories in general. This should probably be possible, as hardly anyone would seriously claim that there were too few events in Cannes.
> Alex Schmid is the owner of the DM agency of the same name and was a member of the Lions Direct jury in Cannes this year.
Guest commentary Direct marketers also have classic agencies to thank for this year's Cannes plight, Alex Schmid believes.
