The die is cast against homeland security
Awards The ADC wants to improve its reputation again with stricter judging, especially among clients.
Awards The ADC wants to improve its reputation again with stricter judging, especially among clients.
Swiss advertising rarely makes a name for itself internationally. As a corrective, generous national competitions succeed in creating a different domestic image. So much patronage is damaging to the industry, the ADC managers agreed and opted for a radical change in the judging process for this year's competition. On the one hand, the club of critical creatives abolished the 25 percent quota system and introduced a rigorous criteria scale instead. On the other hand, the first use of this tried and tested tool was inspired by its internationally renowned creator - Michael Conrad, former Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett and Cannes jury president.
However, the new mode was preceded by a public dispute that did not exactly do credit to the ADC's credibility. And this at a time of scarce resources, when creative advertising was having a hard time with more and more clients. The spokesman for the community of critics was Frank Bodin, who described the ADC result two years ago as a disaster because six out of nine gold awards were economically irrelevant and, in his opinion, "didn't stand a chance" at international competitions.
Quantity instead of quality
At the heart of Bodin's philippic against the rain of dice was the fact that, according to the jury rules at the time, the ADC did not base its decisions on binding qualitative criteria, but initially on quantitative ones. Not only were his demands for clearly formulated and almost standardized evaluation criteria met, doubters of Bodin's selflessness were also proved wrong, as his Euro RSCG, like most of the agencies previously pampered by the ADC, won just a single bronze award.
The signal effect of rationed prizes is quite something, but officially it didn't upset anyone, "because a shortlist placement is now worth more than a bronze award used to be", is how many explained their modesty. ADC honorary member Michael Conrad explains the uncontroversial introduction of his criteria scale for the jury pragmatically: "Our only weapon against advertising overkill is the more critical assessment of advertising in order to achieve the 'want to see again' effect with the public with better quality." It goes without saying that this ultimately pays off for the client, as can be seen internationally with examples such as Nike, Ikea, Budweiser and Pepsi.
Its ten criteria are solution-, culture-, market-, creative- and customer-neutral and also separate detrimental advertising that is frightening, destructive, uncompetitive or even clichéd from that which exhibits qualities that must be taken for granted, such as innovative strategy and idea as well as excellent execution. From now on, only campaigns that set a new standard or achieve world-class status in their category or in advertising can expect to win ADC Gold. His agency Leo Burnett is not the only one to prove that this way of determining quality leads to high-end creative output. Meanwhile, even Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer at P&G, has included Conrad's "want to see again" factor in his push-for list, because award-worthy advertising makes the brand likeable and is the only way to achieve leadership positions in saturated markets.
Three silver medals: the bar for an award was higher than ever.
Luca Aloisi
Swiss advertising rarely makes a name for itself internationally. As a corrective, generous national competitions succeed in creating a different domestic image. So much patronage is damaging to the industry, the ADC managers agreed and opted for a radical change in the judging process for this year's competition. On the one hand, the club of critical creatives abolished the 25 percent quota system and introduced a rigorous criteria scale instead. On the other hand, the first use of this tried and tested tool was inspired by its internationally renowned creator - Michael Conrad, former Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett and Cannes jury president.
However, the new mode was preceded by a public dispute that did not exactly do credit to the ADC's credibility. And this at a time of scarce resources, when creative advertising was having a hard time with more and more clients. The spokesman for the community of critics was Frank Bodin, who described the ADC result two years ago as a disaster because six out of nine gold awards were economically irrelevant and, in his opinion, "didn't stand a chance" at international competitions.
Quantity instead of quality
At the heart of Bodin's philippic against the rain of dice was the fact that, according to the jury rules at the time, the ADC did not base its decisions on binding qualitative criteria, but initially on quantitative ones. Not only were his demands for clearly formulated and almost standardized evaluation criteria met, doubters of Bodin's selflessness were also proved wrong, as his Euro RSCG, like most of the agencies previously pampered by the ADC, won just a single bronze award.
The signal effect of rationed prizes is quite something, but officially it didn't upset anyone, "because a shortlist placement is now worth more than a bronze award used to be", is how many explained their modesty. ADC honorary member Michael Conrad explains the uncontroversial introduction of his criteria scale for the jury pragmatically: "Our only weapon against advertising overkill is the more critical assessment of advertising in order to achieve the 'want to see again' effect with the public with better quality." It goes without saying that this ultimately pays off for the client, as can be seen internationally with examples such as Nike, Ikea, Budweiser and Pepsi.
Its ten criteria are solution-, culture-, market-, creative- and customer-neutral and also separate detrimental advertising that is frightening, destructive, uncompetitive or even clichéd from that which exhibits qualities that must be taken for granted, such as innovative strategy and idea as well as excellent execution. From now on, only campaigns that set a new standard or achieve world-class status in their category or in advertising can expect to win ADC Gold. His agency Leo Burnett is not the only one to prove that this way of determining quality leads to high-end creative output. Meanwhile, even Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer at P&G, has included Conrad's "want to see again" factor in his push-for list, because award-worthy advertising makes the brand likeable and is the only way to achieve leadership positions in saturated markets.
Three silver medals: the bar for an award was higher than ever.
Luca Aloisi
