Creative Judges Get Hit Up for Favors in Cheeky Ads for an Awards Show Not Judged by Creatives

When creatives judge their fellow creatives in awards shows, one might argue it’s a good way to ensure strong work is appreciated. Others might argue it gets a bit … incestuous. 

To promote the fact that the Epica Awards are the only major ad industry honors judged solely by journalists rather members of the creative industry, Epica has launched a new call-for-entries ad campaign that somewhat subtly satirizes the better-known events like the Cannes Lions, One Show and Clio Awards (the last of which, I should note by way of disclosure, is owned by Adweek’s parent company but operated independently of this magazine). 

In each ad—created by Paris-based agency Altmann+Pacreau—we see a text message being sent to a famous ad figure such as Wieden + Kennedy co-founder Dan Wieden or Leo Burnett global creative chief Mark Tutssel. The person sending the message is usually commenting on the ad star’s upcoming role on an awards juror, while subtly hinting at a bit of a quid pro quo arrangement that will help sway some votes. 

“When you serve on a jury, you receive lots of ‘friendly’ messages, trying to find out what’s going on and putting a gentle pressure on your judgment,” said one of the campaign’s creators, Altmann+Pacreau co-founder Olivier Altmann. “So we built on this insight to promote Epica, one of the few worldwide awards that most agencies support specifically because of its singularity.”

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W+K Plants Tongue in Cheek for Andy Awards

W+K finds a unique and amusing way to call for entries to the 2015 Andy Award in a new campaign featuring a a member of a bomb squad, neurosurgeon and firefighter all discussing a career that takes real courage: advertising. Each spot ends with the tagline, “Where only the bravest get rewarded.”

In “Neurosurgeon” the discussion happens during brain surgery, as the surgeon in question asks, “How do you know when you sell an idea to a client that the idea is actually going to work?” He asks for the scalpel and then continues, “It’s like its one big conceptual umbrella and then what do you do with that?” He goes on with his hypothetical scenario, in which the client kills the idea in favor of a brand manifesto with “hard hitting VO,” he sighs. “And then wait ’til AgencySpy gets it,” the surgeon ads. “It’s brutal.”

In the other spots a firefighter marvels at the difficulty of balancing TV, digital and social, and the bomb squad member trembles at the thought of having to “come up with a groundbreaking social media campaign in a week.” Obviously the point of the ads is to point out that advertisers aren’t doing anything as courageous or important as saving lives, knocking down the self-importance of award shows a peg or two in the process. The videos are supported by display and social media ads depicting big name creatives like Gerry Graf, Susan Hoffman, Jeff Benjamin and Dan Wieden being congratulated by firefighters, astronauts, surgeons and the like. Stick around for “Hurt Locker” and “Firefighter” after the jump. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

W+K Names Colleen DeCourcy as Partner

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Wieden+Kennedy has named Colleen DeCourcy as the newest partner in its global network.

DeCourcy most recently served as Global Coexecutive Creative Director; she joins Dan Wieden, Dave Luhr, Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman, Tom Blessington, Bill Davenport, John Jay, Neil Christie, Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth on the partner team.

DeCourcy worked at W+K for only eighteen months before the promotion; prior to joining the agency, she founded her own shop called Socialistic, which she ran as CEO and chief creative officer. The release states that, during her time at W+K, she has “extended the creative department’s capabilities beyond advertising, into both experience and product design.”

Her full ad industry resume includes stints in leadership positions at TBWA New York, JWT and Organic.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

W+K Portland Explores ‘The 7 Wonders of Oregon’

W+K Portland has a new campaign for the Oregon Tourism Commison, extolling the virtues of their home state with a video called “The 7 Wonders of Oregon.”

The :60 anthem spot features all 7 “wonders of Oregon,” attempting to “inspire active travelers looking for authentic experiences” with Oregon’s natural landmarks. While Oregon’s natural beauty speaks for itself, the production of the spot was no small task. It was “carried out by a crew of 15 people shooting for 14 days straight and driving more than 3,000 miles across Oregon, often camping along the way.” All of the individuals involved were “Oregonians with a genuine passion for the wonders they are representing” and the spot is clearly a labor of love.

“This is some of the strongest work for Travel Oregon in our 25-year history of working together,” W+K chairman co-namesake Dan Wieden says, adding, “What I really like about the creative, aside from how beautiful Oregon looks, is it gives people a checklist of things to see and do.”

In addition to the anthem spot, the integrated campaign includes digital, social, search, public relations and consumer engagement elements. The latter includes “an influencer tour, targeted media outreach, a program to surprise and delight visitors, and a Facebook sweepstakes to drive visibility and fan acquisition.” In the social realm, visitors are invited to share their Oregon photos with the hashtag #traveloregon, with top picks on Travel Oregon content channels “to inspire others long after the paid media portion of the campaign concludes.” In a nice touch, the digital campaign includes not only trip inspiration, but also trip planning tools and resources such as itineraries, links to purchase plane tickets and special travel deals on TravelOregon.com. If I wasn’t already dying to get to the Pacific Northwest, this campaign would do a pretty good job convincing me that Oregon is a great travel destination. Stick around for credits after the jump and go here for more :30 efforts for the campaign. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Criativos revelam para o D&AD Awards os jobs que gostariam de ter feito

Todo mundo, em algum momento da carreira profissional, acaba se deparando com um job que gostaria de ter feito, uma ideia que gostaria de ter tido e que fatalmente faz com que a gente se pergunte: “como é que eu não pensei nisso antes?”. A boa notícia é que até os grandes criativos passam por essa situação, como confessam Dan Wieden, da Wieden + Kennedy, Iain Tait, do Google Creative Lab, e Jessica Walsh, do estúdio Sagmeister & Walsh, na divulgação do D&AD Awards 2014.

A campanha, criada e produzida pela Wieden + Kennedy tem ainda animações de abertura sensacionais, assinadas pela Factory Fifteen para a Nexus Productions.

Climate Change Name, ideia da Barton F. Graf 9000 para a 350 Action, foi a escolhida por Dan Wieden. Em resumo, a proposta da campanha era que a World Meteorlogical Organization (Organização Meteorológica Mundial) passasse a usar nomes de políticos que negam os efeitos das mudanças climáticas para nomear furacões e tempestades.

Iain Tait, por sua vez, apontou as lâmpadas que mudam de cores Philips Hue e sua conexão com o If This Then That (IFTTT), enquanto Jessica Walsh destacou o novo logo do Whitney Museum.

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Dan Wieden and Others Reveal the Work They Wish They’d Done in D&AD Ads

Envy makes advertising go round—when creatives aren't busying copying ideas, they're coveting them. D&AD celebrates that dynamic with a series of new spots, created by Wieden + Kennedy in London, to promote the awards show's 2014 call for submissions.

In the videos, industry heavyweights including Dan Wieden share their picks for work from the past year that they "wish they'd done." In Wieden's case, it's an ad by Barton F. Graf 9000 that proposes changing the titles of devastating hurricanes from apparently random names like Katrina and Sandy to names like Marco Rubio and Michele Bachmann, in an attempt to lay blame for the natural disasters on politicians who deny climate change. It's sort of like an "Oh, diss, gotcha dummy" on the dilapidated playground of American politics—but done in a way Wieden hopes will actually have some positive effect.

The other spots focus on media beyond straight advertising. For the digital category, W+K alum Iain Tait, now at Google Creative Lab, praises Philips's Internet-connected, color-changing lightbulbs. For the design category, Jessica Walsh of Sagmeister & Walsh spotlights the new "W" logo for the Whitney Museum, in what may be, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most opaque explanation to the uninitiated—because design work that looks good doesn't always translate to the most down-to-earth or persuasive argument.

The parts of the promos most worth envying may be the opening zoetrope animations that Nexus's Productions Factory Fifteen developed. The spinning toys pack in quick references to past standout work—the advertising bit, for example, includes the Guardian's "Three Little Pigs" opus (BBH), Honda's flying motors (W+K) and Cadbury's famous Phil Collins gorilla (Fallon). For insiders, the presence of such greats should amp the challenge to submit—or maybe just render it moot. Nobody is ever going to make anything half as good as a big-feeling simian beating the crap out of a drum kit.