The One Show Shortlist: Full Disclosure
April 8, 2008
Alright! The One Show Shortlist came out yesterday. The entire document is here for you to download:
2008os_shortlist
Just a note. The One Show is not Cannes and so, when you get down to section 9A: Television: Over: 30 – Single, note that they have messed up the header. You are not having a flashback due to the heavy raving you did in the early 90s. No, no. The heading should read client, entry title, agency, and city.
I believe that Down Low, who doesn’t know it yet, is going to be doing some commentary on this shortlist tomorrow. This is just an information drop for the night owls. Now, just a note before you dive into this PDF, lets engage in full disclosure, yes? The judges for this show include:
Chris Adams of TBWA\Chiat Day\LA. TBWA\C\D in LA and New York received 14 nods.
Andy Azula of The Martin, which gets five spots.
Robert Baird of Mother, which gets four spots.
Glenn Cole who’s agency 72andSunny gets two places.
Marty Cole from SS+K. The agency shows up twice on the shortlist.
Mike Byrne from Anomaly, which gets two nods.
Adriana Cury’s (one of the few people we adore from the shop) sees her agency, McCann showing up more times than we can count from various locales.
Joe DeSouza, Fallon/London… four times.
Matt Ian from BBH that has it’s New York office showing up seven times.
Steve Mapp from BSS&P, gets a shout out seven times, too.
Masako Okamura of Dentsu sees her agency shine eight bright times.
Rob Strasberg from CP+B can gets to see his agency show up like, 37 times. Lost count. Sorry.
Monica Taylor of W+K sees its worldwide offices hit the list 16 times.
Nick Spahr of Goodby will be psyched. Twenty times! Sweet!
Andy Greenaway, Saatchi & Saatchi/Singapore – 5 times.
Norman Tan, BatesAsia/Shanghai sees Bates hit it up 3 times.
Congratulations to all the nominees!
April 8, 2008 at 8:48 am
Great. You would think Michael Sembello would at least have been able to weigh in on his Maniac remake. I’m sure he would have given himself a pencil. Like that shit even matters. When will we decide that circle jerks aren’t as good as they sound? Come on people…
April 8, 2008 at 11:40 am
droga5, who don’t seem to have all that much prowess in pitches as one might have expected, carries very little water here. the tap project seems to be their only nomination (though I am certain it will win).
personally interesting to me was that ground zero made it in again twice (with espn). I wondered if they still had the account after the last super-secret review that nobody knows more about.
and my own campaign (out of a chicago agency) didn’t get shortlistet. well, next year then.
April 8, 2008 at 11:50 am
re: full disclosure…isn’t it common practice that judges are not allowed to vote for work done by their own agency?
April 8, 2008 at 1:45 pm
It’s true, judges are not allowed to vote for their own work. The logic here is backwards–maybe because these agencies do consistently good work and win pencils every year is why those particular judges were nominated in the first place.
April 8, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Most of these folks are from great agencies. If one of the judges was from Campbell Mithun and they somehow got 6 enteries shortlisted, then I’d be suspicious. But I think we all expected agencies like W+K, CP&B, Fallon london, Chiat NY, BBH, etc. to be shortlisted because they’re always putting out good work.
April 8, 2008 at 3:36 pm
ANDY AZULA IS A FUCKING HACK!!!!!
April 8, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Well, that’s some great skewing of the stats.
Look at how many times an agency like Leo Burnett shows up. How many judges are from there? Or O&M? Or DDB? Or BBDO?
C’mon…you don’t expect Fallon, Weiden, Chiat, Goodby, BBH, Mother to pull in more than 1 nomination?
April 8, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Strasberg isn’t at CP&B anymore—he’s at Doner
April 8, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Ummm, if you don’t want judges who also win awards on the show who the hell would judge one show, a jr writer from Grey?
April 8, 2008 at 7:09 pm
These judges spend days together drinking. Usually, not always, in some tropical place where drinking and bullshitting are the main course.
They know each other and the work they did.
And if they don’t, they get to know each other and the work they did.
You vote for mine, I vote for yours.
Is it really that hard to believe??
April 8, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Mark,
Your solution is?
April 8, 2008 at 8:17 pm
My top three choices for replacing the One Show Judges:
1. Junior Writers, and what the hell, Junior ADs from Grey.
2. Clients
3. The entire studio audience of today’s Rachel Ray Show
April 8, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I realize Victor (can I call you Vic?) was speaking with tongue planted firmly in cheek when he suggested having “the entire studio audience of today’s Rachel Ray Show” judge the One Show.
The thing is, those are the people most qualified to judge whether an ad (whatever that is these days) is any good or not. After all, that’s who the ads are ostensibly aimed at — not a small clique of hideously overpaid, mostly white males in their late 20s to mid 50s.
I’m sure most, if not all, of this year’s One Show judges are insanely talented. But why should their opinions matter more than the average person’s? It’s the public’s response — or lack of thereof — to an ad that determines its success. So what if it has a cool font or a pithy headline? As one of those old farts from the Mesozoic Era of advertising once said, “It ain’t creative if it don’t sell.”
I’m all for honoring creative excellence. But this obsession with winning awards furnishes further proof (as if any were needed) that our industry has its collective head wedged firmly up its anal cavity.
April 8, 2008 at 8:57 pm
@Howard McNear:
Very good points. Also, I wasn’t really joking.
April 8, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Howard… If we let the public decide what constitutes pushing the bounds within the idustry of advertising…, that terrible consumer-made doritos superbowl spot from 2007, which got top 5 in the adpoll, would win best in show at the one show.
I wouldn’t ask a third grader to review the latest car from BMW, I couldn’t want my little brother judging top chef and I sure as shit don’t want someone who laughs at the Swifter commercials to judge my ads.
One Show and Cannes are like the oscars… judged by people related to the industry of filmmaking… it’s not the people’s choice awards.
ps – if you stopped using top creative judges, no one would enter the competitions anymore anyway.
April 9, 2008 at 4:28 am
It’s all bullshit. As they say just do shit you like and try your best. You can’t control what these douches think. And you probably shouldn’t care because most of them are disappointing losers.
April 9, 2008 at 7:35 am
Howard.. you make a good point. But we’re a big industry, and we are passionate, so of course we want to get together and determine what the best stuff we’ve done all year is… even if the system is flawed… so is the SAT test, but colleges still need it.
April 9, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Chris, you may not want “someone who laughs at the Swifter commercials to judge (your) ads.” But like it or not, they already are. They are the ones who decide whether or not to read your ad or watch your commercial or click on your banner. And their verdicts ultimately carry far more weight than anyone posting on this blog or judging award shows.
Yes, the Doritos Super Bowl commercial was too lame for words. And if it had come from an agency, it would have been roundly reviled by the professional critics and ignored by the public. I think all the publicity it received in advance may explain why it ranked so high. Once the novelty wears off, consumer-generated content will have to engage and entertain the same way the stuff we do has to in order to succeed.
Given how challenging it can be to produce great creative, it should be celebrated. But we need to keep things in perspective. Winning awards should be a happy by-product of a job well done, not the primary goal. So much emphasis is placed on award shows these days that it distorts our principles and our priorities. That’s why you see so many fake ads out there.
I agree that the One Show and Cannes are like the Oscars: They are veritable orgies of egotism, hype and self congratulation. In fairness, they do honor work that is worthy. (Although that’s questionable in the case of the Oscars. How they could have chosen “Terms of Endearment” over the seminal cinematic classic that is “Porky’s II: The Next Day” haunts me to this day.)
Still, your comparison raises the question: Do you think “No Country for Old Men” was the best movie of the year because a relative handful of industry insiders said so? Or because you said so?
Aren’t you capable of deciding on your own what “constitutes pushing the bounds within the industry of advertising?” And if you are, then why do we need award shows in the first place? Think for yourself.
April 9, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I’ve won a few noteworthy awards, and i’ve done some work recently which will probably win more in the next couple of years. I’m happy about that.
But when it comes to my best work, i really don’t care whether it wins awards or not. I don’t think i’m all that unusual in this respect.
Awards are one definer of great work. Not the only one. Career-wise, it’s one way to stand out. If you don’t have any, or don’t care, about winning awards, then be creative (that’s what you’re supposed to be, right?) and stand out in some other way.
April 9, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Well, I trust the people listed on this jury more than at most of the shows. There’s a lot of well-proven talent here, and less scammers on this jury.