They may be trumpeted as bastions of credibility but is there really any value in The Directory Big Won and The Gunn Report? Seyoan Vela asks
Personal interest declared. I know Bechara Mouzannar, Tahaab Rais and Paul Banham and in my opinion they rank among the best of the best advertising practitioners in the region. They deserve to be applauded and awarded for their efforts.
So hopefully they won’t unfriend me when I also say that in my opinion The Directory Big Won and The Gunn Report – which they all feature in – feel increasingly more comical than statistical. And I’m not alone. Stephen Foster, the respected marketing journalist, did what most people never do and took the time to trawl through the Big Won in detail. He has just published a less than complimentary post on the Big Won entitled The Ad World Turned Upside Down, where he also comes to the conclusion that “it’s slightly bonkers”.
It’s hard to disagree with Vinny Warren (the creator of Budweiser’s ‘Wassup’ – one of the most awarded ads ever on The Gunn report) and Ben Kay (author of advertising’s most read blog – If this is a blog then what’s Christmas) who both feel that more damage has been done to the creative side of the ad industry by Donald Gunn than any procurement department.
There really is a strong argument to say that these reports belong on the bookshelf alongside Harry Potter as much as they do by the annual reports littering the offices of holding company executives. For ultimately this is the big trick they have been pulling. They pretend to bring some scientific metrics to the world’s creative work. They collate data in a way that accountants running big agencies feel comfortable with – giving a feeling of objectivity and a veneer of respectability that just isn’t the reality.
Leo Burnett Beirut’s ‘Keep the flame alive’ for Johnnie Walker was ranked in the top 10 digital campaigns in the world by the Big Won report.
If you were an alien – or more accurately a new client with no wider knowledge of the ad industry – looking to the Big Won as a guide for a new agency, you would be forgiven for thinking that outside the MENA region that McCann Erickson Spain and BBDO Pakistan are the best places in the world to go for strategy. BBDO Kuala Lumpur would be the place you would go for a great print or poster campaign and Y&R Istanbul for your media. Really. I don’t think Droga5 or Wieden+Kennedy, BBH or R/GA are losing any sleep, or in fact any clients, over these rankings.
To be fair to Patrick Collister, the owner and editor of Big Won, even he does not hold back from criticism in the conclusions of his own report. That is admirable and remarkable. He comments: “What is rare in the rankings is work that actually sets out to sell, to shift product.” He also goes on to say: “How can some pieces of work have eight creative directors? How is it possible for press ads to have five art directors? One radio campaign from Brazil had no fewer than 16 different people attached to its creation.” Not since Dr. Frankenstein have I read someone who seems so downbeat about what they have created.
Amir Kassaei, chief creative officer of DDB Worldwide, summed it up eloquently when he said the ad industry has got to a stage where “winning awards only means that you are good at winning awards”. It shows more about the attitude of your agency towards award shows and more importantly how much money the agency is willing or allowed to spend.
The Gunn Report “tabulates the winners of the top 45 award shows”. Really? Only the top 45? Hollywood has three or four major awards shows. Same for the music industry. These bastions of popular culture don’t even make much effort to pretend that their output can be judged globally. If we all agree with Memac Ogilvy’s chief creative officer Paul Shearer – and I know we all do – that the best work comes from local insights, then we should be willing to accept that this may not always travel globally. Not that it doesn’t happen, but it’s the exception rather than the rule. There’s a reason that Marvel Movies or One Direction do better globally than local art or artists that are much more respected nationally but struggle to cross borders. And there’s a reason that the owners of Cannes Lions have just announced a $1.2 billion dollar float. Where I disagree with Paul (and hopefully he doesn’t unfriend me too) is when he talks about the success of South American advertising. For me the Brazilians and Argentinians do so well by generally avoiding deep cultural nuances (you rarely see an ad in Portuguese) and instead by creating fantastic work that is universally understood.
As the ad industry continues to struggle to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world, as it has clients demand more for less, as it struggles to attract talent because it pays juniors so poorly relative to competitive industries, how does it still justify pouring millions in to the coffers of the award show owners? As Jeff Goodby ruefully wrote in The Wall Street Journal last year: “Surely the only true measure of success is whether the public knows and cares about your work.”
