Awards slant stirs debate

By IRENE CHAPPLE marketing writer

Like the fish and chips slapped up for dinner, this year's Axis awards for advertising left a lingering aftertaste.

From the main meal of greasies to the awards piled on public service and alternative advertising campaigns, the awards seemed a little, well, odd.

Large-scale commercial campaigns were marginalised in favour of public awareness and quirky, small-scale advertising.

The results have stirred debate over the advertising industry's place in business and, in turn, the way the art of advertising should be celebrated.

The Axis Advertising Awards - like many international awards including the Cannes Lions, D&AD and Clio - reward nothing but creativity. Such celebration, argues the advertising industry, is necessary to ensure advertising continues to push the lines of conservatism.

Effectiveness, or whether the campaign actually works, is left to such smaller-scale awards shows as New Zealand's Effies, which makes its debut in August, replacing the Advertising Effectiveness Awards.

Accolades received are often showcased by agencies, while individual wins are seen as career leg-ups.

At Axis, two big awards - Best in Show and one of the two Grande Axis - plus two of the night's handful of golds, were taken by Saatchi & Saatchi Wellington's multimedia public awareness campaign for Women's Refuge.

The other Grande Axis was awarded to a "viral" marketing campaign, or one that uses the consumer to help spread the advertising. The low-budget campaign, created by Colenso BBDO for an R18 Nintendo game, filmed a man dressed as a squirrel being a "bad ass" in various city locations, and screened the footage through a website.

Emails with the website's link were then sent from agency staff to their contacts, who in turn sent the email to their friends. The website, live for three weeks, received 5000 hits and the email reached the United Kingdom.

Both big wins have attracted controversy. The Women's Refuge campaign, while widely applauded for its creative excellence, is the first public awareness campaign to win Best in Show. People within the industry are loath to criticise Saatchi's work, but social issues advertising with its high emotional content can be seen as an easy sell compared with, for example, the difficulties of pushing peanut butter. Because of past criticisms, judging of public awareness or social campaigns can be more vigorous.

Public service clients that pay at discounted rates are also grateful for the agencies' assistance, and unlikely to challenge any creative work.

Corporate clients, however, may grind agencies' work through several layers of management before signing off any advertising. Agencies complain the process inevitably wipes out the more risky creative ideas.

The Nintendo advertising, which featured swearwords and the squirrel relieving himself on a lamp post, was seen by some as borderline creativity, with the leeway to indulge in advertising unacceptable to mainstream media.

A peg down from the big wins, multitudes of silver and bronze Axis awards were given to small-scale advertisers, with relatively few collected by mainstream campaigns.

One, by Colenso BBDO for Bug Clothing, received three silver (one in a technical category) and five bronze awards. The high-profile campaign infamously trapped live flies, locusts and cockroaches in bus shelters around Auckland.

Another Colenso BBDO winner was highly targeted advertising for Sydney-based photographer Julian Wolkenstein. Three awards were shared between the two entries, both of which ran only once in advertising magazines.

Many defend this year's unusual awards tally as being a blip on Axis history. Others say it reflects the conservatism felt by big clients after a tight marketing year. Whatever the reason, the skew toward small-scale and alternative media campaigns - which attracts talk of "scam" advertising - may lead to change in future awards shows.

Axis chairman Andrew Stone says he would like to see a more commercial focus in future Axis awards. He believes the industry will maginalise itself if the awards don't recognise the high-spending commercial clients. Otherwise, he argues, the awards may be perceived as celebrating odd, quirky advertising tactics and entries may reflect that perception.

Jeremy Irwin, of the Association of New Zealand Advertisers, agrees this year's results raised eyebrows, and says some the association's members were dispirited by the poor showing of big campaigns. Irwin is also an advocate for a more commercial emphasis which he says will ensure the show remains attractive for entrants and the clients that ultimately pay for the celebrations.

According to convener of judges Mike O'Sullivan, last year was a dud for large-scale campaigns, and most simply didn't make the cut. However, he is anxious to respond to criticisms of the awards, and says if the industry wants it, he will push for change to the criteria.

Trade and corporate could be judged in separate categories, for example. Or there could be an emphasis on product rather than service advertising. Entries could be required to have been published a certain number of times, or be a significant part of a marketing strategy.

A less popular suggestion is to make effectiveness part of the judging criteria. The advertising industry revolts at the idea the Axis awards could be trammelled by responsibility to the client's bottom line.

Plus, they add, the Effies are there for that very reason - although past Advertising Effectiveness Awards have generally attracted, at tops, 100 entries. This year's Axis had more than 1000.

However, ongoing proof that a client's advertising dollar is working has become vital in today's tightly belted business environment. And such a criterion could arguably ensure a high profile for corporate clients that insist on - and track - high return for the advertising dollar.

Such criteria may also settle debate over the validity of awards that celebrate only creativity in an industry that feeds off clients whose only interests are commercial. After all, one creative points out, the big spenders are the reason those in the advertising industry go to work every day.

Industry measures such as the much-quoted Gunn Report - conducted through advertising agency Leo Burnett - conclude that highly creative campaigns are, a huge majority of the time, effective as well. The Communication Agencies Association of New Zealand intends to research the effectiveness of the Axis creative winners and create a comparative database.

Clients whose campaigns took the big wins at Axis did, indeed, profess satisfaction with the various campaigns.

Women's Refuge reported an overall increase in surplus - which takes into account payments to Saatchi & Saatchi - of at least 320 per cent, after average donations increased $12 to $53 and total donations increased 250 per cent.

At present, critics in the industry appear to have fingers crossed that this year was, indeed, simply a blip and that larger-scale campaigns will have a higher profile next year.

Irwin is cautious about suggesting big changes to the Axis criteria, accepting that the awards are basically an in-house celebration of creativity.

However, he does point out effectiveness figures will always be of most interest to the advertisers.