Of the 226 shortlisted for the media lions. Australia and NZ accounted for 22, so 10% of the global total.
Even though I am a bit of a statto/nerd, I am not sure how this compares to previous years – but is more than enough to demonstrate that with a combined population of just 27 million we, as Australasia, punch far in excess of our per capita position. My first observation.
Second is that none (i.e. not one) of the entrants shortlisted are media agencies – they are all creative. Whilst a shame and not something that overly irks me, this trend has certainly become more prevalent in recent years (certainly the last three) and as such for media agency leaders raises a few interesting if not soul searching questions.
Are creative agencies simply better authors of award entries? Perhaps.
Are they applying a “less is more” strategy and spent more time beautifully crafting them. Perhaps.
Do they have better resources with which to pull them together – especially the in-house video and design studios that media agencies either put together with lesser resource or outsource (at not inconsiderable cost). Definitely.
I am not for one second suggesting that style over substance wins, but more style along with the substance will certainly standout.
Collaboration is always required to bring anything involving multiple partners, especially the client, to market - as am sure these campaigns did. I know from an OMG perspective ours did.
All of that said, as Cannes is the global pinnacle of the awards season – the ‘Oscars of Advertising’ someone slurred at me last night – it is a shame that none of the media agency entries from our part of the world were deemed good enough to be shortlisted - alongside the no doubt very worthy creative agency entrants. It does therefore leave me with some homework for my TTD (things to do) list for next year when I get home.
What lessons Cannes (bad pun!) we media agencies learn from our creative agency brethren when it comes to award submissions?
Good luck to all Aussie and Kiwi shortlisted entries… (but especially the Omnicom ones).
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