Just been checking through the D&AD Shortlists

Not all of them of course. Life’s way too short (life’s way to short to check the ones I checked, but this blog don’t write itself).

After a moment or two, I noticed an interesting thing about what got in. See if you can see what I’m getting at:

Press advertising nationalities in the order presented by D&AD:

Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Singapore, South Africa, South Africa, South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Sweden, South Africa, Chile, Thailand, Israel, South Africa, Netherlands, Singapore, France, Israel, Brazil.

Campaigns:

UK, Brazil, Brazil, South Africa, France, US, Germany, UK, Colombia, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, UK, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Singapore, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Brazil.

Yes, one of the UK campaigns got a nomination, and yes, we’re better than America, Australia and Canada combined (and Micronesia, while we’re on the subject). But not a single UK press ad was deemed worthy of inclusion in the individual press section.

Not a single press ad done in this whole fucking country (well, London, to be fair) was good enough to be deemed good enough by this year’s D&AD press jury.

That’s got to be a first.

And you know when I say UK advertising’s got worse in recent years? Well now it’s official, or even more official than it already was.

(Interesting explanation of why this is from the Trottmeister.)