Creative Circle Judging
I’m in the middle of judging this year’s Creative Circle awards.
Game Of Thrones series three, episode two just finished, so I decided to judge the Charity Posters category.
I might watch episode three then judge Press Campaigns.
This enormous convenience is possible because I’ve just been sent the links to do it online. My carefully considered decisions will then be passed on to the Gold Jury, who I believe will allocate the big awards in a more conventional manner (in the conference room of a big ad agency).
Jeremy from Creative Circle informs me that ‘This year we have 425 judges across 3 rounds. In round one any UK employed creative can register to judge. The only reason I need to say ’employed’ is to enable me to verify that they are indeed employed as a creative and not an aspiring creative. Round 2 has over 120 senior creatives judging and in the final Gold round we have 4 Juries. (1) Film and Film Craft. (2) Press, Outdoor and Radio. (3) Design and non film Craft. (4) Digital, Direct and Experiential. Every category has a Gold award allocated, whether the work is Gold worthy or not is yet to be seen. What I am hoping to achieve from this is the fairest voting system in the land where winning a Creative Circle Gold means something. I want to dilute the politics and prejudice that seems to poison other juries. I want the winning work to be a result of the collective opinion of the creative community.’
I can see where he’s coming from. Politics, bias and all that jazz are difficult to entirely avoid in the usual judging system, whether that’s because people feel like they ought to be more polite about the work if someone vaguely attached to it is in the room (people are supposed to leave the room during those discussions, but they often don’t ), or because there’s an agreement to block vote against a certain piece of work (definitely happens). Now there are so many preliminary judges and the voting is done so anonymously that much of the scope for that is gone. I suppose there is still a little scope for such corruption on the Gold jury, but you need the experts in each category to attend the final discussions so they can give the necessary information on how good a piece of sound design or digital gubbins might be.
But how do you feel about it? Do you prefer 8 blokes (usually) in a room with all the possible corruption that entails, or does anonymous and faceless rock your world a tad harder?
Poster? Press? Ha ha ha ha. What idiots are still doing that stuff? Get with it daddy-o’s (I know the apostrophe doesn’t belong there but it looks weird without – Daddy-os. See?).
Digital platforms* are where it’s at.
*Or territories. I always forget which one’s which.
i’d much prefer the mass anonymous voting system. a jury of people getting together to look at ads is just weird IMO. and mere seniority at a big agency is no guarantee of competency to judge creative ideas.
I’m with Vinny. Having been on a couple of (minor) awards juries, it’s amazing how political it gets. I’d even take the agency name off the entry, so all you have to judge is the quality of the creative work, not how ‘big’ or ‘hot’ the shop is.
425 judges across 3 rounds? Got a better chance at winning the lottery than winning an award…
I’ve just finished doing as well. I much prefer online voting but with a smaller panel of judges. Otherwise there’s a danger that the truly odd stuff gets drowned out.
What i miss is asking the room to reconsider when I think they’ve overlooked something, which is possibly a necessary casualty of the online system.
Ben
Have you had to wade through endless ‘case study’ intro films before every piece of work?
Can you give us an insight into the the murky world where a two minute film is ‘required’ to explain a 48 sheet poster?
Name and shame the worst offenders. Dare ya!
Also..
@vinny – I’d like to think that they gave you some shares in WhatsApp and that you took some of FB’s cash?
Mr G: it’s all anonymous and I pay so little attention to the ad industry that I had no idea who had done what.
My categories didn’t have many of those films, but someone entered an hour’s worth of stuff into ‘Best New Director’. That’s 30 two-minute entry films right there.
I respect the fact that they are least trying something to make it work better.
A big part of my problem with awards comes from the judging – not necessarily the system, but the fact that there are so many people out there in the industry who appear to have a completely different idea to me about what makes for good advertising. I couldn’t name more than maybe four or five creatives currently working who’s own work (or opinions) suggest that we agree on the criteria for what’s good. Consequently, I’ve no great desire for our output to be rated by people who’s opinion I don’t really care about. Although I have a lot of time for the Creative Circle, the judging system unfortunately won’t change that.
@Mister Gash, I confidently expect a substantial payment from them to arrive at any moment.
I know it’s the award we’d want to win. Although a Cannes Lion has the glamour attached to make it desirable too, but for different reasons.
well if it’s anonymous voting then i suppose everyone can just let their prejudices come out full force then hopefully everyone’s prejudices should balance each other out. i mean if it was mass voting for who should win the premiership then surely the best team would be picked. or would it just be the team with the biggest amount of fans…?sorry for the football analogy. and also it’s a bit of a crap analogy. i actually think anonymous is better.