JUROR: U.S. ENTRIES 'WEAK' IN PRINT CATEGORY Are American Agencies 'Losing Interest'? June 20, 2001 By Jim Hanas CANNES (Creativity) -- Alex Bogusky, creative director at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami, and the lone U.S. representative on this year's Press & Poster Alex Bogusky, juror and creative director of Crispin Porter & Bogusky. jury, thinks the U.S. work was soft this year. "It's impossible for me to say, because you don't judge everything, but I think it was kind of weak," he says. "By the time you looked at the shortlist there wasn't a ton of great U.S. work." Among the international judges, he says the perception is that the U.S. is losing interest in print work in favor of television. Mr. Bogusky, however, argues that it's just a matter of "radically different tastes." As global advertising becomes increasingly, and more devoutly visual, the U.S. seems drawn in the opposite direction. "A lot of people [in the U.S.] are talking about getting back to longer copy, and spending more time seducing with longer copy," he says. "The world is not going in that direction. And if we go in that direction we might do some great advertising but it won't do well at Cannes." He laughs. "If we go in that direction we will never win a Lion again in print." 14 U.S. print Lions This time, the U.S. took home 14 print Lions in all -- two more than last Crispin Porter & Bogusky ad for GT Bicycles: 'Fast. It's corporate policy.' year -- and five golds, including one for Crispin Porter and Mr. Bogusky's campaign for GT Bicycles. The campaign, the first to win gold for the Miami shop, features an office in which everything is just a little bit faster: the elevators, the delivery trucks, even the employees, who knock each other unconscious when they bump into each other. The tag: "Fast. It's corporate policy." Mr. Bogusky also noted that he didn't receive any phone calls after the shortlist for this year's print awards was released Monday afternoon. Not so for many of his international counterparts, who were flooded with calls from colleagues who were following every step of the judging process. "All the European countries care a lot because it's important to justify that they do world-class creative," Mr. Bogusky says. "So within the advertising Related Stories: CRISPIN PORTER & BOGUSKY WINS MEDIA GRAND PRIX Honored for Anti-Tobacco Campaign DIESEL ADS WIN PRESS & POSTER GRAND PRIX Offbeat African Images Edge Out Volkswagen Campaign ARNOLD BEETLE ADS JUST BARELY LOST Contrarian Approach Was Widely Admired community, there's a lot of pressure for a country to do well, so that their clients in that country see that the agencies there are world-class, whereas we don't have that pressure in the U.S." Brazil loves ad people And in Brazil? "I would love it some day if the U.S. became like Brazil," Mr. Bogusky says, almost wistfully. "Because those guys are treated like rock stars." After almost a week of judging several thousand entries, Mr. Bogusky says that he was generally impressed by the quality of the work. "Of the 11,000 entries, probably half I would have been happy to have come out of the agency," he says. Jim Hanas is associate editor of Creativity magazine. © 2001, Crain Communications Inc. Editor@AdAge.com ..