Controversy or clear winner? Ms. Lazarus said
there was "great debate" about the Grand Prix and that "you could
make a case for the excellence of all these Lions."
Other notable winners: Beyond the Grand Prix,
there were only six Lions awarded in this category. The top four,
in addition to Heineken, included Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" from
Ogilvy & Mather, Sydney; John Lewis's "From Crying to Buying"
from Adam & Eve DDB, London, and Manning Gottlieb OMD, London; and American Express's
"Small Business Gets an Official Day" from Digitas, New York, and CP&B.
Interesting trend: Save for the Grand Prix,
which was created in the Netherlands, all the Lions came from
Anglo-Saxon countries -- one from the U.S.; two from the U.K.; two
from Australia; and one from New Zealand. Juror Russ Mitchinson,
planning partner at DDB Australia, noted that those countries tend
to have a strong effectiveness culture and a heritage of quality,
and planning and strategic output is testament to that. He said in
Australia and New Zealand, in particular, "sometimes the barriers
to market are lower and there's more opportunity to create
innovative ideas." He noted that clients may be willing to take a
bit of a risk because the market is smaller. "If [a creative risk]
doesn't work out in America or Europe, that could be a massive,
massive business issue."
Advice for next year: In some cases, great work
wasn't awarded because the quality of the papers submitted to
support that work's effectiveness was so poor. Jurors pleaded to
the industry to raise the quality of the paper writing. Said Mr.
Mitchinson, "There were so many fantastic creative ideas that come
through this round of effectiveness judging, and we could see the
merits in many of these. And yet the quality of the paper writing
was not sufficiently good to allow us to award some of these ideas
… it was quite frustrating for the jury."
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