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I have a CD who never includes strategy in credits (small team of 6-8 people), so I just noted it and make sure to return the favor & always “forget” to put his name on the credits slide when I present 😘
This is unfortunately way more common than it should be, just as common as loud heads of strategy being credited on work they knew nothing about. As with many things in agency land, it's political and favoritism and has nothing to do with "treating people nicely.' It's happened to me more than I care to remember, but I know what I worked on, so in the immortal words of Socrates, "Whatever."
The solution here is finding out who writes the submissions / credits list. I’ve gotten credit for nearly every award win, even when I’ve left agencies before awards season, largely because I treat the Account people / awards coordinator / PR people with kindness and respect. Otherwise the list becomes “who does the CD or AD remember talking to?”
It happens sometimes. More often in crafty awards like D&AD than in client-friendly ones like Cannes, or when there is a tight limit on credits. Speak to your awards co-ordinator and head of department about this and see if you can change company policy. It's more likely to be an omission than a vendetta.
Weird, my agency will credit anyone who sneezed near the idea.
Not sure if it is commonplace, but I have seen it before. The credits list seems to only be for a small handful of people. Often people that are deserving of it, but a lot of times not really sure how that was figured out. Calls a lot of issues in when we don’t know how it is working out.
I mean, craft services was a crucial part of making the ad after all.
Based on my experience, it depends on your level of involvement. Quite common in award shows for categories like Print and Design, where strategy plays a minimal role.
At our agency strategy are all listed if we so much as touch a project. But we’re a data driven agency - the creative stems from strategic work 90% of the time.