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What about Italy? Anyone working there?
I'm so sick of this agency 🙄
Any great resume-writer recos? I need help!
Chief
I need infographic tips please!
give this man a raise.
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Rising Star
What if I told you the real problem is the award shows.
Exactly this.
Pro
I ask this in good faith, because I agree, but what’s the better system?
Fake work isn’t a huge problem. The problem is that, supposedly, awards are a big business driver, but most clients don’t actually want that kind of work unless it’s free. So you end up with a lot of work that isn’t fake, but is so small, it barely made a dent in the real world. You could call that “fake.” It’s not the work clients ask us to make.
I think the solve would be to ban anything that isn’t traditional media or needs a case study to explain it. On the one hand, it would get us back to ads that actually sell products, which might help the industry. It could also mean clients think a lot smaller, make our jobs less interesting and hurt career advancement a bit though.
Just show the work. That’s the answer. If it’s a billboard, I don’t need to see the PR about it. Judge the ad, not the response. And if you can’t, then you shouldn’t be there.
The real problem is big network agencies, who rarely make any real good work, pressuring their local shops to win awards.
Why do you think that the Greys, the Ogilvys and the FCBs win a shit ton of awards but you rarely see good work coming out of them throughout the year?
Meanwhile, agencies like Mischief are coming home empty handed. See where most jury members are from and see the work they awarded. There’s a huge overlap.
Cannes is more and more about politics and money, and less and less about the best ideas. Fake ads are just the tip of the iceberg of a system that has too many talented people coming up with ideas and very few people who actually believe in those ideas.
Rising Star
This industry’s been making work that’s varying degrees of fake for years just to win awards. I always thought there was just kind of an unspoken deal where we all knew it and just went along with it. Why it’s come to this moment for the practice finally get aired out, I don’t know, but I’m here for the fireworks! 🍿
If our job is creative persuasion, but the only people seeing the work are jurors in Cannes— who are we persuading?
There’s always been fake work. But the balance has shifted so much that the award shows are an alternative reality. Not a highlight of the most creative work in the industry. And it’s creating a rift rather than inspiration. This is a problem.
Rising Star
It’s a good point that just one shop is getting blasted. So many have done exactly the same for too long.
As long as major brands still prominently ask for a list of notable awards in their RFPs and RFIs, there will be scam ads.
Zuckerberg laughs at us all.
Tim Nudd at AdAge is asking for people to reach out and provide information if you are aware of any fake case studies. This has potential to be a real moment of reckoning for our industry if lots of people come forward.
It's an opportunity to take back what's yours and help re-shape an industry that has forced you to sacrifice your ethics for leadership teams to get a bonus. I hope people will come forward, creatives are literally being robbed of their futures by being used as fake case study factory workers.
They will announce that they will fact check all winners in the future and we all will move on, biz as usual
Make judging a genuine, long and slow process that happens during the year between festivals. Agencies would send their submissions to Cannes as soon as their work goes live. Then judges have access and can see the work live, see if it’s real and measure impact as it happens. Maybe those % and numbers in the end are not important here but more towards the end of the timeline before the festival, when results can be measured.