MEDIA JEN SMITH
GLOBAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR, MAXUS
Four thousand entries across 37 categories. The big question this year was: what is media?
As judges, we were looking for work that demonstrated: • The craft of media planning; • Insight: understanding how the media channel works with the audience and the brand’s values; • Media as the idea, not the distribution.
It was for this reason that we awarded Jet.com the Grand Prix. It was a close decision but, out of all the entries, it demonstrated planning, insight and idea. It involved data, social listening and a breadth of scale, with a result that was genuinely impressive. We concluded that it was an idea we were jealous to have not been part of.
Across the other work, it seems our best is demonstrated when there is a big problem to solve – we were inundated with entries from non-profit organisations, charities and corporate social responsibility. While worthy, it was disappointing not to see similar work from the biggest in our industry – Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson etc.
Telecoms companies did well creatively to showcase their product offering, and there was some great work from Heineken, Netflix and Burger King.
Finally, the big learning is that it is the year of the statue: from Fearless Girl to Graham to breast-feeding mannequins – if you want to make an impact, you must make a “thing”.