Santosh Padhi’s report from the Clio Awards Festival judging held in San Diego

This year’s Clio Awards judging was held in San Diego and Asia’s representative on the Print, Poster, Direct, Billboard, Innovative Media and Integrated jury was Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer/Co-Founder, Taproot India Mumbai. Here is Padhi’s report on the judging…

San Diego is a great place, ideal for creative stimulation. I woke up refreshed every morning, up and ready to go. Though I wish the judging was not under an artificial ceiling but under God’s own open umbrella. Unfortunately, there are rules everywhere and for everybody. The first few minutes of the briefing really scared me as it sounded too complicated and felt like you have to focus too much on the process rather than the actual work. But as we went ahead those worries were left behind and eventually it turned out to be one of the best sessions I had ever judged.

We were a team of 10 members, judging 6 categories namely print,poster, direct, billboard, innovative media and integrated. And therewere two basic things we were looking out for across categories.

The Big Idea. Because no matter what medium you dabble in, if thereisn’t an idea in it, it doesn’t matter what paper it is printed on, whothe photographer is or how well the video is cut.

Those things get noticed and talked about if the idea talks to you inthe first place. One thing that irked me in the first round wasexcessive reliance on secondary things to substitute the primary one -the idea.

It is a bit disappointing to see how technology has begun controllingus. And I’m not just talking about the body of work I was judging butfrom whatever I’ve seen in the past few years. The common recessionexcuse cannot be doled out every time for our mediocrity. In fact, I’ma firm believer of the fact that the recession is a great time forcreativity. With their ideas, agencies get to prove that the power ofideas is greater than the power of money.

Must add here that, going the way people have been optimistic aboutentering their work it doesn’t look like there have been any budgetcuts anywhere. There were literally hundreds of entries, which made mewonder how people thought of entering The Clio’s almost as if it were alocal award show. I only wish they had invested 90% that money to hirea good creative guy and he would have put the remaining 10 % to gooduse.

So barring a few campaigns, there was not too much that made us feelguilty or think about retiring from advertising. The ones that diddidn’t need any discussion or debate. Those ideas, in fact, made usfeel good about the profession we’re in. And I wish there were lotsmore of those so that we didn’t have to work almost 8-10 hours each dayfor seven days discussing and debating for hours on end.

Come to think of it, good work not only works for the brand but alsosaves many things, like our time, energy etc (in these times, anythingyou save contributes to the well being of the planet).

What we were also looking for were things like simple insights andgreat ideas beautifully crafted and executed. It was very rare to findall three in one, although there were varying personal preferences assome of us had hardcore art outlooks while a few other looked forfresher insightful concepts and so on. All in all, I think it was asuperbly balanced combination that invariably did the trick. Whatever’sgoing to win will need a composition of it all.

We were also responsible for doing justice to the Student’s Work in thesame six categories and thankfully we can declare that advertising surehas a bright future. Some of their work was really outstanding,particularly in Innovative Media and Out Of Home even as professionalsin the main draw had entered almost everything that had a fold or popout. It was bit disappointing to see this from seasoned hands even asthe next generation came up with so much fresher thinking.

Personally, I wish there were few more fellow jury members from Asia,besides me, in the 10 member team. For all said and done, it does helpa bit to understand the local insights and cultural references if youare from that region. Thus, I felt a few more jury members from Asiacould have definitely helped push culturally relevant work better fromAsia.

As the group was split into 3 parts in the initial stage, each groupwith a person from a different region could have just tightened upthings well.

I must say, I felt there were few pieces from my country that hadgreater relevance within the country but did not create any impact onthe other judges in the second round, despite my explaining. (Well,maybe I need to work harder on my looks than on what I say.)

Besides, there were 10-12 dedicated, passionate people to help us andthey knew what to do perfectly well if at all we got confused. In fact,the team was so dedicated in smoothening out any glitches that I almostfelt like offering them a job in my agency. By the way, they could beequally tough as well and whenever your agency work came up, you wereunfailingly asked to leave the room with the doors closed before anydiscussion carried on.

What I really liked was that all the work was kept on the table andleft to every individual to judge at their own pace. Some guys managedreally fast and were soon out in the sun. I was the last to leave theroom for the first two days, as I learnt a lot even from the work thatmissed the mark. As the saying goes, there’s more to learn from failurethan from success.

IN THE PICTURE FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Meghan Siegal, Vice President/Creative Director, Arnold Worldwide Boston, United States

Stephane Charier, Vice-President Creation/Executive Creative Director, Taxi Canada Inc. Toronto, CANADA

Eka Ruola, Executive Creative Director, Hasan & Partners Helsinki, Finland

Guillermo Vega, Regional Executive Creative Director, Y&R Latin America Buenos Aires, Argentina (obscured)

Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer/Co-Founder, Taproot India Mumbai, India

Gilles Fichteberg, Vice President/Chief Creative Officer, CLM BBDO Paris, France

Horacio (Chacho) Puebla, Executive Creative Director, Vitruvio Leo Burnett Madrid, Spain

Neil Dawson (JURY CHAIRMAN) Chief Creative Officer (Phillips), DDB Worldwide London, United Kingdom

Luiz Sanches, Creative Director, AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo, Brazil

Matthias Spaetgens, Managing Director Creation, Scholz & Friends Berlin, Germany