Online not good enough, say Campaign Award judges
I was so annoyed at Campaign ME misquoting me again in an article about ‘Air Arabia e-mail spamming to consumers’ in their last issue, that I wasn’t gonna go to the awards at all. Anyways, who can say ‘No’ to champaign and meeting up with collegues at the first Campaign Awards in the Middle East, [...]
I was so annoyed at Campaign ME misquoting me again in an article about ‘Air Arabia e-mail spamming to consumers’ in their last issue, that I wasn’t gonna go to the awards at all. Anyways, who can say ‘No’ to champaign and meeting up with collegues at the first Campaign Awards in the Middle East, so here I went and had a good time, catching up with old buddies - but to learn that online is just not good enough in our region.
In order to clarify one mis-conception that came up in the many phone calls received and articles read on blogs, why Flip Media did not submit anything for the best online category: That is not true, we did, of course. Our team has put together a couple of websites, micro sites and online campaigns although none of them were shortlisted in the first place. Anyone interested in seeing Flip Media’s submission to the Campaign Middle East creative you got it now.
Prior to the actual award ceremony, myself and others (such as Dimitri Metaxas from Impact Proximity) had already made some comments to Tim Addington who is in charge of the Campaign Middle East awards: We all pointed out our disappointment on how the shortlisted awards were supposed to be the best fit in their respective category.
Shortlisted were the following creative, and my comments next to them are not to be seen as slagging off someone’s creative at all, but rather a note to whoever judged the particular piece of work:
- Arabian Adventures (Arc) - Online competition ala ‘Click here and win’. Reason for shorlisting (quote): “With a limited budget, the number of people who registered far exceeded expectations.” If I explain Emaar in my next status meeting that we had ‘many’ registrations, I might be getting thrown out of my Emaar villa… Seriously, registrations is one thing, what about CPC, CPA, and relevance of reach? How profiled is the data, how relevant, how is it helping the business in a full e-CRM cycle?
- Lost (Arc) - Integrated online media campaign and micro site. I haven’t seen the work but my comment to the reason for shortlisting (quote) “The view rate from the e-mail was 76%” would be that the view rate (also known as opening rate) is typically driven by a clever subject line in emails which would rather fall into a copy writing award category. Furthermore, opening rates are usually miscalculated by many tracking systems due to preview panes in most common email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and so on.
- Microsoft (Wunderman) - Email creative that showed disappearing content while reading it drawing attention to Microsoft’s firewall and security product ISA 2004. Reason to shortlist (quote) “Of 500 emails sent out, 300 immediate enquiries were received.” I believe that the judge could have made some more valid comments on the actual mailing list. 500 recipents does not sound like any 3rd party eDM list to me (at an expensive cost of let’s say 200$/CPM that would be 1,000$ media budget only) but rather looks like internal customer or Microsoft Partner data to me. Either way, great result and I hope that Microsoft will spend more money online in 2006 after such a sucess.
- Rani (Face to Face) - Very heavy branding campaign that linked through to a micro site. Ok, I do have something to say about this campaign, since Flip Media handled the actual online media strategy together with Initiative on this campaign. First of all, who hasn’t seen the award short listed, dynamic and exciting Rani micro site, you gotta click da link! From an online marketing point of view, I would have put weight on judging on this creative to e.g. unique views or registrations (that didn’t happen). Secondly, if branding was the objective, why using ‘media-list.com’ as the URL to be remembered in consumers’ minds? Thirdly, the creative did not have language differientiated click-through links incorporated, and the videos on the micro site has still not loaded although on a solid 2mbps line. I personally do believe Face to Face has done a great job on branding on the traditional campaign, but their online strengths has certainly not come out on this campaign, that is not worth being shortlisted for the best online category.
- Royal Jet (Omnia) - Website for the Abu Dhabi flight operator, and the fact that “…the client was impressed byt he simplicity of the site..” might be a reason for Campaign ME jury to shortlist that project, but I was rather disappointed that Google did not shortlist the website when searching for royal jet abu dhabi which clearly indicates different preferences or knowledge about the effectiveness of websites in the online world. The site itself is designed in a very clean way, and in fact it is ’simple’ lacking ’simple web standards’ such as a search, privacy policy, legal disclaimer, an Arabic version (Abu Dhabi!!), proper HTML validation as per standards by the W3C group and also Flash loaders did not work on Firefox version 1.5 (visited today). The judge was impressed by the navigation system that uses a familiar aircraft shape - I mean would anyone use a navigation in the shape of a car for Royal Jet Airline? (Sorry for bitching).
- Service Bell for Emaar’s new Bur Dubai Lake hotel (Wunderman) - First of all, the creative of the ATL was done by Wunderman (wrong category then) but the online work has been produced by Flip Media (being Emaar’s lead interactive agency). The work can be view in our creative library. I personally know that Wunderman would never take credit for Flip’s work since we have a strong and good business relationship, and would definitely blame the Campaign Middle East Award jury for putting this creative into the wrong category. To criticize my own work: The judge’s favourit bell was so annoying, that we had to amend the creative after it run for several days. What was true is that this campaign was regarded as one of the most successful one’s ever done for Emaar, but due to the fact of introducing some new online publishers where virgin terrority in terms of online media marketing were explored, leading to the success. So sometimes it’s not just the look, babe!
- Special K (Arc) - “Online brochure like a magazine and many people who visited subscribed to future editions.” Ok, again I can’t find anything on Google but the international Special K campaign so no more insights other than ‘many people’ again.
I just realized that it takes quiet a while to write this article, so apologise for making it even longer to the reader! If you want a break or exit at this point, I recommend you check out these award website: New York Festival or One Show which in fact have a good break down of categories within their intractive discipline.
So what went wrong in the 2005 Campaign Awards? Why has the online advertising industry come under scrutinity without a single win, which has now lead to a completely mis-interpretation of the capabilities of online in the Middle East?
I personally believe that judges were not up to the mark. If experts from the online industry had voted on the work submitted, the shortlisted work (see comments above) would have seen a different picture. It is a clear to me that traditional advertisers in this region have not the required knowledge to judge on a category that requires in-depth technical, creative, digital media expertise and also experience.
Many of us online ‘nerds’ have already commented back to Tim Addington and his team, requesting that the 2006 Campaign Awards should include industry experts judging on the online panel, which also needs to be broken down into creative, media, response & branding campaigns, portals, websites, micro sites and other categories like international awards have done it for a long time.
Furthermore, the criteria for judging on someone’s online work must differ from traditional advertising criteria: The success of a website, an online campaign or any other interactive work is much more dependent on technology, functionality and user behaviour compared to other categories. A set of basic minimum requirements or standards for judging on a submission might also help a judge that is not the most advanced online industry expert to comment on the work.
I also want to add two positive notes to Campaign Middle East: Firstly, online came not last - typically it is the fifth wheel on a car, and I appreciated within the order of awards presented that online was mentioned somewhere in between. Secondly, both myself and Dimitri Metaxas, iMedia from Impact Proximity, have given Tim Addington feedback (similiar to what has been written here on this blog) immedately after the publication of the shortlist, and I am thankful to Campaign that none of the shortlist have been awarded a Gold, Silver or Bronce simply because I believe that they don’t represent the best out of a growing Middle East online industry.
Finally, I hope to see some improvement in the 2006 awards, and welcome your comments on this blog as usual!
Rgds,
Martin
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comments
dotone
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:29 pmJust like the Pan Arab Awards! How could some university professors be judges? How could they judge? Man check the criteria & the way you get ranked. Damn! Is it that we in this region lack Exprienced Art-Directors or Creative people to judge? I guess they all have to get out of the executiveness of the whole procedure. Plus, why isn’t it so publicized? or maybe I live on another planet, may be?
Martin Diessner
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:19 pmHI Dotone, - completely agree with you - Flip has won 18 (!!) awards at this years Pan Arab Awards and also the award for best website in the Middle East.
That just underlines my argument above about the judges just not being up to their mark.
On the other hand, I am wondering who would be able to judge online properly other than Ziad from eWorks, Dimitri from Proximity, and some other online guys from the expert agencies.
It will be tough - maybe we could get some international guys in on a panel, or have agencies voting on publisher’s creative, and publisher on clients, and clients on agencies - but I fear there will be conflict of interest and some biased decisions.
One day this region will be grown up enough to understand the importance of online (that has overtaken radio and outdoor in the US and UK aleady and/or in the next two years by spent) and traditional marketers will have the expert knowledge required.
Insh’ allah - isn’t that what is needed?
:-)
OceanCreep » Campaign ME awards results
February 4th, 2006 at 1:05 am[…] Related [flip blog] Ibrahim Owais @ 8:04 am Filed under: Advertising and Marketing and Middle East Ads Loading… […]
Paul Poulose
February 6th, 2006 at 10:02 am“It is clear to me that traditional advertisers in this region have not the required knowledge to judge on a category that requires in-depth technical, creative, digital media expertise and also experience.”
I guess its going to take time for people to realize the value in online media. I guess the next few years would basically shape the industry..especially with the web 2.0, many companies now realize the need to target the “online audience” . I guess persistance from industry pioneers is the only solution and insh’allah…a difference in the market!
R’gds,
PJ
Farrukh
February 21st, 2006 at 6:49 amHi Martin,
I was wondering about the online no-show in Campaign Awards - your post gives some reasons.
I think I am going to link to your post on my blog on Advertising, Marketing & Creativity, if you don’t mind.
Online advertising needs support - let me give a hand
farrukh
copywriter & journalist
Martin Diessner
February 21st, 2006 at 6:52 amHI Farrkuh,
I dont mind - post your link here!
Thx as well
M
Farrukh
February 21st, 2006 at 7:13 amHi Martin,
You’re fast!
Bits from your post are now on my blog, here
http://farrukh.wordpress.com/2006/02/21/the-flip-side-of-creative-awards
farrukh