All in all, 2001 wasn’t exactly a banner year for television commercials. That’s the general opinion of some ad people in a position to know—judges who picked the winners at the industry’s top awards shows. The ad execs who served as judges say that while there were some extraordinary spots produced last year, the overall quality fell off quickly—and dramatically—from there.
"It was a bad year, actually," says Marcello Serpa, executive creative director at Almap BBDO, São Pãulo, Brazil, and jury chairman for the Clio Awards. "It was very difficult to say, ‘Wow, this is great, this is something new.’ I was quite disappointed. You still have wonderful pieces, but not as many as you had in the past."
Serpa, who served as president of the film jury at the 2001 Cannes International Advertising Awards, says 2001 suffered in comparison with the 2000 crop of spots. "In the year 2000, you could see marvelous work," he remembers, "from every agency in the U.S., and from Europe, France, Sweden, Denmark. I remember dozens of wonderful commercials."
For the first time since the Clios began awarding a Grand Clio in ’95, the jury failed to name a Grand Clio award winner for TV/cinema. "We couldn’t find anything that we could actually see as a major piece of film that would stand up and we could say, ‘OK, this is the best piece of film produced last year,’ " Serpa says.
He cited BMW of North America’s "The Hire," a series of short films helmed by noted feature filmmakers out of Fallon Minneapolis, and produced by bicoastal Anonymous Content, as "a marvelous campaign"—it won Gold Clios in the campaign and sound design categories—but said it couldn’t quite meet the Grand Clio requirements. "Nobody could actually say, ‘OK, this is the best commercial produced last year.’ Based on ideas, not just on production values, is the best idea to go to Hollywood and get the best directors to make ten-minute short films?," Serpa says. "It’s a way to create a new parameter. But as a piece of film, we couldn’t say this is the best commercial. No one could agree one-hundred percent."
At this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival, film jury president Jeff Goodby, co-chairman at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco, says candidates for the Grand Prix were among the best in recent years, but that there weren’t many spots on that level. "The best stuff was really good," he says. "There were probably five things in the Cannes festival that could have been the Grand Prix this year—and were better than the Grand Prix in maybe eight out of the last ten years. So that was a good thing, but after that there was a precipitous drop to the action below. That is kind of disheartening."
Goodby expresses some surprise that Levi’s "Odyssey" out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), London, and directed by Jonathan Glazer of Academy, London, didn’t get more support for the Grand Prix, which ultimately went to Nike’s "Tag," helmed by Frank Budgen of Gorgeous Enterprises, London, and Anonymous, for Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore. "The XBox ‘Champagne’ spot was really tied with Nike’s’ ‘Tag’ for a while with the jury," Goodby says, referring to the Daniel Kleinman-helmed ad out of BBH; Kleinman is repped in the U.K. by Spectre Films London, and in the U.S. by Ritts/Hayden, Los Angeles. "It was showing up well. Those three spots were really extraordinary. They hit interesting places that were halfway between funny and dramatic—technically proficient, but also human. They were really in a sweet spot that you don’t see commercials hit that often."
Also finding a large gap between the top spots and the also-rans was Lee Garfinkel, president/chief creative officer worldwide at D’Arcy, New York, who served on both the Cannes and ANDY Awards panels. "It was a fairly mediocre year," he notes. "But the winners were, to my surprise, much better than I expected. Fifteen or twenty rose to the top and were pretty good. It was about the same at both shows."
At Cannes, Garfinkel voted in favor of "Tag" for the Grand Prix. "I thought of all the spots it had the most going for it in just about every category, from strategy to execution, to music, to a way of slightly repositioning how you look at a product," he explains. "That’s why I voted for it as opposed to some of the other ones that people thought were going to be potential Grand Prix winners. They weren’t as well rounded. I thought the ‘Tag’ and ‘Shade Running’ spots were really well done." ("Shade Running," like "Tag," was a part of the "Play" campaign for Nike, and was also helmed by Budgen.)
Not quite so critical of the 2001 crop of spots was Diane McArter, managing director at Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica, Calif., who served as the chairwoman of the 2002 Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show, and Arthur Bijur, president/executive creative director at Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, who served on the jury for the One Show.
McArter acknowledges that the 2001 body of work showed less depth than in recent years, but, she adds, "Let’s face it, there was less work produced. There was a dramatic decline in the amount of production. By the time we were getting entries, Propaganda no longer existed."
McArter applauds the large number of "high-concept" spots screened at the show. "Humor was still recognized in the show, but I think we saw more high-concept work, spots like Nike ‘Tag,’ for instance," she notes. "And even spots like the Lucky magazine spot [‘Cheryl ‘n Me,’ by Baker Smith of Tate & Powers, Santa Monica, for Black Rocket Euro RSCG, San Francisco; Smith is now with Harvest, Santa Monica]. What was significant about it was that it was all about high concept. Humor played a role, but it wasn’t solely driven by humor. The work has to be highly conceptual to be entertaining and intriguing enough to grab the viewer."
McArter also cited for showing high concept the other two spots with "Tag" that made up Nike’s "Play" campaign—the aforementioned "Shade Running" and "Tailgating," directed by Tom Carty of Gorgeous and Anonymous; and the Land Rover Discovery’s "Orbit," directed by Eric Saarinen of Plum Productions, Santa Monica, for GSD&M, Austin, Texas, and Mercedes-Benz "Modern Ark," directed by Gerard de Thame of bicoastal HSI Productions and London-based Gerard de Thame Films for Merkley Newman Harty|Partners, New York.
But perhaps the spot that stuck most vividly in her mind was a PSA, "Tourists," for a group called Citizens Against Terrorism, which was directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/ international hungry man. McArter describes it: "There were these gruff New Yorkers saying, ‘It’s great. After 9/11 there are no more tourists coming to town. I can get any donut I want at the coffee stand.’ Another guy is saying, ‘Yeah, there’s less traffic. I can find a parking spot.’ It’s on the street, very docu-style. It was embracing the darker side of New Yorkers with a humor that was so truthful and honest, but had an irreverence to it. There, to me, was a perfect use of humor."
Bijur calls 2001 "a pretty good year, not a great year. I found there was a lot of very good work and some great work.
"But," he continues, "there was less really great work overall and fewer really astounding, breakthrough approaches this year. It felt like there were a lot of retreads."
Spots that stuck in Bijur’s mind from the One Show included those from Fox Sports in its "Beware of Things Made in October" campaign for Major League Baseball, which contained a trio of spots—"Nail Gun," Leaf Blower," and "Boat"—all helmed by Smith of Harvest, out of TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco; Toyota’s "Dog," directed by Chris Smith of Independent Media, Santa Monica, for Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif.; the Nike "Play" campaign; and the Miller High Life spots directed by Errol Morris of bicoastal/international @radical.media for W+K.
"The Toyota spot with the dog running into the parked car was genius, perfectly executed," Bijur says. "Nike did their usual thing, which was terrific. There was a terrific spot in the Miller campaign and the Cartoon Network stuff was wonderful. There was wonderful stuff for Levi’s, from England, and a great Toyota spot from England involving a little girl who jumps in the back of a car. It’s not her car, but she tells the mom to shut up and drive." The latter is "School," out of Saatchi & Saatchi, London, and helmed by Dom & Nic via Outsider, London; the directing duo is repped stateside by Oil Factory Films, Hollywood.
The BMW Dilemma
Best of show honors at the One Show went to the aforementioned "The Hire" series for BMW out of Fallon. "I thought that was terrific," Bijur says. "It wasn’t just smart creative. It really used the media in a totally new way. The mere fact that they would go out and hire expensive film directors to do these things, all using the same star, all around a very focused strategy relating to the car’s performance, it was just a very fresh approach."
The One Show, Clios and AICP Show all honored the BMW campaign in the main TV and film portions of their programs, while Cannes recognized it only in the Cyber Lion competition and the ANDYs took a pass. As television and the Internet converge, Goodby expects to see more advertising like the BMW campaign. "There is obviously going to be some kind of coming together that means when commercials run on TV they’ll be running on the Internet," he says. "That hasn’t happened yet, so I suppose we have to keep these categories somewhat separate until then. As we get closer to that day though, I think it’s obvious we’re going to have to include things like BMW films in the film category."
Serpa says there was no controversy at the Clios over including the films. "It’s a piece of film to sell a car," he states. "It doesn’t matter if it’s ten minutes or thirty seconds. It makes no difference."
And he expects to see more campaigns like it. "We’re going to have not only those kinds of commercials," Serpa says, "but different approaches as well—maybe not ten minutes long, maybe two minutes long. All day long we receive commercials through the Internet, small pieces of film or ideas that go through the Internet. It’s a fresh, new way [of creating advertising]."
McArter says inclusion of two of five shorts for BMW—Powder Keg, helmed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Star, directed by Guy Ritchie—in the AICP Show makes a statement but more about how advertising and entertainment are merging rather than how ads and the Internet are. Powder Keg and Star were honored in the AICP Show’s cinematography and talent/performance categories, respectively. "[The BMW Films] are an example of how our industry is becoming an entertainment [business]," she says. "A huge component of what we have to do to draw in the audience is entertainment. It’s the whole idea of branded content. There is no doubt branded content is going to be part of the future."
Garfinkel, who served on both juries that snubbed the BMW Films, is thinking in a similar vein. "Advertising agencies have to constantly figure out new ways to grab people’s attention," he says. "We have to figure out all new types of media, guerilla media as well. I think anything that is legitimately advertising—and I would say [the BMW campaign] is advertising—there should be a place for it in the advertising shows; we should figure out a way to judge it."
Trends & Ideas
Looking back on the awards show season, the judges expressed a variety of reactions to the work they saw. Bijur was somewhat surprised to see so much good work from Europe and South America that he had never seen before. "There was a campaign for stockings from South America that was genius," he says. "It was amazing. It won a gold [at the One Show]. There were a number of surprises—the Guardian Film 4 campaign from England [from BMP DDB, London]."
On the other hand, he says he saw a number of recycled ideas. "There were too many people with labels on their T-shirts," he explains. "The American work probably fell off a little bit. I don’t think outside the U.S. the financial markets and clients were hit quite as hard. If there is any reason for the falloff, it may be tied to economic realities, but there’s no proof of that. It could be as simple as, ‘Let’s be a little more conservative. Let’s not take quite as many chances.’ "
Bijur also points out that the lack of over-the-top dot-com spots may be contributing to the appearance of creative lethargy. "Some of that work was fueling a lot of change in the creative landscape," he points out. "There were some breakthrough approaches. When [dot-com ads] fell off, it removed a whole genre of possibilities. Also, the mere fact that volume fell off means there are fewer opportunities to shoot bulls-eyes."
McArter says that "The Hire" series wasn’t a surprise in itself, because everybody knew about the shorts, but she says she didn’t expect the amount of discussion among the judges that the work inspired. "It provoked a lot of debate as to what is commercial advertising," she says.
A trend that Goodby saw was one toward "gorgeous" film finishing. "Digital film finishing is coming up with some really unusual looks that are just terrific," he says. "They kind of hit spaces that are in between familiar things, and thus become really interesting. Look at the XBox [‘Champagne’] or Levi’s ‘Odyssey’ spot. In its own way, Nike’s ‘Tag’ has a really interesting finish to it."
Serpa came away from the Clios somewhat disappointed that silly jokes were too often given awards. "It happens a lot that you award a nice joke," he says. "But it’s not a good advertisement, it’s not selling anything. I was a little disappointed this year to see that the judges are still awarding the best joke. It’s quite easy to make a wonderful joke and attach the product, but I don’t think it is the best piece of advertising."
Serpa attributed much of the weak field of spots to the weak advertising economy. "A downsizing of the economy all over the world makes the clients very conservative in the end," he says. "Instead of producing ten commercials, they are only producing three or four. And a lot of clients are not producing anything. You don’t have as many commercials as you used to have."
Garfinkel is also critical of jokes that don’t sell. "One of the things that drives me crazy is when the joke has nothing to do with the product or the strategy," he says. "That’s become commonplace for the last ten years, especially with the dot-com craze. We must have seen seven or eight spots with blind people as a catalyst for the joke. And then a lot of the usual sex jokes, and dogs, and this year there was dogs having sex. That was for the 18-30 Club. … The spot was dogs spying on what was going on in the rooms and coming up with new ways to have sex. It’s a funny spot." The ad, "Doggie Style," was helmed by Matthias Hoene of Partizan London, out of Saatchi & Saatchi, London.
Garfinkel says it appears that advertisers were playing it safer last year. "But safer doesn’t mean smarter," he points out. "It’s surprising how many silly spots are shot. It’s kind of odd that people are playing it safer, yet there are sillier spots and spots that don’t make sense. Is the economic downturn affecting advertising? Yeah, certainly not for the better. You would hope that advertisers would be thinking of smarter ways of using their money and that’s not being reflected in television."
Or, as Goodby puts it, "What you have is a year where maybe the difficulty of the environment created a few real gems, like the pressure creating diamonds. But then for the rest of the pack, the pressure created coal."
