Consider it a tale of two awards competitions, but with similar storylines. On this week’s front page is coverage of changes in store for the 2006 AICP Show. For the first time, the competition will be thoroughly inclusive of work that appears in nontraditional media such as iPods, PDAs and computer screens. Across nearly all AICP Show categories, this fare will be eligible for recognition alongside TV and cinema commercials.
While several other major advertising industry shows have set up separate categories and/or awards to recognize new media content, the AICP Show becomes the first to honor work for all outlets virtually throughout its competition. Alternative media spots thus will be competing against and can potentially be recognized alongside commercials for television and the cinema in the Show’s Technique, Concept and Specialty categories. For example, honorees in a category like Editorial could include a TV commercial as well as a spot created specifically for PDAs.
Reflecting this expansion is the deletion of a single word from the annual AICP Show’s longstanding description, which changes from “The Art & Technique of the American Television Commercial” to “The Art & Technique of the American Commercial.”
AICP president/CEO Matt Miller explained, “Contrary to the doomsayers who predicted the demise of the thirty-second spot, commercial production isn’t dead; much of it is just changing channels. There will always be a call for the talent and expertise needed to create motion picture imagery, and the same skills that make a brilliant television commercial are now being applied elsewhere.”
Meanwhile the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) has created an Emmy Award category for Outstanding Achievement in Content For Nontraditional Delivery Platforms. The first such honor will be bestowed at the 33rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards on April 28.
This will mark the first time that original fare produced for new platforms–computers, cellphones, PDAs–will be in line to receive a traditional television award which until now had been reserved exclusively for TV programs. Entries for the competition must be produced for U.S. distribution and be created specifically for viewing online or via cellphone, iPod, video on demand or other digital outlets. Content distributed from Jan. 1, 2005 to March 1, ’06 is eligible. The category is open to Web site fare, video blogs, mobisodes (short episodes made for viewing on phones), video on demand or other content delivered digitally or on wireless devices.
This represents a potential breakthrough for the advertising community, which could find itself figuring more prominently–even becoming a driving force–in the creation and development of this new-media fare. It’s an awards milestone that parallels in some respects the decision of the North Hollywood-headquartered Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) to create a primetime Emmy category for commercials in ’97. While that helped spotmaking gain broader based recognition, so too does the NATAS nontraditional media category offer the opportunity for clients, ad agencies and production houses to showcase their creative prowess on a new stage–or more accurately, platform.
