Diary of a D&AD Foreman

MikeO’Sullivan, executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi NewZealand was foreman of the Ambient Jury at D&AD, which convenedlast week in London. Here is his report, exclusive to CampaignBrief.

Being asked to be foreman of a D&AD jury came as an unexpected honour.

WhenToby Talbot, Paul Catmur and I were working in London, getting into’the book’ was an act of God. When the letter arrived that said yourwork has been ‘accepted into the annual’ it was enough for any creativeto throw a party. Thankfully, Catmur and I weren’t that talented. Onour 10,500 quid year salary, we could afford few parties.

Before I start, I’ll tell you what a jury foreman actually does. Myofficial role was to inspire debate, ensure a thorough session, andmake everyone stick to the rules. My other duty is to attend the BlackPencil judging in early May. That’s when all the jury foremen convene to decide on D&AD Gold.

 Everyshow has its own unique style, and D&AD is no different. In thenext few paragraphs I’ll try and bring to life my experiences of thelast few days. So far a few people have blogged and posted photos of their jury experience, so I’ll keep my diary short and simple.

April 21

Arrive London. Have a curry with Ewan Patterson, ECD, Clemmow HornbyInge, London. We have poppadoms, chicken shaslik, saag aloo and pilaurice.  I want to cry with happiness. Nobody does a curry like theEnglish.

April 22

4am. Wake up with jetlag. I do email, make phone calls, watch TV, wait for breakfast.

8am. The juries gather downstairs in the Kensington Hilton.

There are a few familiar faces. About 30 of us jump into cabs and go to the Olympia.

8.30am. The doors are opened and about 100 creatives from around the world walk into The Grand Hall to register.

The first thing that hits you is the scale of the D&AD operation.

Thousands of pieces of work fill the tables and partitions from one endof the hall to the other. If there was ever a cathedral to ideas, thisis it.

9am. Judges briefing. It’s the usual spiel about high standards, no scams, and who’s judging what.

9.30am. Our jury meets upstairs in what can only be described as an inflatable room.

We do the introductions. The make-up of the Ambient jury is indicativeof the way our business is going. We had Dave Woods from RMG connect,Matt Dardisty from AnalogFolk, London, Aidan Hawkes from Cunning,Vanessa Pearson from McCann South Africa, Tim Schierwater from Nordpol+ Hamburg and Chris Staples from Rethink, Vancouver.

A couple of years ago the Ambient jury would have been a bunch ofcreatives from traditional London agencies. Now there’s a mix of allsort of skills and nationalities.

10am. The first stage is to decide what’s ‘in book’. We get stuck intothe 145 entry videos, one after the other. Like every jury we quicklyfind our pace. I asked the guys to put their hands up when they werehappy to move on to the next tape. Most tapes we didn’t watch to theend. By a minute or two it was in or out. There were a few laughsthroughout, but a lot of the stuff was average.

1pm. We break for lunch. Beef Casserole, couscous and salad.  LikeCannes, all the judges eat lunch together. I say g’day to a few mates Ihaven’t seen for ages.

2pm. Back to the viewing room.

3pm.  Finish tapes and start on the boards. There are lots ofpartitions with mounted entry boards.  As usual, the simple, clear,easy to read ideas leap out like the proverbial. Any entry withmultiple pictures and loads of copy was ‘toast’.

Like the video tapes we viewed prior, about 50% of the mark is in the entry.

A bad entry will kill a great idea.

5pm. All the work has been seen and marked.

6.15pm. Off to jury drinks with Tay Guin Hin,  ECD, JWT Singapore. He’s foreman of Posters, so we compare notes.

6.30pm. We get totally lost in the bum hole of Shepherd’s Bush.

6.45pm. Thanks to Google maps on mobile we arrive safely at The Albion

7.50pm Arrive late to dinner with Paul Silburn (Joint ECD, Saatchi,London) and a bunch of other agency guys in a place called The CenturyClub. It’s a doorway on Shaftsbury Avenue that leads to a 4 storeymembers only club consisting of bars, restaurant, and media types. Ifeel a little bit inadequate in my crap clothes and scuffed trainers.

12.30am. Jet lag kicks end. Need to sleep. Go to hotel.

April 23

4.30am. I wake up in the middle of the night again.

Do emails, phone calls, attempt to write this diary and give up.

6.30am. Join the queue of sales reps waiting for the hotel restaurant to open for breakfast.

9am Jury convenes. Today is my big day of responsibility. We have a long ‘in book’ list.

I ask everyone if they want to bring stuff back. We review 30 or soentries that were marginal. I ask the jury to speak for or against anyof the work. We move quickly.

These are good, fair guys. Every idea gets a fair hearing.

11am. We do the ‘in book’ vote. This is it. No going back. The list is compiled.

There are xx acceptances.

11.30. Silver Nomination time. At this stage we can openly discuss thework. We review every entry again to decide what should go to the nextlevel. Then there’s debate. Lots of debate.  A lot of work iscollectively liked but a few of the jury, have their own favourites.The inflatable room resonates with emmming and ahhhing.

It becomes clear there are two styles of idea. The classic simple twistin a current environment and the more ground breaking integrated longstory idea.

As foreman I remind the guys about our responsibility. There is a highbar. Nothing shit should get near a nomination. After checking, andrechecking, debate and discussion, and looking at previous D&ADresults, we finally make the vote.

1pm. The results are in. There are xx Silver Nominations.

I asked the jury if they are happy with the result. Yet again, wedebated and discussed. Finally everyone stops talking. It’s time for usto vote for Yellow pencils.

Drum roll. At this point there is no more discussion. Nobody will knowthe results till the award night. The itouchs were handed out. Peoplestarted feeding their result in straight away, others sat in silenceunsure how to vote.

Yet again, I asked if everybody was happy. And yet again they said ‘yes’

1.30pm. We hand in our itouchs, our job complete. We gave ourselves around of applause, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways.

2pm. I go to walk out of the Olympia. I turn and look for the last timeat that sea of work. No other show has all the work displayed in oneplace.

FMCG packaging, Apple hardware, magazine covers, pop videos and ad,ads, ads. Thousands of ideas, of which only a few will make the cut.

In two days I made a few observations. There were a lot of entrieswhere the idea was big in scale. Putting a sticker on a bin won’t cutit anymore. There were heaps of environment/sea level rising entries.Quite a lot of integrated, direct, and traditional ideas that fit theambient category as the lines blur more and more. Not a huge amount ofhumour. A good mix of small and big clients. Very few good qualitycharity ideas. In short, D&AD was a great experience. Though manyof the English dislike the idea of overseas judges, it’s a much bettershow for it. The standard is very high. Not just in the quality ofideas, but the entries themselves.  Lastly, it rem
inded me how lucky weare to work in an industry where you can get to catch up with mates,make mates, and shares ideas with people from all over the world.

9.05PM Depart London Heathrow for Auckland.