Dejan Rasic’s Integrated D&AD diary
Former Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore copywriter Dejan Rasic is Australia’s jury representative on the D&AD Integrated Jury. He is now creative partner at CRC, Sydney and here he gives an insight into the judging process for the CB Asia Blog.
After a cup of coffee and a quick briefing session, we were tucked into an odd little inflatable structure to watch all the entries. The voting system was via iPod touch and remarkably simple.
Entry video after entry video kind of read like, “We featured this megaawesome campaign on YouTube and got heaps and heaps of hits. Weembraced social media and the campaign extended to Facebook andMySpace. Twitter was used to update people all the time and Flickrallowed you to download images. News coverage went mental. Resultsexceeded expectations by 5000%. So there. Did I mention Twitter? YeahTwitter rocks and we used it. We’re cool.”
The integrated entryvideo is getting a little silly. It was hard to battle both jetlag andthis at the same time. But then along came the few nuggets of genius weneeded for the book. We held onto them and didn’t let go.
It’sinteresting to note the stronger the idea, the less glossy the entryvideo was. The good stuff just explained the idea in a concise way. Nobells and whistles needed. They got to the point a lot quicker which isimportant when you’re presenting to a jury who has just sat throughhundreds of them and is getting kind of cynical.
The judging wastough but purely about the quality of the work. If you won somethingyou deserved it. At one point we discussed what an integrated campaignactually meant? When is it integrated? Does PR count as a medium? Nodetail was left without debate. I’ve never seen a show with so muchscrutiny. It’s good and is what makes winning at D&AD such anachievement.
After a tonne of those blah blah videos, I needed adrink and headed to dinner with some old friends from Singapore. Thesommelier came round and we asked him to suggest a nice Pinot Noir. Hecame back with a bottle and what sounded like another entry video. Heexplained, “The grapes were grown at high altitude on the border ofAustria and Italy. This means the sun was shining more brightly onthem, which is why it tastes fruity and light”. Arghhhh, just pour thething. Please.