The RADs? Provincial. The CIPD/Guardians? Practically suburban. Fact is, every award ceremony in the world is Vauxhall Conference when compared to the superpower might of the Creative Excellence Awards.
The CEAs are the USA's premier rec ad gong-fest, made all the more interesting by their acceptance of entries from all over the planet. Those interested in world domination should note that the call for entries is now online: registration details can be found here, on their depressing sub-prime web site. Winners will be announced, with intermittent Yank nonsense about the nobility of our wunnerfull industry, at the Las Vegas Hilton in April 2009.
The CEA, allied to SHRM (the CIPD equivalent) has previously attracted entries from Canada, Australia, Singapore, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, among others. So you'd think it'd be a pretty good bash, right?
Nope. I've won a handful of these trinkets in the past and attended three of the ceremonies, and they're lower-key than a McCain-Palin election night party. Partly, they suffer because the standard of US work isn't as good as the UK's (or so I think - look through the portfolio pages of a few US agency sites and see if you disagree). But also because the ceremonies are generally undersubscribed, have only an 'optional' requirement for black tie, are largely ignored by clients and, frankly, don't throw around anywhere near enough booze.
But maybe all that, the shonky web site and the trophies that lack a certain aesthetic something, doesn't matter. Where else, after all, can you get the chance to prove that your work is arguably the best of its kind, anywhere?
TMP won 53 of these things last year; Bernard Hodes did well too. (And, it being a US ceremony, the presenters always pronounce that name properly: Burr-naaarrd Ho-des.)
See Hodes' winning work and gauge the standard. Incidentally, I put the Dutch phrase off the Royal Dutch Navy poster into an online translator, and it's a knob gag.
Andy I think you may be missing the point here, it's in Vegas! I promise you, without any doubt in my mind, if I was in Vegas, I don’t care if the greatest piece of recruitment literature coupled with the most divine images since the Sistine Chapel were on display, you’d find me hitting 21 and tiltin’ back a few Miller Lites.
The reason they are probably so dead is because all he reps that have got their bosses to part with the ticket money are probably in the Bellagio playing craps.
That said if they held the PPMA Awards in Vegas next year it may liven in up a little.
The site looks like it's been made by a 9 year old on powerpoint.
Posted by: Jamie Leonard | December 05, 2008 at 12:27 PM