Chip Shop Awards results announced
The results of the annual Chip Shop Awards were announced in London on Wednesday night.
Judged by a high profile panel of creatives from across Europe – and chaired by legendary ad man Dave Trott – The Chip Shop Awards is about fostering and recognising creativity with no boundaries and no rules.
An international creative awards, it is open to anyone with great ideas. In fact the awards even suggest that you "Invent Your Own Category".
One of the best ways to establish creative reputation is to win awards. But for those starting out in the business, meeting the rules of the 'normal' awards schemes can be difficult - you need to meet criteria such as minimum media spend, dates that work ran, proof that your client approved it.
The Chip Shop Awards is there to recognise that the best ideas don't always fall within the rules.
Winning the Grand Prix prize last night was work by Specsavers - a take on a current ad for Barclay Card. Winning the Chairman's award was The Black Hole's tongue-in-cheek work for The Sun (pictured) - poking fun at the famous Economist adverts.
Other work for "clients" that included Woolworths, McDonalds, FHM and Guinness all picked up top Chips in categories that include, Best Use of Plagiarism, Best Use of Shocking Copy, Best Politically Incorrect, Best Use of Bad Taste, Best Work for any Brand you Haven't a Hope of Winning, Best Remake of an Existing Advert, Best Reject and Best Use of a Shop Window Postcard Space.
Dave Trott, creative director of CST Advertising and chairman of the judges said: "I think the purpose of the Chip Shop Awards is to take the piss. To take the piss out of how seriously advertising takes itself.
"To take the piss out of advertising’s obsession with awards. To take the piss out of a little yellow wooden pencil elevated to the level of The Nobel Prize. And the symbol of a chip with a dollop of ketchup on it does that very succinctly.
"That’s why, for me, the best thing in this year’s Chip Shop Awards was The Sun posters (winners of the Chairman's Award). These ads take the piss out of The Economist campaign.
"The Economist posters that were simple witty headlines in white, reversed out of a solid red background. Remember The Economist poster that said: 'Would you like to sit next to you at a dinner party?'
"Urbane, charming, witty. Here, The Sun poster says: 'Would you like to sit next to an Economist reader at a dinner party? Didn’t think so.' Not so urbane, witty and charming.
"More vulgar, crass and piss-taking. All the reasons we love The Sun. Just for once I’m not being logical and objective about this. I know most consumers walking past it in the street wouldn’t actually remember The Economist campaign. I know Sun readers won’t even be looking at Economist posters anyway. Economist readers see themselves above mere mortals, whilst most people who buy The Sun struggle with words of more than one syllable. I know it wouldn’t work for so many reasons in the real world.
"But this isn’t the real world. This is ads you wish had run, but they didn’t. Ads that prick the bubble of pomposity that surrounds and encapsulates advertising. Ads that take the piss. And, nowadays more than ever, we badly need someone to take the piss."
The Chip Shop Awards were sponsored by Dynamic New Alliances, specialists in providing recruitment for marketing service agencies.
For a full list of the results see www.chipshopawards.com.
If the awards have inspired you and got your creative juices flowing, you can enter your work now for the 2010 awards at www.chipshopawards.com
About the Chip Shop Awards
The Chip Shop Awards is about fostering and recognising creativity with no boundaries and no rules. It's an international creative awards, open to anyone with great ideas.
One of the best ways to establish creative reputation is to win awards. But for those starting out in the business, meeting the rules of the 'normal' awards schemes can be difficult - you need to meet criteria such as minimum media spend, dates that work ran, proof that your client approved it.
Sometimes creatives have broken or bent these rules in order to win major awards. But this can lead to embarrassment for the winner and for the award scheme, so the enforcement of rules has become much tighter.
The Chip Shop Awards is there to recognise that the best ideas don't always fall within the rules. This is a worldwide advertising and design competition that has no rules.
The skills of creative people are rare and therefore of high value. However ongoing creativity needs to be worked at and nurtured. The Chip Shop Awards is about doing just that, on a worldwide stage.
The CSA is all about ideas. Your work does not have to have been broadcast, printed or mailed. You do not even have to have the client. You just have to have a great idea.
Entries for the CSAs are open all year - so as soon as you have a great idea that your client rejected, or that you couldn't present to your client, or for someone else's client, you can enter it onto the CSA website. Your work will be displayed online throughout the year.
In the spring of each year, we'll be making a formal call for entries and judging will take place in early summer. The judges will consist of some of the top creatives from around the globe.
Shortly afterwards we will announce the nominations online, promoting them to all the members of the Chip Shop Network.
The awards presentation will take place in August each year. Previously it has taken place in Manchester, England and as part of the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
Why's it called Chip Shop Awards?
How did the name the Chip Shop Awards come about?
In the 1980s, two young creatives based in Manchester, England, were desperate to establish their reputation as serious advertising creatives. Of course the best way to do this is to win creative awards. For that you need to have some clients and unfortunately for these two creatives, they didn't have any clients.
They thought about how they could overcome this difficult problem and came up with the idea of doing brilliant creative work for a client for free and then using the work to win themselves some awards.
The client they chose was a fast food shop selling the great British dish of deep fried fish and chipped potatoes in the north of Wales. Barnacles Fish & Chip Shop was just an ordinary local takeaway but before long it had an advertising campaign that would be the envy of many business owners.
The plan was very effective for the creative team. Their excellent work caught the eye of the top creative directors who were judging the entries to various awards schemes and they won trophies at the D&AD Awards, the Campaign Awards and the Roses Awards.
This established their reputation in the business and after that they never looked back. One of them went on to build one of the most successful independent agencies in England and recently sold it to an international agency network.
Now the Chip Shop Awards offers creatives or wannabe creatives the chance to demonstrate the strength of their ideas - without the need to follow any rules.