Chip Shop Awards Nominations
This year’s Chip Shop Awards judges were no mugs - only the very best ideas got past them and received a nomination. So, is your agency up for a tasty chip supper on 10 June or are you going to be dining alone?
Dave Trott of advertising agency CST was chairman of this year’s judging panel and drew the panel’s attention to the industry’s move towards great execution often at the expense/risk of great ideas.
”I think there is quite a bit of boring stuff out there at the moment,” he said. “Everyone seems more interested in execution and making sure everything looks perfect so they can win awards. A lot of the fun has gone out of advertising. Here today what we have seen are a lot of ads that are a lot of fun and actually many of them could have run without any problem. Sadly though, today we are looking at ads that did not run because nobody wants to run fun ads any more.
“It is an indictment of where we are at the moment that we have to have a separate awards scheme, the Chip Shop Awards, so we can see great work that never actually ran. Creatives should really care more about whether people in the streets are talking about their ads than if they win awards. What advertisers should be worrying about is whether they are getting lines like “couldn’t give a four X” and “does exactly what it says on the tin” into everyday language and whether the Sun is carrying their headline.”
Trott was joined on the panel for this year’s Chip Shop Awards judging by a host of top creative thinkers from across the UK and Europe; these included John Jessup of Leo Burnett, Seb Royce of Glue London, Simon Veksner of BBH, Patrick Burgoyne of Creative Review, Alex Szenassy of Laboratory Group in Hungary, Nicke Bergstrom of Farfar in Stockholm, Oliver Handlos of Scholz & Friends in Berlin, Mike McKenna of JWT, Patrick Collister of The Big Won, Patrick Baglee of Navy Blue and Dom Martin of Beattie McGuiness Bungay.
John Jessup, who also judged last year’s Chip Shop Awards, said that overall the work in this year’s Chip Shop Awards demonstrates that creativity is still strong despite the economic downturn putting pressures on both clients and creatives.
He said: “Creativity is very strong at the moment and because there are now so many different ways to put your message across creatives are forced to work even harder now than ever before. There is some really challenging sort of work out there; still a core of humour and slightly un-PC-ness, which gets people excited and long may that continue in the UK.
“The whole point of being creative is not just coming up with the idea, but also in times when budgets are tight then you have to find a cleverer way of doing things. The area that excites me is ambient, that’s where you see some of the best ideas coming through, especially as budgets are cut. You choose a spot where you know your target market will be and you do something really special and memorable for your brand. Ambient is a very exciting area at the moment.”
Oliver Handlos of Scholz & Friends was able to offer a German view on the Chip Shop Awards scheme and the work entered this time around. He said: “The best work we saw was very surprising, which I suppose is a characteristic of this awards show. Some of the stuff is pretty weird, which I suppose comes because there are no rules. We take a different approach to creativity in Germany, and maybe we would find it hard to create work when there are no rules. This was really good work for real clients.”
See the gallery at the side of the page for a glimpse at some of the work nominated by the judges. For full nominations visit www.chipshopawards.com. To find out who collects Chips and who collects Vinegar awards make sure you attend the Chip Shop Awards on 10 June at Fabric in London.
To buy tickets visit chipshopawards.com.