For those of you who've sat on the PM society jury in the past you'll recall a big drafty room at the BMA in Russell Square and two days out of the office, walking round a room peering at rounds and rounds of cardboard. This year, like many awards shows, most of the judging took... Continue Reading →
Be careful what you wish for
You remember those first couple of years when Health and Wellness and Pharma were finally at Cannes? Anyone who was anyone flew in and there was an air of optimism for the future. And yet, how some of us lamented the fact that we seemed divorced from the main show, how we felt like second... Continue Reading →
Forget about awards and the awards will come.
Do you see yourself as a creative person? Try this test. Take a brick and list three things you can do with it. Some people will say 1. Build a house 2. Build a road 3. Build a bridge. If your top three ideas were 1. Throw through a jeweller's window, 2. Squash flies 3.... Continue Reading →
Pharma? Everything’s looking Rose
What you can guarantee is that everyone has an opinion about the Lions awards, but what nobody can say about this year's batch is that it doesn't represent what we do every day. It's just that maybe we don't all do award winning work every day. Most of us strive and get really really close,... Continue Reading →
The three ways to do Cannes.
1. As a Creative client. It was a few years ago now and it was my first visit to Cannes, and I swore I would never do it that way again. I had always been the senior guy who wasn't quite senior enough to go but was senior enough to hold the fort while the... Continue Reading →
Award show jury members are thickos.
So it's been Pharma-awards season recently and we have a few on the horizon. Did your agency enter work this year but not garner the adulation you expected? We've all been there. If so, there's a reason for it and it isn't necessarily because your work wasn't good enough. It's because jurors are well....a bit... Continue Reading →
Haute couture on the Cotes d’azure
Arriving last weekend at Cannes Lions I was struck by the level of new technology and interactivity on show. In real time, you can interact with 3-dimensional people and experience what looks like an actual talker talking on a stage about social media, while you yourself can actually be on social media. #amazing! I know... Continue Reading →
Asking the cows about farming.
I was recently sat in an awards jury, as you do, when a 'medical person' insisted that in one category all you really had to do, to launch a new drug, was to announce its arrival. Drug X does Y. No selling or creativity was required. It was a curious, if not uncommon occurrence, to... Continue Reading →
PMs Question time.
Here in London the PM awards are almost upon us and people are frantically dry-cleaning their shiny suits and their not-too-glam-for-lunchtime-frocks and preparing to cut short, by a day, Dry January. Now: This won't come as that much of a shock but these annual awards have rather a low level of credibility within the creative... Continue Reading →
The 3 worst ways to judge creative
From outside the Pharma tent, you could be forgiven for thinking it all just looks like stock-shots and poor typography created by people not talented enough to make it in the big wide consumer world. OK, controversial start. But you and I both know that contrary to perception there is talent in them there hills.... Continue Reading →